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E llllllllljlflllllfll‘fllllflljjlll LIBRARY Michigan State University This is to certify that the thesis entitled Digital First Impressions: an analysis of e-retailing homepages presented by Jiatyan Chen has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for m degree in W awe; Major professor Date 8 ' a\' 3000 0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution PLACE IN RETURN Box to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINFS return on or before date due. MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested. DATE DUE DATE DUE l DATE DUE ~19893 hiihflfl .EDN l 5 2034 ‘ woo chfis-pu DIGITAL FIRST IMPRESSIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF E-RETAIIIN G HOMEPAGES BY J IATYAN CHEN ATHESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Telecommunication 2000 ABSTRACT DIGITAL FIRST MRESSIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF E-REI‘AILIN G HOMEPAGES BY JIATYAN CHEN This thesis discusses issues associated with retailers’ online presences - specifically examining the relation between presentation form and communication functionality. This is accomplished through an examination of five business genres — books, electronic greeting cards, toys, clothing and accessories, and computing merchandise - utilizing persona to illustrate how form may add to or detract from the function of a particular website. Suggestions are then offered for how online presences might be constructed. The thesis concludes with general observations of form in this young medium and possible future research. ‘1 l. lTZ’OC'LJI (o'c- 1. limb“; - R656: ' in Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Methodology 3. Analysis 3.1. Books 3.2. Cards 3.3. Toys 3.4. Clothes and accessories 3.5. Computing 4. Redesign 4.1. Books 4.2. Cards 4.3. Toys 4.4. Clothes and accessories 4.5. Computing 5. General Recommendation 6. Future Work 7. References 8. Appendix iii 1. Introduction Architect Louis Sullivan once said, ”The architect who combines in his being the powers of vision, of imagination, of intellect, of sympathy with human need and the power to interpret them in a language vernacular and true - is he who shall create poems in stone," extrapolates the need for interface designs to combine the form and function, emotion and reason, decoration and purpose; for in the users’ eyes, these elements are intertwined. [Flem, 70] There are many areas to the design of a website - functionality, usability, effectiveness, speed, etc. Different people measure a website with their own yardsticks. The purpose of a website is usually determined by the requirements of the people who commissioned the site, an analysis of target user needs, the web technology support team expertise and the software at their disposal. Technology’ 3 influence on any website is so great that it sometimes might take over the reasoning of the designer, who opts for a high-tech gadget and sacrifices a broader audience. Conversely, usability folks sometimes emphasize the accessibility option so much that they miss out on the ’cool’ stuff that could have been used to impress or attract visitors of the site. Designing should be seen as a whole, not as separate elements to be optimized in their own way. It is a complicated balancing act, but not without any designing guidelines. In this project, I chose to look at the visual and structural designs of several websites, especially ones that make money off the sites. They have a well-defined purpose narrow enough for my analysis. b.‘ ENC not L‘ also 4 red? de; a- ft: eCommerce web pages are commissioned and designed by the seller and not the buyers. The designers must serve the seller, who pays them, but also accommodate the buyers. I would like to approach my analysis and redesign from the buyer’ 3 perspective, using scenarios as a way to examine how a customer would navigate the site, look for information, make decisions and possibly finally make a purchase. Jakob's Law of the Internet user experience: users spend most of their time on sites other than yours. Thus, users rarely learn enough about any given site to become true expert users. [Niel, 0200] If the page is not designed well enough to help a user figure out how s/he should manipulate the site’s functions within the first few seconds, 8/ he will get frustrated and thus leave. This make—or-break property of an interface is probably the least emphasized among the other needs to display the money making portion of the site. Familiarity, intuitiveness and simplicity of an interface design helps. At the same time, we do not want the interface to be so elementary and long-winded that returning users find it cumbersome to trudge through. They need fast loading, easily accessible, in-depth information that allows them to easily accomplish their tasks. In order for the designer to better serve the eCommerce client, it is important for him / her to understand ordinary users. It would be a fallacy to assume homogeneity among the users, thus the designer needs to define the prospective audience - what are the major concerns of the users? What are their limitations and constraints? What are their needs? Since most clients, given the choice, would like their site to lure in as many customers as possible, a site has to cater to multiple audiences, each with different 2 CURL“? 