There's a reason why Joomla is the most popular platform for ecommerces. It's simple, customizable and it comes with a lot of extensions and features. The same can be said for Joomla templates as well. Joomla templates have highly customizable features that can be tweaked to suit your ecommerce needs.
In this blog post we have some tips for you from UI/UX wiz kid, Shobana Eswaramoorthi on what you need to keep in mind when creating a template.
J2Store : What's the first thing you need to ensure with regard to design for an ecommerce?
Shobana : The front page of course! After all, the online store makes the best impression on the user with it. Store owners have to make sure they've got their best products showcased on their front page. Website design is all about visual appeal. Having a good neat clean website is the first thing that captures user's attention and encourages them to explore more.And as a designer it's your responsibility to create a great front page design that captivates the user.
J2Store :How do you decide what your template looks like?
Shobana :The first thing to keep in mind while designing a template is that its not just all about attractiveness. You need to balance the beauty of your design with ease of use as well. There's really no point in having a sophisticated website if it doesnt work well for the user. So put yourself in the user's shoes and see what experience you'd look for on an ecommerce site.
J2Store :What are some tips you can share with our followers?
Shobana :When it comes to buying products online, customers are constantly looking to get more information. While it's the store owners' duty to provide the information, it's yours to deliver it easily to the customer. When designing the template, make sure that relevant product information is placed strategically for the viewer to see. Making him hunt for information on the website can be bad for sales.
A search box on the site is another handy feature you NEED to incorporate into the template. With so many products listed out there its going to be hard for customers to browse through all of them. So make the task simple and give him a search box to look for exactly what he wants.
Another thing to remember is that you need to keep the store owner's primary goal in mind. He's looking to generate revenue by selling more products. So your template should also be a promotional channel for that. You can do this by introducing a related products category based on customer search results. You could also introduce popular categories to get customers interested in the products.
J2Store : What are the best technical tips you can share with fellow template designers.
Shobana :The T3 framework is pretty great to build your template on. As a template designer, its your duty to make sure that store owners/admins can customize it to suit their business. T3 helps them do just that. It comes with Theme Magic that allows them to customize the color and theme of the website. Usually most templates come with a set of preset colors you can use. If your ecommerce customers arent happy with them, then there's always Theme Magic to help them customize.
When it comes to coding, the best thing for you to do is to make the code light. Remember the most effective codes are the ones with lesser code density and greater functional aspects. This is why J2Store templates stand out. They're light weight and hence robust. The designs are also simple uncluttered and hassle-free. Online businesses have an entire range of templates to choose from. Exclusive ones that suit a specific online business.
So there you have it- template design made easy. Try out these techniques for your templates and tell us how they work for you. While you're at it you can check out J2Store's range of templates to get great ideas.
https://www.j2store.org/extensions/templates.html
