My wife and I like to tease each other with the nickname Grumblefuss, sort of hinting at our persnicketyness, and general intent to hold things to high standards. She’s a graphic designer, and I do e-commerce stuff, various user experience, sales flow optimization things, so the internet gives us plenty of options for grumbling. She’s currently between full-time gigs, but a recent string of nice freelance work allowed us to rationalize spending some money.

In this case, she wants to upgrade her primary tool set to the newest version — Adobe CS4.  Generally speaking, I’m the spender in the family, and Jan is the saver, she makes the rational decisions, and I make the irrational ones. I had to push her to admit that it was time to upgrade her toolsets — employers are asking for the latest tricks, and the old versions of Photoshop/Flash/Illustrator were holding her back. So off we went to www.adobe.com to give them our money. I already knew from lurking on Adobe’s site that they had a discount deal on offer, and it was going to end sometime soon. So off we went to Adobe. The trip gave me ample opportunity to find room for improvement in Adobe’s purchase flow, which I’m about to share with you all…..

This is Adobe’s homepage — I pulled it this morning.  If you look very closely, there’s a text link in the news section that talks about the sale I was looking for. No other promotional art on the homepage. Even the “News” section is pretty sedate, done in that design treatment that leads me to ignore something. Especially in contrast to the beautiful art on the top and right hand side of the page.

After digging around a while, we found the link that leads to the offer. On click, we arrive at the landing page for the offer. As an e-commerce person, you often create landing pages for an offer — you don’t want to send people to the general page on your website for the product, since the message on that page might not be targeted enough for your offer. Say the offer is a limited-time deal, you want to put that all over the page, as a way to incite people to act. The thing about landing pages is you really want them to be clear, direct, and easy to act on. This one isn’t. First thoughts — nice image on the top, pretty striking design. Then I start trying to get to the meat of the matter — getting Adobe Products at a discount. Landing pages are powerful when the desired action for the merchant is the easiest thing for the visitor to do. In this case, I think Adobe wants me to get to this page, find my package and buy. First problem then, is finding my package.

I followed the link to compare suite editions, trying to figure out which package I want. I could go on a whole other train of thought about the current Adobe packaging decisions — I’ll save that one for another day. Let’s leave it at I have a hard time figuring out what I want without spending a bloody fortune.  Anyway, I get to the compare chart, I see which package has what features, but guess what — there’s no link to buy!!!! So I start acting like a click-monkey, and hit the colored text under the pretty box picture for the package I want.

Okay — now we’re on the product page — actually, a product content section — I look all over that page, and eventually see an ad on the right side of the page, It even says “Upgrade Now.” I must be in business now!!!

Here’s where things are really getting silly — that link leads me right back where I started. The landing page, with the pretty picture, and the huge chart! There are two links in the body copy, and then a long list of links in a chart. First thing I found missing was a buy link. Nice little columns of strikethrough text tell me what I can save, but there’s no link to buy! No buttons, no call to action. Jeez — do they even want my money? Well, in desperation, I look further and further down the page, and found nirvana — a link that reads “Buy” underneath the pretty box image.

I click that puppy. Open this image  — you’ll be blown away. I was asked to select a country for my store. Why? Is there some sort of channel distribution issue? Do they have trouble knowing where I come from, or what language I speak? Those are all in the browser request. This page was a real buzz-kill after all the findability joy I had gone through already.

Next page after that asks me to select a package. This really was crazy — I already spent 20 minutes trying to figure this out, and their linking system couldn’t keep track of it?

Here’s where I’m getting at on this post — yes, Adobe is the biggest act in town, and yes, I was pretty dedicated to make this purchase, but still, could they make it any more obtuse? Times are tight, the economy is giving people troubles, and in this day and age, do they really need to put any roadblocks in the way of people who are willing to give them money?

I can shoot a few more fish in this barrel — why do they use Flash for the purchase flow? I know it’s cool for presentations and stuff, but honestly, whenever I see that spinning flash wheel on a page, I feel like I’m going to have to wait a while. And waiting does not go along with purchasing. All this screen needs to do is show me my selection, repeat back to me who I am, and what I’m spending. That can all be done in a very lightweight fashion, a little text and an image. No need for the flash engine.

Next up, I log in, I go off to paypal, I come back, and what do I see in the middle of the page? A coupon entry field. That’s right, just another reminder that I don’t know enough to buy this, and in this case, I don’t know enough to have found an even better discount. Hint to Adobe — lose that box when you’ve already offered a discount, or hide it with a link. Really, the best way to deal with coupons in a smart site is to embed them in the link going in to the purchase flow, and never ask for it again. That way you give the deal to your intended customers, and you don’t have to worry about antagonizing those who don’t have a coupon, or getting abused by people who put your coupon up on Fatwallet.com, and costing you millions.

Alrighty then == what’s the takeaway? I’m pretty sure i can improve the conversion of this flow significantly with a few simple steps:

1. If you’re serious about the offer, highlight it on the homepage.
2. On the landing page, add a column of buy links. Let me poke around for info if I need to, but don’t make me poke around when I am ready to give you my money.
3. This one is a shot over the bow to the designers — be old school, and underline the links. At least the important ones, like “Buy Now.”  I’m all for aesthetics, but we’re trying to make money here, not re-invent how people interact with the Internet.
4. Make a guess on my country and language — hint, you won’t do badly starting with English. If you have some weird channel conflicts, please do a better try at getting me to my channel. How about a globe map instead of a huge list?
5. When I get to that check out flow, you need to remember the choice I made in the first place. Don’t lose track of that. It’s like I chose a book on Amazon, and got to the cart and had to find it again.
6. Hide that coupon entry field.

And for a big change — drop the Flash checkout code. When we were making this purchase, we watched that wheel spin at home for easily 10-15 seconds per page load. I know Adobe is proud of Flash, and want people to use it all over the place, but it’s really bad example, and not very trust-inspiring for me as a customer when I’m trying to buy. I kind of wonder how many potential developers of Flash shopping carts decided not to do it once they followed through the Adobe flow?