1 concerns and interests. [F1em, 33] The basic considerations of a user / shopper are (a) where am I? (b) where can I go? (c) what can I find here, or does it sell what I want? (d) how can I find items I want? (e) how can I get back from there? and then (f) what are the security and privacy measures? (g) what if I am not sure of what I want? (h) how can I make sure that it is the correct product for me? (i) is it in stock and how do I buy it? (j) what if I have problems or returns? (k) what if I have a question? [adapted from Flem, 111] The homepage of any shopping site should address all of the first five and most of the next six issues. If the user is unable to figure out, with a cursory glance (the 10 second rule of attention [Niel]), 5/ he is very likely to go elsewhere. Think about the homepage of any site you first went to. As you quickly look across the screen, what goes through your mind? As a user, you are looking for clues to tell you what the site does, and how to work with the interface. After orienting yourself, understanding a little of the site and determining that you are indeed interested, you start to question where on the page you should click in order to explore further. After these navigational questions, the second tier of questions ( (f) to (k) ) 3 varies as personal concerns of users diverge, but remain indicative of user insecurity, being a number of ”what if” questions related to the products or merchandise. If the customer is looking for a product, the site designers have a choice of providing a search function or a hierarchical navigation. The latter lists the possible choices in categories, but not necessarily in the same train of thought as the customer’ 3. The former requires the customers to guess at the correct product name or description Based on a premise by Jacob Nielsen where ”. .. usability studies show that more than half of all users are search-dominant, about a fifth of the users are link-dominant, and the rest exhibit mixed behavior,” [Niel, 0797], providing a search function is almost as important as any interface for clear navigation. Jennifer Flemming suggested that the designer put himself / herself in the users’ shoes, by creating profiles of fictional users who represent the target audience. [Flem, 8] It is much simpler to imagine and define a character than to grapple with a ’cloud’ of target audience. With the exception of the very few, we all grow up immersing ourselves in fictional characters walking through fictional scenarios, evident with the plenitude of fiction and movies. Role-playing is not alien to us. I will adopt this method of conjuring imaginary users and defining their mind sets, then placing them in possible scenarios to reveal the pros and cons of the sites under examination. Brick-and—mortar store designs can make use of special effects, lighting and space, creating dramatic looks to involve and influence customers. For example, a BlockBuster store uses signed areas with ”Lights, Camera, 4 Ado: IV HOB:- ‘ (115:0: mafia W. ih i There .9" rlhl state: SIOIE Action", ”You ain’t seen nothing yet” and ”What’s Hot”, along with Hollywood style flooring fixtures and ceiling treatments to bask its customer in the limelight. [VMSD, 27] The online store loses out on these spatial and contact environment aspects, and thus have to make them up with interactiveness of the site and ease of information retrieval. There are other tricks that brick-and-mortar store designers apply which can be adapted for online stores. Carefully co-ordinated banners, panels, pennants and photomurals set strong themes to create powerful statements about the brands and core businesses. For example, Borders adopts a theme and projects a consistent image through fonts, graphics and logos on its products and packaging. Customers can thus easily identify a Borders product based on this theme. Notice that this kind of branding is also widely use in advertisements to create names and identities. Online stores can easily match this kind of packaging with their own version of images, fonts, logos and deliverables. A pitfall is that since it is much easier and cheaper changing graphics electronically than printing them, online stores are prone to alter their icons, themes and layout (in the spirit of improving the site), and in turn alienate returning customers by forcing them to re-learn the interface. As a general reminder in the designing directions of an eCommerce site, Dr. Therese Torris of Forrester Research suggested that, ”Dot Coms must remind themselves what customers miss about in-person shopping and compensate with true value: meaningful personalization but also discounted prices .” [Torr] 2. )lt’fi‘t‘CL I elated SES'ICE’S '9. gems?