I'm LOST in a shopping cart............

[Markjay]

otherwise known as "I've fallen and I can't get up!!"

What you say?

Ok, here's what you do........
go to a smugmug gallery and click on "Add To Cart"

Then, change your mind and, go to "Empty Cart"

Now, without using your internet browser back button.........
try and get back to the image galleries you were browsing just a few short minutes ago?

You can't!!! (if you are internet challenged like many internet users are)

The viewer is left in "no mans land" where all they have are the following statement: your shopping cart is empty

Any ideas folks?

Just thought I'd throw this out there and see what ideas you guys come up with to address this silly little problem.

[winnjewett]

otherwise known as "I've fallen and I can't get up!!"

What you say?

Ok, here's what you do........
go to a smugmug gallery and click on "Add To Cart"

Then, change your mind and, go to "Empty Cart"

Now, without using your internet browser back button.........
try and get back to the image galleries you were browsing just a few short minutes ago?

You can't!!! (if you are internet challenged like many internet users are)

The viewer is left in "no mans land" where all they have are the following statement: your shopping cart is empty

Any ideas folks?

Just thought I'd throw this out there and see what ideas you guys come up with to address this silly little problem.
Something along these lines was discussed a while ago. One idea someone had was to put a list of recent galleries that user has viewed. This also helps guide users who don't know they can click on the photograph to return to a gallery.

-Winn

[mercphoto]

Now, without using your internet browser back button.........
try and get back to the image galleries you were browsing just a few short minutes ago?

So why not USE the back button?

This has been talked about before. A large number of Smugmug customers actually buy prints from more than one account holder. Therefore, which customer should the shopping cart take you back to?

[jfriend]

This has been talked about before. A large number of Smugmug customers actually buy prints from more than one account holder. Therefore, which customer should the shopping cart take you back to?
That's an easy one. As long as you take the user back to a place they've been before, they will know how to go where they want to go from there. And, of all the places they've been to before, it seems the most logical is the last gallery they were in before going to the cart.

--John

[mercphoto]

That's an easy one. As long as you take the user back to a place they've been before, they will know how to go where they want to go from there. And, of all the places they've been to before, it seems the most logical is the last gallery they were in before going to the cart.

--John


But the "back" button in the browser will do this already....

[winnjewett]

But the "back" button in the browser will do this already.... Does EVERY SINGLE user of smugmug know how to use the back button?

For users who do not know how to use the back button, a link on the page will work.

For those who do know how to use the back button, a link on the page will work.

What is the harm in adding a link? I only see positives.

-winn

[mercphoto]

Does EVERY SINGLE user of smugmug know how to use the back button?

This is a joke, right?

[jfriend]

This is a joke, right?
The back button is bad in this context for a number of reasons.

1) Many users are taught to avoid the back button or learn themselves to avoid it when doing server-based transactions because it often doesn't work properly or shows misleading results.

2) As an example of the misleading results that the back button shows in this context, try this experiment. Find a smugmug image. Hit Add to Cart. Hit the Clear Cart button. Then, this the back button. You will be looking at a screen that shows an image in your cart. Now hit back again to get back to your gallery. Is there something in your cart or not? It's hard to know. Hit the button to go to your cart and you will find the cart is actually empty, even though your last view of it showed something in it. This is not a desirable user experience - the wrong result is showing on the screen. If this was anything but web software, it would be considered a serious bug. I would not encourage users to do it this way.

I still don't see what's so wrong about giving the user a link to their last-visited gallery in the screen that tells them their cart is now empty. Even if a savvy user wants to use the back button, there's nothing lost by adding a gallery link to the otherwise empty screen about their empty cart.

--John

[winnjewett]

This is a joke, right?
John wrote a much more eloquent response / argument, but 'no', I am not joking. I had a user call up to tell me that he couldn't find my website. After a couple of minutes, I realized that he had no idea where he was supposed to type a URL in. He ended up finding me through yahoo, so all was not lost, but I don't think I could count on him to know what the 'back' button is, or when to use it. He would be quite lost if he emptied his cart.

-winn