1. Website Development for E-Commerce
Pesewa Presentations

2. Management Issues
Two most important management challenges in building a successful e-commerce site are:
Developing a clear understanding of business objectives
Knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve those objectives NEED FOR A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH
NOTE: The Business Objectives and Strategy dominate the IT issues.
One reason for the “dot.bomb” phenomenon was that the process were technology-led rather than business-led

3. Process Components
Main areas where you will need to make decisions in building a site include:
Human resources and organizational capabilities – creating a team that has the skill set to build and manage
a successful site
Site design
Software
Hardware
Telecommunications

4. Information Management & e-biz
Some issues in Web Design and e-business
STAGES OF WEBSITE COMPLEXITY
Initial Question: What is the purpose of the Website?
Communication: Advertising; marketing communication; notification
1-way: To provide information to potential customers: Very Simple Often called “Brochureware” (a term of abuse!)
2-way: Simple interactivity: Data capture - build Customer database
e-commerce transactions: take orders online and fulfil these
(either online or offline) - requires a dynamic website / web pages
e-business transformation: full integration of suppliers’ and customers databases, supply-chains and processes (the objective of much B2B)
[Can be extremely complex]

5. Initial Considerations
Turnkey Systems vs.. Component Solutions similar to purchase of hi-fi system
Key Issue: Interoperability: Will all the bits of a component Website solution work together ;
turnkey systems ought to operate smoothly (in theory)
Component solutions: offer best in class for individual components
Selective Upgrade: can change one component at a time to take advantage of technical progress
Accountability Issues: If something goes wrong, who is responsible?

6. Second Consideration
Outsourcing vs. In-house Development (similar to any make-buy decision)
Outsourcing:
Advantages
Time-saving (maybe)
No fixed costs
No continuing Labour Costs (hopefully)
No maintenance costs (again, hopefully)
Disadvantages:
Loss of control
Expense - usually more expensive to pay someone else to do work rather than do it yourself, but ... opportunity cost arguments apply

7. In-House Development In-House: Disadvantages:
High Fixed Costs (up-front investment in equipment, software, training)
Maintenance (not to be under-estimated - often the largest cost factor)
Time Loss:
(1) Learning Curve effects;
(2) may be a better use of time for employees than doing Website development (Opportunity Costs argument again)
Might be preferable to use ASP (Application Service Provider)

8. Systems Development Life Cycle
Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a methodology for understanding the business objectives of a system and designing an appropriate solution
Five major steps in the SDLC are:
Systems analysis/planning
Systems design
Building the system
Testing
Implementation

9. Website SDLC

10. Systems Planning, etc.
System Analysis/Planning: Identifying Business Objectives, System Functionality, and Information Requirements
Business objectives: a list of capabilities you want your site to have
System functionalities: a list of the types of information system capabilities you will need to achieve your business objectives
Information requirements: the information elements that the system must produce in order to achieve the business objectives

11. Typical Requirements

12. Systems Design Hardware and Software Platforms System Design
System design specification: a description of the main components of a system and their relationship to one another.
System design can be broken down into two parts:
Logical design includes:
Dataflow diagram (DFD) that describes the flow of information at the site, processing functions that must be performed, and databases that will be used
Description of the security and emergency backup systems, and controls that will be used
Physical design: translate the logical design into physical components

13. Logical Design: Simple Web

14. Physical Design

15. Choices in Building and Hosting

16. Range of Tools for Site Building

17. Testing, Implementation and Maintenance
Includes unit testing, system testing and acceptance testing
Implementation and maintenance:
Maintenance is ongoing, with 20% of time devoted to debugging code and responding to emergency situations, 20% with changing reports, data files and links to backend databases; and 60% to general administration and making changes and enhancements to system
Benchmarking: process by which site is compared to those of competitors in terms of response speed, quality of layout and design