“ selected 2. Methodology I elected to look at a series of eCommerce sites that carry products or services with prices ranging from free to under $50 - books, electronic greeting cards, toys, clothes, and computer merchandise. The choices were selected from sites I had visited in the past year. I first took screenshots of sites I visited within a few months, and selected 5 genres to explore further. Using Yahoo, Netscape Center and several other web portals to locate a list of potential sites, I visited and took screenshots of these sites, writing down my observations as: (a) a designer regarding their layout, and (b) a user interacting with the site. I picked out at least 5 sites for each genre, ranging from representative designs for that genre to sites with different and interesting elements. Other than looking at the homepage of each site, I explored the site for its structure and navigation patterns, attempting to get a feel of the shopping experience it provides. I revisited these sites during November through January, taking note of their Christmas presentations. Within the lapse of a few months, some of the sites have overhauled their pages, and a number of them listed extra special deals on their site to take advantage of the seasonal spending spree. It was somewhat surprising to observe sections of the site shifting around and features appearing and disappearing. For example, Dockers used to have a ”changing room" feature that helps customers mix-and-match a selection of tops with bottoms, but was no longer available the next time I dropped by. It was, nevertheless, a unique and useful service to have. flint.» '4- fpm. 3 “.Ai tray. 1" Chi! «ks-1m. :2- lg gm. 5-way. all“ g (JESSIE: L. 31*. .-. -_ AJRu-gi: 53;! fvm 3»! iron nor-He: ‘Jn‘ Linn: .1 5"" {Hut '1“! 'n. V II Cu". 'Irv-c- his. git-rem. its (“a 'wo'. h a P,’ 1 ME' Lu! J!” “nu mama-1A.: ‘J‘., l g DUNE L L.” .. g..- m... firrjfitfifi $13,351:!.:‘:'_i,::__. For the other part of my analysis on these websites, I constructed persona from the generic ”target audience,” defining the needs and abilities of three fictional characters for each genre of sites. I then put these characters through an imaginary walkthrough of each site, noticing the challenges they faced as they maneuver around the site to complete their task. The images presented with the analyses are but part of the full screenshots, collected as color plates in the appendix of this document. These are meant to be used as an easy reference to the pertinent section of each analysis. Most of them have been reduced in size and cropped to display only key elements. Throughout this paper, the terms ”homepage” and ”front page” are used interchangeably to mean the main page of a website which presents a visitor with the site's basic navigational links, and usually provides the topmost level of information. 3, £3.95 3.1. E 3. Analysis 3.1. Books One of the first markets to go online is books, where Amazon practically set the bar for good sites and good service. Having a huge list of books available, but not needing display space is a big plus to the online book stores. In addition, the virtual stores have an advantage to the physical stores in terms of sorting titles - a title can appear under as many sections as needed. For example, a biography of an esteem physicist might be classified under ”physics" or ”biographies.” Books, as it turned out, is a perfect product to be sold over the Internet. A good catalog of books would contain thousands, if not millions of listings [Quit 64], making it cost-efficient to maintain an up-to-date online database rather than sending out out—dated catalogs on paper or CD-ROMs. Bookstores thus need to advertise new releases for casual window shoppers, provide good search support for the goal-oriented shoppers, and fantastic service to keep the customers coming back. Since a significant number of customers enter a bookstore with a purpose in mind, bookstores are designed in such a way to attract their attention with books that are not on their list. Physical bookstores can ufilize shelf space to display the sales/ new items in the front of the store. This technique will undoubtedly fail with an online store - with just a few click, the customers can go straight to 8 what they came for, bypassing these ’extras’. To gain the advertising advantage, it is crucial that the online bookstores make full use of the first 500 or so pixels — the first ’scrolling page’ of the screen - customers will not scroll down if they are not interested. Books are advertised differently from toys or clothes where the emphasis is on looks. Although book covers have in them a certain degree of attraction, if only to catch the eyes of a window shopper, books sell mainly by content and not covers. It is for this reason that physical bookstores lay their merchandise out for the customers to peruse, and this is more difficult for an online store to achieve. It is a tough balancing act determining how much content is sufficient without taking too much space, and how seductive this content is. These online customers are unable to pick a book up, look at the table of contents, flip through the pages, or even read a page or two that interests them. Also, a customer in a physical store has a time constraint where s/ he can or will only stay for so long before having to make a decision, but an online customer can revisit the site repeatedly without incurring much travel cost. This makes it more difficult for an online book seller to accomplish a sale, but is evened off by the absence of queues and merchandise unavailability. Therefore, the operation of an online book seller has to be different from a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. 