Reading Nielson and Loranger’s Web Usability is very insightful as to the aspects of online behavior in customers – it’s a smooth read and so far so good. I was ploughing along just fine and dandy, but then ran into what I believe is a mistake. On page 19 the authors get on the case of a UK website called watches.co.uk and while most of their arguments are sound, there is one that doesn’t ring true to me. Nielson and Loranger declare that since watches.co.uk are a part of e-commerce that the site should follow ’their’ specialized guidelines for shopping carts. According to the authors this website violated the guidelines by calling the shopping cart a ‘basket’ which is not as optimal as calling it a cart…It’s small and it’s petty of me, but it has to be pointed out. Watches.co.uk is a site generated for people in the United Kingdom and as with many different locations in the world, there are a series of cultural lingusitics that differ. When I came over to America and went shopping, I was looking for a trolley or a basket, not a cart. I’d never, ever heard of a trolley/basket being called a cart before. For a British site to call a basket a cart would be like me asking somone in the USA for a torch, instead of a flashlight. Brits are going to understand the word basket, not cart. Nielson and Loranger, it might be the World Wide Web, but there are still language barriers on occasion. All right, rant over.
P.S. – Even Amazon.co.uk uses ‘basket’ and not ‘cart’ – ha!
