Important Things to keep in mind When Testing an E-commerce Website

There are literally dozens of elements of an E-commerce website that need to be tested. Many of these things can be tested at one time by running multiple processes at one time.

When you are working with a software testing company for these purposes, it is important to test small functions as well as the major processes that users will need to successfully and safely complete a purchase.

Explain your concerns completely to the testing company and insist that the initial results of their findings are discussed with you before proceeding with any changes.

Shopping Cart Functionality

Several testers should perform a variety of functions at one time on the website. This will include testing the changing of quantities, going back to continue shopping, and going backward from inputting payment information to change an order. These are important functions and a poor software program can prevent a user from using all of these efficiently, thus creating a negative experience.

Absolutely Secure Checkout

You have to be able to ensure your users that their personal and payment information is completely safe. If there is even the slightest hesitation as far as a potential breach, it is likely to cause a reduction in sales costing the company necessary revenues.

Intrusion detection software should be put into place so that an alert is sent right away in the event that someone tries to compromise the system. This will send an alert to the website hosting provider and their technicians can step in and stop the intrusion.

Ability to Change Orders Easily

Users dislike having to make changes several times to order and having it stick in the system. A properly created purchasing software program should update instantly when a change is made. This shows customers that you have thought of everything with their overall experience being taken into consideration.

Users should be able to stop during the checkout process to go back and add a product or remove an item if they so choose. This should not cause an issue in the checkout process and the order should update properly.

Product Information Cannot Be Stolen or Copied

The products on the website also need to be protected. This means that no one should be able to highlight and copy any information from your website. There are programs that can be written to prevent screenshots from being taken as well. This is the absolute protection of your product.

The option to right click and save photos should also be disabled. To implement these aspects, software code can be written to show only generic properties when users attempt to see the source or code of a page, product, or website.

Hiding this information is not saying that you are hiding anything; it is ensuring that the information on the website is safe and remains only on that website exclusively. If another company wishes to market and sell your product, a written agreement should be put into place to ensure that these properties are also in place on their website.

Exclusive rights mean that the other company is not able to market the product as their own and the information regarding the product cannot be taken from their website either.

Easy to Fill out Forms

Another item that is an annoyance to users is the difficulty that some web forms have when filling them out. It should be easy to fill out a form by offering a drop-down menu or the ability to type in the information. It is also ideal to disable auto-fill as that feature is easily compromised by hackers.

Testers should be able to see if there is a small hole in the code regarding snatching information from users that have used the auto-fill option. Forms should not ask unrelated questions, only basic information. The forms should also not require users to put in birth dates, social security numbers, or telephone numbers unless absolutely necessary.

Proper Category Pages

Testers should look to see if the categories of your website are properly laid out. If they are disorganized and find it confusing to find products that should be grouped together, this will cause frustration for customers.

Software testers can complete searches to see how the website recognizes keywords in a search box. If the items do not match the search, code needs to be rewritten and items need to be reorganized.

All of these elements are important to the testing process. Essentially, weeks of testing, including the blink test,  on every piece of software on a website should be completed before it is launched.

This prevents security breaches, stolen information, and any potential glitches from causing problems. It is ideal for users to have a positive experience from the initial launch of a website to begin a positive reputation, or maintain an existing one.