3.1.1. Profiles Jerome is a retired clerk who enjoys reading science fiction, thrillers and biographies, and he polls the shelves of his local 9 bookstores and library every week for new releases or old classics. When he learnt from a friend that he might get a much better selection online, he went to the library to use their computers to connect to the Internet. Jerome has little experience when it comes to computers and browsing - knowing very little of windowing objects, URLs and links. With some help from the librarian, Jerome sat down and began going through the sites recommended by the librarian. Keith is a programmer who is in need of a reference book for the new language he is programming in. He wants something that explains not only fundamental elements of the language but serves as a reference manual later on. Although there are various books regarding this subject, Keith needs to find a book with good explanation that works the first time, since he does not have too much time to test things out. Keith is proficient with the web as he has to frequently look up product information and specifications. As a graduate student who has been just been hired by the Business department of a college as a teaching assistant, Lawrence is responsible for delivering his own lectures and assignments, subjected to some departmental guidelines. He will have to look for a source of reading material for the classes he will be teaching. In addition, he also is on the lookout for a cheaper source of textbooks for the classes he is taking, since the college bookstore has a monopoly over required readings assigned by instructors. Lawrence is 10 familiar with computers and the web, having used them for his undergraduate studies. He is aware of the more popular Internet bookstores like Amazon, and has seen flyers on campus advertising cheaper prices on textbooks sites like VarsityBooks. m'com y! mu mus.“ III' URLJ'T'J ,. -~——“ .I- -. : *‘Pfi. ... _. -. .4 . l, ‘ n .IA ‘. .’ . ' "' . in, R . mm. ‘ bu: '—*-g vo- he... Ih—u ~o>.=.-u 3. mucflxlalu "'va 1“ tilt: “04810-4 (Nu sou: tnnl4\' u do"! . w.- r... . -- [My éhvt ma. Ir". r. -4_‘-| - . ..v: ; u ' u-I Munrtm. I" nu M- 5 A , l ‘l \ WM '. . j . -. _, v? I . '_ J / .1 i I R ,‘ ‘- 1 .._ u 'i v: 1: l ' ‘ ~ ‘l "-n .LJI: \ . i; ' .' '0 . !.l ‘ ‘ 1.. l . . . ., ”I. . I”, . . r, 2,... «e, an»... ' ' t r.‘ ‘-. _ _, ‘ p ‘; o~ ' 9‘"th C ‘. n' v ,7 Zl‘, ,. ‘ hwfihdl‘fib. ‘ ' nod: n ‘. l . . “thong"; I @‘H ‘ g ' I ' ,_.J l . . l 1' . .e .3, . ‘. ' , . .un .I ,. . . ,_ w.— l:. . “if I)" H‘ I“, P a“ 3'“ 1' the. .0... :"”’ 'ilt1:..t .-I “I ‘I': ‘; tl:~"‘r I'I I‘I . - f I ‘ .I-r- ».,. .,..,, .~ I I A; -,..5. .J 1..)L..L . . . . A One of the first on the scene, Amazon sets the standard for interfaces for online stores. Their design is so implicitly simple and worked so wonderftu that many others designed their store front based on Amazon. Usability expert Jacob Nielsen feels that tabs should be used for, ”rapid switching between alternative views of the same information 11 .. ... p. 7.? v 0 I ' , .4 .. u ‘ . '. ’\ A -- '-—"P ‘. 1. P object” than as navigations to unrelated information; and that the left navigation column has usability problems. [Niel, 1 199] Defying his observations, this tabbed interface, with the search function just below it, the customer service icons to the right of the logo, and the columnar layout have been replicated many times. In fact, it has become so universal that any deviation becomes a hindrance to the shopping experience by giving the shopper a different interface. Unlike various other sites, Amazon’s tabbed format makes good use of colors to create a sub—category listing just under the tabs. Amazon also makes itself more personal by addressing returning users by their name; and a fast checkout process. Perhaps the best service that Amazon carries is that of user reviews. Creating a sense of community by asking readers and customers for input on their merchandise, Amazon instituted a trustworthy recommendation network that is more informative and participatory than mere editors’ or critics’ choices. By providing a text-only site, Amazon addresses an audience larger than usual - accommodating not only slower connections, but the PDA/ cellular phone groups as well. Jerome does not have much experience with any online stores, but a casual glance at Amazon’s site indicates to him that he can click on the tabs on top to get to the bookstore, and the color-coordinated sub-headings (green) on the page highlights the various ’important’ sections of the page - 12 ”sear ” and ”browse ”. Unfortunately, by reading data from the cookies stores on the public computer, Amazon would have pulled up the records for whoever had used the computer before Jerome, or that Jerome’s records would be retained for the next novice user, a great security and privacy concern that Jerome is unaware of. The ”10 under $10” link has an icon which stands out among the myriad of text, catching Jerome’s eyes. Since Jerome is scouting for new releases, he might only have Amazon’s reviews to go by, but he definitely finds the ’related items’ link (”Customers who bough this book also bought”) very useful. Jerome chanced upon the ”wish list” service, where he can keep a list of the books that he wants, and have someone buy them for him - perfect for his birthday next month! Keith, on the other hand, uses the search engine to look for prospective books, then reads the reviews and recommendations from his peers about the various books which he is considering. 