1. Elias M. Awad Third Edition ELECTRONIC COMMERCE From Vision to Fulfillment 6-1© 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc ELC 200 Day 12

2. 6-2 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Agenda Assignment 3 Corrected –1 A, 4 B’s, 1 D & 2 F’s –Missing information Assignment 4 is Posted –DUE March 17 @ 2:05 PM Assignment 5 is posted –DUE March 24 @ 2:05 PM Quiz 2 Corrected –3 A’s, 3 B’s, 1 D and 1 F Changes to Course Schedule? Discussion on Web Site Evaluation and Usability Testing

3. Elias M. Awad Third Edition ELECTRONIC COMMERCE From Vision to Fulfillment 6-3© 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Web Site Evaluation and Usability Testing

4. 6-4 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Assignment 5 One of the key skills required of all eCommerce professionals is the ability to evaluate web sites for effectivity and for usability. To help you develop those skills please do Web Exercises 1 & 2 on page 261 and 262 of your text. In the case of www.fedex.com, use http://www.fedex.com/us/. www.fedex.com http://www.fedex.com/us/ For Question # 2, do the exercise as an Individual Project and use only the First National Bank of South Miami, http://www.fnbsm.com (website 2) along with Key Bank www.key.com and Acadia Federal Credit Union http://www.acadiafcu.org/ASP/home.asp. Make sure you answer the questions "a" through "g" on page 262 for each site of the banking sites. http://www.fnbsm.com www.key.com http://www.acadiafcu.org/ASP/home.asp. Assignment is due on March 24 @ 2:05 PM.

5. 6-5 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc The focus of this chapter is on several learning objectives How color can affect a customer’s perception of the company and its products The criteria used in evaluating Web sites The cookie and its many wonders What makes a Web site usable? Ideas about site content and managing Web traffic Role of the Web site administrator

6. 6-6 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Characteristics of Lame Web Sites Keep customers clicking away to competitors’ sites Keep surfers wondering about the product or service your company provides Fail to update regularly Lack anything new, innovative, or attractive to retain the surfer Waste visitors’ time with tedious forms Waste homepage space with ugly graphics http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/does-my-web- site-suck/does-my-web-site-suck-checklist-part- one.html

7. 6-7 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Common Mistakes Exclamation points and commas in the wrong place Misspelled words Word Usage errors –There, their, & they’re Pages laden with text Promises of things that simply cannot be delivered Requiring visitors to install hardware or software Attempting to run the e-business with no reliable or verifiable log to monitor traffic –Must be able to audit!

8. 6-8 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc From Vincent Flander’s “Web Pages that suck” http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ Top 20 Confessed Web Design Sins 253Our site tries to tell you how wonderful we are as a company, but not how we're going to solve your problems. 247We've designed our site to meet our organization's needs (more sales/contributions) rather than meeting the needs of our visitors. 136We say "Welcome to..." on our home page. 108It takes longer than four seconds for the man from Mars to understand what our site is about. 98Our site doesn't make us look like credible professionals. 97The man from Mars cannot quickly find the focal point of the home page. 87Our home page — or any page — takes more than four seconds to load. 85We never conduct user testing. 82We don't analyze our log files. 77Our site mixes and matches text sizes on the page. 74Quickly scanning the page doesn't tell our visitors much about its purpose. 70We don't know which design items are not necessary. 68We have not eliminated unnecessary design items. 62The man from Mars cannot quickly find the focal point of the current page. 61Visited links don't change color. 58We don't identify PDF files with an icon. 58I don't know if our site looks the same in the major browsers. 57Our pages have too much/too little white space. 55Our site uses divider bars. 54We don 't put design elements where our visitors expect them.

9. 6-9 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Good bad examples http://www.davesite.com/humor/top5/ http://www.brown.edu/ http://www.redbloodclub.net/ http://www.smartisans.com/articles/examples/ugly.htmhttp://www.smartisans.com/articles/examples/ugly.htm http://www.corson.tv/main/buttugly.htm http://www.oceanside-ca.com/ http://www.loopnet.com/ http://www.shopping.com/

10. 6-10 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Questions When Evaluating a Web Site Are any elements placed incorrectly? Is the information accurate? Is it current? Are the topics covered? Does each topic show a minimum of bias? Is the information hierarchy properly arranged? Should the heads that relate to the page be enlarged? Should the fonts for the headings be made more readable?

