Question

I was wondering if using Lightbox all over the site would be a smart idea.

We are developing an eCommerce site and the idea is to keep the user on the main page all the time and show all the content (Product Page, About us etc) in a Lightbox way.

I understand that in order to use Lightbox you’ll need Prototype/JavaScript which are widely supported at most browsers, I’m also aware that Ligthbox on mobile is not really fun but we are going to create a mobile version anyhow, A few Qs:

1. Do you think Lightbox might be heavy somehow? will it reduce site performance?

2. Do you think there are going to be big compability issues?

Any other thoughts why that not such a good idea? Again, the main idea is to keep the user at the main page while he can browse ‘less important’.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I think it’s not a good idea to use lightbox massively to show relevant content for many reason

1. Accessibility: you cannot rely only on javascript to access the information so you need to put much more effort to develop with progressive enhancement. How if I navigate products through the browser history?
2. SEO: have you thought how to make your products retrievable by search engines? To make dynamic content indexable you will need again more extra effort. Consider also the possibility of being penalized for hidden contents on the page.
3. Usability: How would you deal with multiple devices and screen resolution? What if you show the image product in a lightbox and then your customer ask to also show the zoom images in a lightbox too? Will you open nested lightbox?
4. Social Network : “like” and “+1” are common functions on almost every modern e-commerce: but these actions can be performed only on a single URL, so if your products are not associated to a specific url (1 to 1 relation) you won’t be able to share a specific item.

So, It’s better to avoid all these complications
Use instead lightbox for giving alerts, show modal window and tell the user about the result of some server operation (e.g. Login/logout messages, alert the end of stock for an item during checkout…) and, in general, everywhere it’s better not to completely change or break the navigation flow (e.g. registration, checkout,…), but definitely avoid to organize the entire site in lightboxes.