1. IA for Shopping & Shopping Baskets
Li Cao
School of Information
The University of Texas at Austin

2. Outline Introduction History of E-commerce
Why do people like shopping online?
The techniques which make online shopping possible
The IA principles for the design of the shopping website
The principles for the design of the shopping basket
Conclusion

3. Introduction
Over recent years, the Web has been developed from a simple browser to a multi-functional network place.
When it comes to building a successful website for shopping.

4. History of E-commerce
1984: EDI (electronic data interchange), was standardized through ASC X12.
1992: Mosaic web-browser was introduced.
1994: Netscape was introduced with Secure Sockets Layer technology.
1995: two biggest names in e-commerce - Amazon.com and eBay.com.
1998: DSL allows quicker access and a persistent connection to the Internet.
2000: the moratorium on Internet taxes was extended.

5. Why do People like Online Shopping
Convenience %
Saves time %
Avoids crowds %
Allows more time to research %
Lower prices %
no salespeople involved 55%

6. The Techniques which make online shopping possible
The web developer has no built-in method for tracking a user or remembering data from one page to the next.
Two main methods for tracking data: cookies and sessions.
The difference between a session and a cookie;
A cookie --- stores data on the client’s side
(user’s machine)
A session --- stores data on the server

7. The IA Principles for the Design of the shopping website
Differentiate your site from the others. (Duyne, Landay, & Hong, 2002)
Give customers effective browsing and searching tools.
Ease the purchase process.
Ease the customers’ security concern.
Provide a link to your “easy return policy” at an easy-to-find place on every page of you site.
Several methods to promote sales in your site.
Cross-selling
Up-selling
Personalized recommendations

8. Cross-selling promoting accessories related to the current choice.

9. Up-selling promoting a better or more expensive version of the current choice

10. Recommendation Community

11. The IA Principles for the design of the Shopping Basket
Make the shopping basket easy to find
Provide the shopping basket with necessary features
Save items for further purchasing.
Number the pages during the checkout process
Order forms should be as simple as possible to help users to complete them quickly and without confusion.
Security is always customers’ big concern.

12. Conclusion
Information architecture is the art and science of structuring and classifying web sites and intranets to help people find and manage information (Rosenfeld & Morville, 2002).
Information architecture can also be applied to help users to accomplish several commercial tasks.