11. 6-11 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Basic Web Site Anatomy Location! Location! Location! –Where are the files Structure –What a page looks like Page anatomy –How a page is built

12. 6-12 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Color and Its Psychological Effects Site visitor forms a first impression within the first 8 seconds Color is the most important design element in a Web site –Web browsers can see only 256 colors –A designer has a 216-color scheme –http://www.lynda.com/hue.htmlhttp://www.lynda.com/hue.html Color is inherently unstable on Video displays Choose colors that are simple and not distracting Choose colors that reflect your audience’s values and cultural preferences http://www.colormatters.com/des_ecom.html

13. 6-13 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Choosing a Color You need to consider your audience Will colors strain visitors’ eyes? Soft colors that represent appropriate settings are ideal –http://webdesign.about.com/cs/color/a/aacolorharmony.htmhttp://webdesign.about.com/cs/color/a/aacolorharmony.htm –http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/encyc_colorwheel.htmlhttp://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/encyc_colorwheel.html

14. 6-14 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Major Colors and Their Psychological Effects Red Red is the most emotionally intense color. It is the color of love. It creates attention, but tends to overtake other colors on the page. Blue Blue is the color of the sky and the ocean—peaceful and calming. It creates an optical impression that objects are farther away than they really are. Green Nature, health, optimism, good luck. Green is the color of money and has strong associations with finance and economic stability. But it is a mixed bag. It is linked with envy sickness, and decaying food. It does not do well in a global market. Yellow Cheerful sunny yellow is the first color the eye processes. It is an attention-getter and represent optimism, hope, and precious metals. It tends to be overpowering. Purple Purple is a complex color and is the hardest color for the human eye to discriminate. It represents spirituality, mystery, intelligence, royalty, luxury, wealth, and sophistication.

15. 6-15 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Major Colors and Their Psychological Effects (Cont’d) Orange Orange represents energy, balance, warmth, and vitality. It is a color most detested by Americans. The color has stronger appeal to Europeans and Latinos. Brown Brown is the color of earth and is quite abundant in nature. It represents reliability, comfort, and endurance. Men more than women tend to prefer brown over other colors. Gray Intellect, futurism, modesty, sadness, decay. It is the easiest color for the eye to see. White Purity and innocence, cleanliness, precision, sterility, death. It reproduces freshness and is quite popular at luxury Web sites. It gives the sense of “pristineness.” Black Power, sexuality, sophistication, death, mystery, fear, unhappiness, elegance. It signifies death and mourning in many Western cultures.

16. 6-16 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Color and Individual Differences Web site colors take on different cultural hues Use a color that is acceptable to various cultures Blue is the most globally accessible color Age, class, and gender differences –Web sites for young children favor brighter, more solid colors –Men are attracted to cooler colors like blue and green –Women prefer warmer colors like orange and red –Research suggests working-class people prefer colors with basic names like blue, red, green

17. 6-17 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc

18. 6-18 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Colors for the Color Blind Color perception problems are widespread Color deficiency can occur in any population, economic class, or ethnic group. Most color-blind people have red-green perception deficiency Any designer should be aware of the problem Understand how color deficiency works Any text on any mixed-color background is inviting trouble Keep colors bright http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ –http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colorshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors –http://www.umfk.maine.eduhttp://www.umfk.maine.edu

19. 6-19 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Consumer Association with Key Shapes (by gender)

20. Shapes and colors 6-20 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc

21. 6-21 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Site Evaluation Criteria Color Shape Type –Sans-serif –Serif –Fancy Content Services Offered Primary Focus Ancillaries Site Classification –1 - 5 (next slide) Professionalism Speed Consistency Personalization Security Scalability Web Site Evaluation.doc

