November's HFI newsletter focuses on how online eCommerce differs from bricks-and-mortar retail, and why trust is a central component of the online experience. Though this is familiar ground for many people who've worked on eCommerce websites or read some of the research on what makes them successful, the points enumerated in this particular article fall far short of what could be considered useful advice for designers and information architects.
The "pragmatist" section sums it up nicely, but I'll do him one better and sum up this article even quicker: "Sometimes adding pictures of people to your web site makes it seem more credible. Sometimes."
Not very actionable, I'm afraid.
A more complete review of how online credibility is created and maintained would include comparisons not between eCommerce and bricks and morter retail, but between eCommerce and mail order catalog retail. To the author's credit, it is true that researchers too often focus on how credibility and trust is lost, rather than how it is gained in the first place. But using offline physical retail as a basis for comparison doesn't help to identify the problems inherent in online retail... it points out the shortcomings inherent in online activity in general.
To a large extent, the issues facing online retailers (especially smaller ones who cannot, yet, rely on the credibility inbued by a widely known brand such as Amazon or eBay) are being addressed by the Identity management community. Digital Identity and its issues it brings into focus (trust, verfiability, interchangeability, and more) serves to bring the theoretical discussions about "how to engender trust and credibility in a web site" into the realm of technical discussion. That is, the philosophical issues are being displaced by discussions of technical feasibility. ("Why" and "what if" are being supplanted by "how" and "like this".)
Check out Digital ID World for a good jumping off point into the people, technology and implementations currently underway.
Once identity is established and verified ("Who are you?"), websites and customers can get on with the real work - finding information, buying things, trading stories, whatever. Where identity matters, the implementation of real technological solutions to the problem of establishing credibility makes solutions like "using pictures of real people on your web site" not only useless, but downright offensive to anyone who's experienced a more thoughtful solution.
Until a full-fledged, interchangeable identity infrastructure is in place (and it may be sooner than you think), there are other methods web developers can rely on for establishing credibility in a web site. (The following is an incomplete and imprecise list. But I hope it's better than "use pictures of people.")
- A good User-Experience
By far the most effective way of imbuing credibility is to build a web site which anticipates users' needs, responds politely and efficiently to inquiries (both automated and people-powered responses), evolves to meet changing needs, provides a readily-accessible information structure and leaves users with a positive feeling at the end of their browsing session. Usability matters. - Build on existing relationships for repeat sales
Mail-order catalog companies know that existing customers are likely to purchase again (presuming that the initial purchase was a successful one.) Though you may hate it, Pottery Barn send you 18 catalogs a year for a very good reason. - Referrals and recommendations carry more weight than taglines and slogans
Permit people to recommend your service to others, and make it easy for them to do so. Likewise, respect people's wishes not to do business with you. Opt-in and opt-out might both require a single click... but the former is much more likely to generate a positive customer experience than the latter. - Incorporate customer feedback
There are two examples of this I like to point out, both of which are from (not surprisingly) very widely-known and successful online retailers: Amazon permits users to post feedback about the products it sells, both positive and negative. Aside from combing through the feedback for offensive, libelous or imflammatory content, Amazon let's the people speak for themselves.
The second example is eBay, whose Identity-Management system is by far the most popular and successful of any online retailer. Their feedback mechanism allows any buyer or seller to evaluate another user based on past behavoir, including feedback from other users. It's useful, reliable, elegant and "good enough" in terms of it's ability to predict a user's reliability.
