Describes why e-commerce is important, why we need to worry about e-commerce usability, why we need to improve the usability of e-commerce sites, an e-commerce design process, and detailed examples of good e-commerce user interface design.
1. Designing E-commerce User Interfaces Lawrence Najjar [email_address] Presented at the Usability Professionals Association – Austin meeting on November 13, 2003. Based on a chapter to be published in the “Handbook of Human Factors in Web Design”
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Notes de l'éditeur
Because it is growing
Because bad design costs money
Because good design makes money
I’m going to tell you about a design process that is very good for e-commerce It is based on a business strategy and is driven by the needs of the users. And includes iterative design. Work from high to low-level design. Business strategy – Define objective for site (generate revenue, drive customers to brick-and-mortar store). Define how your site will be different from competing sites. Users – Who do you want to use the site? Why do they want to use the site? Their objectives? Their computers, display resolutions, browsers, connection speeds. What are the users’ needs? Functional requirements – Identify the functions that users want on the site. Use focus groups, interviews, contextual observations of people buying online, competitive assessments. Since you can’t include in the first phase all the functions that you identify, prioritize the functions using criteria like value to the user, differentiation from competitors, ease of implementation. “Registration” is an example of a functional requirement. Design spec – Since you iterated the design based on feedback from users and clients, programmers should be able to do their work right the first time. Very efficient. Great for morale.
To refine the design and get feedback, build an interactive mockup. Show how the site works, not how it looks. Don’t show graphics because they distract reviewers and take too long to create and change. Figure out how the site works, then use the visual design to support the interaction design. Show fake data. Don’t connect to real databases. Do not reuse the code. The purpose is to change the design quickly, easily, and cheaply.
73% of Americans use modem (Harris Interactive, 2003)