My Design insight of “Flipkart” web

Published in

YOUXer

4 min readNov 17, 2017

A few days back while browsing on the Flipkart site I noticed some design principle issue which is not expected by such a giant e-commerce brand. In this article, I have shared my observations based on my knowledge of user experience. I might be wrong or there could be other aspects (like research, user testing, etc.) to it which I’m not aware of.

Design Principle: “CONSISTENCY” The most known & fragile design principle!

Consistency is one of the molecules of the design DNA. Consistent design is intuitive design. It is highly useful and with a butterfly effect making world a better place.

My observations about Flipkart is around this “Consistency Principle”. Here I’d like to walk you through two buying scenarios to explain my observation.

First Scenario: Non-Logged-In User

**On the left side of the PDP page, they have provided three CTAs. *A. Wishlist (icon) B. Add to Cart (icon+title) C. Buy Now (icon+title)*.**

Now we’ll check the functionality of these CTAs in sequence.

A. Click on Wishlist

**Prompts the user to please log-in if he has one.**

B. Click on Add to Cart

**Add item to the cart & Redirect to the cart page.**

C. Click on Buy Now

**Redirect to checkout step one where the user is asked to enter a mobile number.**

Second Scenario: Logged-in User

**On the left side of the PDP page, they have provided two CTA’s A. Wishlist (icon+title) B.Buy (icon+title)**

Now we’ll check the functionality of these CTSs in sequence.

A. Click on Wishlist

**Icon color changes & gets confirmation.**

B. Click on Buy

**After clicking on place order he redirects to checkout step two.**

My observations after user Logged-in

Removed one function: Non-Log-in user: A. Wishlist B. Add to Cart C. Buy Now. Log-in user: A. Wishlist C. Buy

For the non-log-in user, they have provided the “Add to Cart” function which is not available after login. (they have provided this function elsewhere, please read the full article to know more about this point)

2. Relocate CTA’s

**Wishlist CTA depicted as an “ICON” on the top right side for non-log-in user & after login, it is relocated at the bottom left side as a “BUTTON” (icon+title)**

3. CTA Title & Icon change

**The primary CTA for non-log-in users shown as “BUY NOW” is depicted with a “Lightning Icon” but after log-in, it is changed to “BUY” with “Cart Icon”.**

4. Misleading language/Function

When a non-log-in user clicks on “BUY NOW” he is redirected to the checkout process first step where they ask a user to enter email/mobile number. It is a “Quick Buy” function & it is matched with the user mental model. But after login when a user clicks on “BUY” (same location) he is redirected to the cart page. It is an “Add to Cart” function that does not match with the user's mental model.

In point one, I’ve mentioned that Flipkart should remove the “Add to Cart” function after log-in. But here is the twist as they have actually just renamed it to “BUY” with “Cart Icon” & relocated this function. They have actually removed the “Quick Buy” functionality after login. So in the current Flipkart site, there is no “Quick Buy” function available to the user. He has to buy the product through the cart itself.

For more clarity, below I have also compared Flipkart to its competitors like Snapdeal, Amazon & Myntra.

As you see all of these sites (Snapdeal/Amazon/Myntra) have the same functions for both users “Log-in” or “non-Log-in” which is come under design Consistency.

I would like to hear your thoughts, please share your comments it will help me to learn more.

All screenshots captured on 16th Nov 2017.

Thanks.

Update on this post

A few days back I visited Flipkart to buy something (I’m not a frequent user) & got to know Flipkart has changed his PDP page Interaction. They updated Flipkart PDP page interaction to maintain consistency as I mentioned in my article (I’m not claiming they did this change because of my article). Now you will see the same action at the same place before & After Login.