22. 6-22 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Site Classification Category 1 –Mere presence Category 2 –More information and ability for user to send data Category 3 –Uses video and color as guides Category 4 –Multimedia, Work flow Some personalization Category 5 –Highly customized with advanced services including eCommerce

23. 6-23 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Sample Evaluations http://www.baseballdirect.com/http://www.baseballdirect.com/ http://www.Wachovia.com http://www.umfk.maine.edu http://compsci.umfk.maine.edu/ http://www.lucasarts.com/ http://www.sun.com/

24. 6-24 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Components of Personalization

25. 6-25 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Steps to Operationalize Personalization Customer interaction Data collection and integration Business intelligence Customer interaction personalization

26. 6-26 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Inference-based Personalization A technique that tracks a Web user’s behavior, identifies other people with similar behavior, and uses those people to recommend products Amazon.com

27. 6-27 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Getting Personal Personalization vs. Customization –Personalization is a strategy, a marketing tool, and an art; visitor-oriented rather than product- oriented –Personalization tries to treat all customers as unique –Customization focuses on direct user control –Personalization is driven by artificial software that tries to serve up individualized pages to the user based on a model of that user’s needs (past habits, preferences, and so on).

28. 6-28 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Approaches to Web Personalization Cookies are bits of code or a text file that sits in a user’s Internet browser memory and identifies that person to a Web site when they return Collaborative filtering software keeps track of users’ movements across the Web to interpret their interests Check-box personalization, users choose specific interests on a checklist so the site can display the requested information Rule-based personalization divides users into segments based on business rules that generate certain types of information from a user’s profile Neural networks use statistical probability algorithms to deliver personalization based on movements such as a visitor’s actions

29. 6-29 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Do You Want a Cookie? A cookie is an HTTP header with a text-only string placed in the browser’s memory The string contains the domain, path, how long it is valid, and the value of a variable that the Web site sets The original purpose of cookies was to save user’s time Limitations or cause for concern –Cookies utilize space on a client’s hard drive for a Web site’s purposes without permission –They threaten our privacy as Internet users(?) Cookies can be deleted or rejected at will

30. 6-30 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Popular Myths About Cookies Cookies clog the hard disk Cookies can put a virus on my computer Cookies give companies access to my personal file Disabling cookies in my browser will prevent any Web sites from gathering information about me

31. 6-31 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Web Site Usability Usability refers to a set of independent quality attributes –Performance –Satisfaction –Ease of navigation –Learnability It means an application that allows the user to perform the expected tasks more efficiently –The integral attributes of a system that affect user performance and productivity http://www.useit.com/

32. 6-32 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Effective Web Site Design The goal of effective Web site design is to give users a good experience –Switching costs on the Internet are low –Churning is the basic measure of visitor dissatisfaction with a site http://www.epson.com http://www.canon.com http://www.amazon.com

33. 6-33 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Components of Personalization

34. 6-34 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Components of Personalization – (Cont’d)

35. 6-35 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Reliability The core of reliability is availability –System availability –Network availability –Application availability Ensure Web site reliability and usability –Provide system backup –Install a disk-mirroring feature –Ensure that the system hardware is fault-tolerant –Be sure applications are self-contained –Be sure there is adequate hard disk space –Buy everything from a single vendor

36. 6-36 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc User Testing Determine testing sample Decide what to look for during the test Look for trends in the way the site is succeeding or failing to reach others Any bugs should be relayed and assigned to developer who can fix them Use Web testing tools –Load and performance test tools –Java test tools –Web site management tools and log analysis tools

37. 6-37 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Site Performance Issues Images and color –Readability testing –Images: GIFs versus JPEGs Caches How many links? The role of the Web server

38. 6-38 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Managing Content and Site Traffic Content management Web traffic management The Web site administrator –Database server –Application server(s) –Web server(s) –Special-purpose servers for encryption and security checks –Internet bandwidth –Internet performance status

39. 6-39 © 2007 Prentice-Hall, Inc Chapter Summary Web site evaluation Appropriate site design Criteria for evaluating Web sites Approaches to Web personalization Cookies A Web site should be as inviting and easy to navigate as possible User testing Web content management Traffic management Web site management