Website design and specification

1. Prepared for E-commerce Forum May 2017
By Rob Peterkin

2. Agenda
 Introduction
 What do I mean by “business requirements”
 Business requirements for e-commerce
 Business requirements tools
 Storyboarding / Flowcharts
 User feedback
 Use case diagrams
 SWOT
 MoSCoW
 Summary

3. Rob Peterkin
 About Me
 National Diploma in Aerospace Engineering
 FdSc Degree in Computing & Internet Technologies
 BcSc (Hons) Degree in Business & Information Technology
 Project Manager at Screen Pages

4. What do I mean by “defining requirements”
 This presentation is tailored towards an ecommerce project/website but the
tools can be used anywhere.
 Who are your customers now and in the future?
 Do you need this functionality now, later or never?
 What does your site need to do to satisfy the users?
 Want vs Need
 Taking your opinion out of it
Design Functionality Essentials
Branding Gift vouchers Stock management
Colours Search filtering Payment gateway
Responsive 3D product images Content manageable

5. Tools
 Storyboarding / Flowchart
 User Feedback
 Use Case Diagrams
 SWOT
 MoSCoW

6. Storyboarding / Flowchart
 Drawing the process that the customer will go through to achieve a specific
action on the site.
User Creates an
account
User lands on
homepage
Log In?
Does the User have an
account?
User Logs in
Continue Shopping
Select A Category
Select an item
Does the Item need
configuration?
Configure Item
Add to Basket
Have they
Finished
Shopping?
Do they have a
discount code? Add Discount code
Proceed to
Checkout
Have they
logged in?
User Creates an
account
Does the User have an
account?
User Logs in
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
Create a list of steps you
require the user to take
and how you would like
that process to fit
together.
This will give you the
basic functionality
elements that you need in
your site and you will be
able to judge future
changes based on their
impact on these journeys.

7. User Feedback
 Need to establish what you need for your site?
 What is working well and not well on your current site?
 Speak to your suppliers, they may have experience with solving these
problems for their other customers.
Ask Your Users!
Customers Staff
Email or on-site surveys like SurveyMonkey Individual meetings
Ask friends and family Group meetings
3rd party services like whatusersdo, User
Testing
Feedback forms

8. Use-case Diagrams
 Who does what?
• Integration to your back office system?
• Can a team or member of staff replace
a 3rd party or could a 3rd party replace
a team or staff member?
• Can the processes be streamlined?
 Think about user roles!!
Admin
Telephone Clerk
Edit Orders
Manage products
Process Telephone
order
Add Products
Delete Products
Edit Products
Create Customer
Account
<<include>>
<<include>>
<<include>>
<<extend>>

9. SWOT
This is commonly used to determine an organisations good and bad points.
It is broken down into 4 headers:

10. SWOT
As an example, this is a simple SWOT analysis for using web based stock
control system built into your ecommerce platform rather than dedicated
stock control system
Strengths Opportunities
Better customer experience online Save costs from running two systems
One system to manage Quicker go live because of no integration
Weaknesses Threats
Requires staff to manage manually May not be suitable in the future
Not as robust or feature rich Is unavailable if the ecommerce site is down

11. MoSCoW
 A tool to help prioritise all of your requirements.
 4 heading to group requirements:
 Must Have
 Should Have
 Could Have
 Won’t Have (for now)

12. MoSCoW Example
Must Have Could Have
The ability to sell products online BOGOF product promotions
The ability to take payments from customers Email when back in stock
Localised versions for English and German Online/offline gift vouchers
Integration with retail EPOS system Social shopping functionality
Should Have Won’t Have (for now)
Customisable e-gift voucher 3D product images
Integration with delivery courier system A physical store locator
Product reviews Product promotional labels
Multi-select reviews Personalised products

13. Summary
 PLAN! PLAN! DOCUMENT! PLAN!
 Write down what you need, the brain is not a reliable database
 Think about your business processes
 Look for improvements
 Challenge “we’ve always done it this way”
 Who does what?
 Understand your user journeys
 Think about now first and then future

14. Thank you for listening
rob@screenpages.com