Bit off topic.. but me and my co-worker were going back and forth over this all day..
What’s a better phrase than “Shopping Cart?” .
Basket? Shopping Bag? Concierge? Lol. Post your favorites.
To me the “Add to Cart” and “Shopping Cart” terms are old. Like 199ish .. Lycos… Infoseek OLD. But its become THE term for the.. Cart. Dammit. I wanna call it something different. I mean.. it doesn’t always fit every product. If your selling something high value or something.. doesn’t saying “Add to cart” sound kinda cheesy?
Just thinkin… lemme know what you guys think. Figured this would be a good place to post this amongst other developers.
It depends on the industry and your marketing. Some more common ones would be Basket, Cart, Bag, Order. Jakob Nielsen and other usability gurus warn against trying to be creative. Even though it may sound 1990’s, people understand it without any additional mental processing.
I think you have already answered the question yourself - shopping cart is the normal practise - you are asking for trouble when you change what people are used to. It may not be to much of issue for those of us that use “normal” browsers where we can quickly determine what the cart has been named. But considering accessibility issues - I am sure blind people expect that the shopping cart is exactly that
Yes.. I know the term “cart” will remain. First to market so to speak… Like people calling all tissue “Kleenex”.. u know?
I just wanted to see names other developers have come with.. names they have used or want to use . Thought it might be kinda cool to see what people came up with.
I would also be less creative in this regard. Customers are expecting a process that is common and familiar to them. Encountering a new term may confuse them as they browse the site.
What EVERYBODY understands and what was (and remains) always the STANDARD,
even BEFORE all these cheesy carts & bags became the rage
(think to century-old mail orders, subscriptions to newspapers, magazines, book clubs & what-not)
is… O R D E R !
- simple (1 word vs. 2 words with a space);
- short (7 chars vs. 13);
- universal (whoever learns even a bit of English, understands it);
- even *psychologically* strong! People love to be able to say:
“ADD to MY ORDER”, “What happened to my ORDER?”, “Refer to my ORDER”, etc.:
(try that with *My Shopping Cart* and be ready to feel a really silly Billy);
- serves well all kinds of markets, from books to jewelleries
(OK, OK! I will leave groceries to Shopping Cart: happy ?
ORDER was the ‘first-to-the-market’, in any case, and
surpasses ALL its other so-called alternatives:
- the usability gurus should be happy with it (snappy & meanigful word), as well as
- the accessibility gurus, with all their serious issues (blind, etc.), and
- the marketing gurus? They love power-words: O R D E R ! ! !
It is a time-tested, well-established, savvy wording,
‘people understand it without any additional mental processing’,
VERY ‘common and familiar term, never capable to confuse anyone’
(I mean: when you order… you *order*!
When you put in a shopping cart, what?… are you going around for a ride with it?
Admittedly, my last shopping cart ride was about 5 years ago, when I worked at RadioShack… we were a few shops down from Target, and someone left their Target cart right outside. There was no one in the store at the time, so my coworker decided to push me around in the cart.
Then the manager drove up and saw us. He continually repeated, “You jokers are crazy!” In his high-pitched voice. And indeed we were. Good times right there.
How about Ticket, Bill, Invoice or Check. As in Add to Ticket, View Bill, Pay Invoice… Waiter, check please?
How about Ticket, Bill or Invoice. As in Add to Ticket, View Bill, Pay Invoice…
NO WAY !
First of all, these terms are less universal and more technical in their nature (’accounting’, etc.) and,
in second instance, common people always mix-up the meanings of invoices, bills, receipts, etc.
There is NOTHING like the capability to give ORDERs
‘in order to’ excite customers into taking out their CreditCards
and
NOTHING better to read on our monitors
‘in order to’ excite us, the *WebSite Lords* (NOT shop-owners, please! ).
definately, order it is, if you cant figure out add to order, than well, you should not be allowed to shop, im with NickL on this one, add to cart is old and just annoying, I say add to order is new and still very effective
i work (on my primary job) (yeah im not a full webdeveloper) in customer service in investments, (401k’s and such) and well, lets just say im tired of idiot people,
i spend most of my day at customerssuck.com (dosent really apply to me) but helpful nonetheless
I want to chime in before everyone starts using “order”. The problem with using the term “order” is that there is too much (what’s the right word?) commitment with using that word. It sounds finalized like the customer will never be able to remove that item from their order—what’s the item is in, it stays in. While it may sound like a very small thing, I can assure you that it is a factor.
A good (very good) book to read about this kind of stuff is Call to Action by Bryan Eisenberg. He talks specifically about the amount of commitment that each click means to the customer. It really is a great book and I highly recommend it to everyone.
and wants your bu$ine$$ !
, aren’t you?!
