Project Example: Medical-Tools.com

Introduction: Medical-Tools.com is an online surgical instruments store that manufactures and sells various kinds of surgery, dentistry and veterinary instruments. As a company, they have dual competition with manufacturers for the quality and with resellers for the prices.

Information Design

Challenges: Like any online store, Medical-Tools.com has to address multiple concerns of a visitor in order to convince him for the purchase. These visitors' concerns are spread over a wide range of array. This includes understanding the product to evaluating its manufacturer and from cost/benefit analysis to seller's own reputation and credibility.

Requirements: In order to make sale successful, medical-tools must address important user questions including:

1. 1.What is the product about? (name, brand, model, multiple previews)
2. 2.What are its physical and technical specifications?
3. 3.What is the quality level of this product? (hardness, material and finishing standards)
4. 4.What are its usage details?
5. 5.What are views of people who have already used it?
6. 6.How to get further information about the product?
7. 7.How credible is this manufacturing company?
8. 8.What are the warranty terms?
9. 9.How easy is to claim warranty or a refund?
10. 10.Why to buy this item from this seller?
11. 11.How secure is the order processing system?
12. 12.Are there any benefits if I make purchase decision now or later?

While working on the Medical-Tools.com shopping system, I found other than basic instrument information like product name, SKU and a short description, the shop failed to answer most of the user's concerns. Therefore I updated the ecommerce store and developed the information framework which was a solution to user's concerns effectively.

Navigation Design

Another level of study was conducted to understand what are the first things which user wants to do on the store. These findings were helpful in designing website navigation and user interaction elements.

It was found visitors had one of the following objectives:

• They are looking for a particular product (searching by name, type, category or usage)
• They want to get details of a product which they have already noticed
• They are looking for product support
• They are looking for usage details
• They are seeking information about ordering and shipping
• They are looking to track their orders which they have already placed
• They are looking to return or its product warranty

In addition to inquires which are directly related to product, users are also interested activities which are business oriented which include

• Sales and special offers
• Organizational policies
• Reseller options
• Bulk buying and stock sale options
• Manufacturing of special or customized instruments

These user concerns were addressed and wireframes were designed which provided solution to user's problems and concerns.