18. Typical Cost Components

19. Software Tools for Websites
Issues:
Organisational Standards: Significant determinant of choice of tool
Websites need constant maintenance - staff turnover means regular training and updating; costs contained by adopting “standard”
Changing Standard means new learning curve (“lock-in” effect)
Nature of Task: determines choice of software tool(s)
Available Bandwidth:
dial-up tools (low connection speed; low bandwidth)
DSL and Cable modems: high-speed connection and more bandwidth
Installed Base of media players: Flash; RealPlayer; QuickTime (some browsers bundle media players or provide them as plug-ins)
Ease of Use: Some software tools make content development easier than others.
Example: Java vs. JavaScript - most developers use JavaScript for special effects

20. HTML Forms Forms: Creating Forms is easy:
Text Boxes
Check Boxes
Drop-down lists
Scrolling Boxes
etc
Creating Forms is easy:
Processing the Information gathered on Website is more difficult - usually performed by a separate program, commonly running CGI (common gateway interface) scripts or Active Server Pages (ASP)
CGI and ASP both quite difficult to master - need programmers
CGI: Unix based (mainly)
ASP: Windows NT or Windows 2000 based

21. Java
General-purpose programming language developed by Sun Microsystems
Used for developing interactive Websites
Java is bundled with Netscape and Internet Explorer
FAST (compiled code)
Flexible: supports animation, streaming media, 3D visualisation, etc
SAFE (runs in protected memory space, so cannot infect any other
part of the computer system)
Difficult to learn (although JDK (Java Development Kit) helps) - intended as a professional programmers’ language
Because of its perceived difficulty, alternative development environments created: Dynamic HTML (DHTML)

22. DHTML Enhanced version of HTML Intended to be highly interactive
Better Multimedia Support
Better (more professional) page layout tools
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets
JavaScript
ActiveX
an ad hoc collection of tools supported to varying degrees by different browsers

23. JavaScript THIS HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH Java
JavaScript was developed by Netscape and seems to have become an industry “standard” [an ad hoc standard]
Mainly used to create fancy effects on screen (buttons and rollover effects)
Modern Web Development Tools (e.g. DreamWeaver) create these effects directly and automatically
Scripts for special effects can be downloaded from
Popular use: Checking user input for errors or omissions: “Please ensure that all fields are completed.”
Marketers use JavaScript to identify browser version and monitor size to ensure optimised Web page is sent to client machine

24. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
CSS allow precise text and graphics formatting on Web page
CSS allow relatively easy site-wide updating (before CSS every page had to be separately formatted - led to major problems in editing and correcting pages
How? Select names for each page component
E.g. Heading 1; Heading 2; Body Text; Table, etc
Define a Style for each.
Any subsequent change in Style is automatically updated in EACH component
CSS Separates Document CONTENT from its PRESENTATION
Only need to be updated in ONE place : change is GLOBAL
Easy to impose “house style” (uniform graphic standards)
Many advantages for Web Owner (problem: earlier browser versions)

25. Architecture Issues
System architecture: refers to the arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an information system needed to achieve a specific functionality
Two-tier architecture: Web server responds to requests for Web pages and a database server provides backend data storage
Multi-tier architecture: Web server is linked to a middle-tier layer that typically includes a series of application servers that perform specific tasks, as well as to a backend layer of existing corporate systems

26. 2-Tier e-commerce Architecture
Laudon & Traver, Chapter 4

27. Multi-Tier Architecture

28. Web Server Software
All e-commerce sites require basic Web server software to answer HTTP requests from customers
Apache the leading Web server software; works only with UNIX operating systems
Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS) the second major Web server software

29. What do Web Servers Do?

30. Site Management Tools: Server Logs

31. WebTrends (2)

32. WebTrends (3)

33. WebTrends (4)

34. Dynamic Page Generation Tools
Dynamic page generation: contents of Web page are stored as objects in a database rather than being hard-coded in HTML, and are fetched when needed from database
Tools include CGI (Common Gateway Interface), ASP (Active Server Pages), JSP (Java Server Pages), etc.
Lowers menu costs, permits easy online market segmentation, and enables cost-free price discrimination

