We've recently made a small change to a very important page in our site. We call it the "Silent Preview" and it is what a user sees immediately after invoking our "Reverse Publishing Engine."
Here you can see what the page looked like before we made the change. The user is displayed a PDF of the completed book on the left side of the page. On the right they are asked if they wish to "Buy a Hardcover Book," "Buy a Softcover Book," or make some changes through our "Personalization" engine.
Looking at this exclusively from a usability standpoint, this is a difficult page to be faced with. There are actually two independent choices the user has at this point: "Would you prefer a hardcover or softcover book" as well as "Do you want to buy this book as it stands or make some changes?"
An average user would quickly pick-up on the first question (about covers), but be lost on the second. The problem is that there isn't anything in this page that signals the user that there are two independent questions coming. The user only sees three buttons, so three choices. And since the page asks the easier question first (hard or soft), the second question gets a bit lost.
From a call-to-action standpoint, the most important question on this page is about "as is" versus "personalize." So, the redesign was a bit tricky. How do you get the user to focus on the key item, and then once they've made their choice, select the cover type.
So, here is the new design for the right side of the page. There are clearer, 3D buttons for the two more important choices "Buy Now" or "Personalize." And above the "Buy Now" option is a pull-down list of the different cover options.
You might argue that we've added more clicks here - and indeed we have. But this new design adds a crucial clarity for the choices that makes it worth it.
We're going to be checking the results through our analytics systems. If anyone wants to lay odds before we get those results, now's your chance!
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