35. Application Servers

36. e-commerce Merchant Server S/W
Provides the basic functionality needed for online sales, including:
Online catalogues (shop front)
Shopping cart
Credit card processing (secure communication with Banks and credit card companies, using Data Encryption over SSL (Secure Socket Layer), or SET (Secure Electronic Transaction)

37. Software: e-commerce Suites
Offer integrated environment that provides functionality and capabilities needed to develop sophisticated, customer-centric site
Key factors to consider in choosing include:
Functionality
Support for different business models
Business process modeling tools
Visual site management tools and reporting
Performance and scalability
Connectivity to existing business systems
Compliance with standards set by different countries worldwide
Global and multicultural capability
Local sales tax and shipping rules

38. How Much Can it Cost?
Laudon and Traver , Chapter 4

39. How do We Make Sure we can do it?
Use Simulation Software: e.g IBM WebSphere -

40. Right-sizing an e-commerce Effort

41. Right-sizing: Hardware Issues
Scalability: refers to the ability of a site to increase in size as demand warrants
Ways to scale hardware:
Vertically: increase the processing power of individual components
Horizontally: employ multiple computers to share the workload
Improve processing architecture

42. Common Techniques

43. Website Design Issues Basic Business Considerations
To achieve basic business functionality of a Web site,
one needs to be aware of design guidelines and software tools that can build active content and functionality
Poorly designed Web sites drive customers away
Avoid garish colours
Avoid processor-intensive graphics
Allow people to by-pass start-up graphics / video clips
See:
Do a Google Search for Good Practice in Website Design

44. Annoying Website Features

45. Most Important Design Aspects

46. Interactivity Tools
CGI (Common Gateway Interface): Set of standards for communication between a browser and a program running on a server that allows for interaction between the user and the server
ASP (Active Server Pages): Enables programmers using Microsoft’s IIS package to build dynamic pages
Java: Allows programmers to create interactivity and active content on the client computer
JSP (Java Server Pages): Similar to CGI and ASP; allows developers to use a combination of HTML, JSP scripts and Java to dynamically generate Web pages in response to user requests
JavaScript: Programming language invented by Netscape that is used to control objects on a Web page and handle interactions with browser
ActiveX: Programming language invented by Microsoft to compete with Java
VBScript: Programming language invented by Microsoft to compete with JavaScript
ColdFusion: An integrated server-side environment for developing interactive Web applications

47. Plug-ins
Small applications designed to add additional functionality to browsers and other communications software
Often used to allow multimedia content to be played on the client machine
Common plug-ins:
Flash: Macromedia, Inc (plays animations) [vector graphics]
QuickTime (and QuickTime for Windows): Apple Computer (audio and video player; Virtual Reality browser, image manipulation)
RealPlayer: Real Networks (streaming audio and video)
Acrobat (Adobe Systems): allows users to read documents created in .pdf format, without the need of the application which created them, nor to have the necessary fonts installed - brilliant piece of work)

48. Website Creation Needs to be a GROUP Activity
Need some or all of the following:
Graphic Designer (ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL)
Content Expert / Content Editor
Communications Specialist (i.e. someone who can write accurately)
Information Architect (someone with web tools expertise)
Marketing Expertise / Marketing Manager
Technology Manager (NOT the Team Leader!)
May also need:
Legal Input
Finance Manager … PROJECT MANAGER [ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!!]

49. Development Process Summary
Plan Site:
Objectives
Target Stakeholders
Design Issues
Content
Budget …
Gather Materials (Only RELEVANT materials to be included)
Create the Site (with Care)
Check Content (Legal, Decent, Honest, Truthful, etc)
Publish the Site (upload to ISP or on in-house server)
Promote the Site (Search Engine Submission)
MAINTAIN THE SITE !!! (don’t let it become a Cobweb Site)

50. Website Marketing Plan
Situation Analysis: (marketing audit)
Macro environmental factors
Competitive Analysis
SWOT
Market Analysis
Target Stakeholders
Customers (by Target segment) - Customer Profiles
Suppliers - Supplier Profiles
Potential New Customers and Suppliers
Strategic Partners and Allies
Website Objectives
Strategies
Action Plan
Budget
Evaluation Plan … to be developed during Course