13 ’I‘” I a . m: ,. r...‘ Ha.»- I. .l v I ,r .m 2;; W (:3), I m‘n‘ rand. In: :ad'r I'm: :c I. :12)”.- pc."u “tumult 7:1.‘(utar Ox} .‘4: ;0 I31. u‘pu‘ '3 “‘th (“v n-f‘tu‘nu ' f. w ’ .. w»- ..m Mi ”In". Wuhan w on . 111‘6333 73.5; .... an». N Kara nu an: '11 Mr Li: p12 :83: MM! an: 51:13: :5 1:: . para. Int” 0.? . fHI HA: «Irinw 735'. AND I”?! Barnes & Noble has went through a couple of designs before settling on one with a very similar interface to Amazon’s. The ”Advanced search” option might be helpful for a library search on keywords, but I see limited use for a bookstore. B&N has a ”Special Features” column on the left, containing items like ”Award winners", ”Bestsellers” and ”New releases”. This mirrors their brick-and-mortar in-store displays, where they situate such sections near entrances to draw customer attention. Unfortunately, it gives the impression that it had been put in as an afterthought, trying to coordinate the corporate directorates into the website, as it displaces the high priority ”Browse Subject” further down the 14 screen, contradicting priorities users would normally associate with these screen positions. However, B&N provides a prominent ”Order Status" link, taking good care of returning customers. The header graphics spots three distinct red dots, highlighting to Jerome the three most important functions of the site — ”cart”, ”help” and ”account”. After glancing through the page and going through the more apparent texts, Jerome decides to click on the ”help” button to see if it will help him locate the new books. The help topics are not that clear to Jerome, as they address online shopping issues like search criteria, privacy concerns and customer accounts. He tries a few links but eventually returns to the homepage and starts reading the finer print lower down the page, where he then discovered the links to ”Bestsellers” and ”New releases” under the ”Special Features” list. Jerome also tries searching by his favorite authors’ names, and found their other books which are not in the categories he usually looks under. Lawrence, our graduate student in search of textbooks, moves his mouse pointer quickly to the search box. Thanks to his experience from his library researches, he elected to do a ”keyword” search for the business textbooks he is researching on. Searching for the price of the textbooks assigned by his instructor is a breeze, since Lawrence has all the information he needs to locate the book Lawrence also found the additional links on the left, related to the books, 15 rather interesting, especially for the topic he is researching on. Although the B&N and Amazon sites look very similar, they focus differently on the way customers shop. Amazon places more emphasis on popular books, with the right column devoted to bestsellers and sale items. B&N moves towards customer enrichment by offering ways to ”Renew Yourself” and more diverse links providing information about authors and software. 3.1.4. ' " our.) M:ucwlmnxw hu- books, We "3““ =3: w- .A~--... ....a-. .... moans-upon .. ._ . ..-.,.-..-. m hflbomhuhu T»: Erma-inch." boa-L «I mu cu Ivsdar: mum". lodv‘ Mu.“ I», up“; Maw 54.1.». if.“ wna u pr" m "If-1 MIMI lh’v fi‘th: 79-,- 'n .9" Hm. at,“ th- Btu-Iv ”f1 ‘17.") to h" d!" irn:im~ pm "to l Hung: us» «wanna-“yum {M «unfinwr‘ Iaw‘m magnate» yin-Jaw mud uni-u amt:ctno-I «In. g-airci‘orfrcm It...“ Olen-umbrella: catamarans.- Zz‘umrdim mam 131W: ' f . ' .. _‘.j “ 3W mummnayr-um. ‘1“: «mm m ‘ H lug-cu.” ”Hi- 5?!” that." . ' . nu - «Hiliwkmmo Without an extra column on the right, Borders’ site looks cleaner than that of Amazon or B&N, defining just the menu 16 on the left and contents on the right. Unfortunately the menu on the left does not really show up due to its tiny font and low text-to-background contrast. Borders took the approach of listing detailed information of each book in the highlights/ special section on the front page, speeding up the ordering process. By providing more information per highlighted item, Borders makes up for it smaller item-to- space ratio. By giving more of the editor’ 8 review, compared to ”hear what he has to say...” or ”check this book out at. ..”, the book stands a better chance at being looked at as more information is provided about it. Despite this slightly superior approach in capturing its audience, Borders needs to exert more effort in community building by providing ’related’ book lists and ’customer reviews’ to retain customers. A quick scan of the page reviews the white-on-blue words of "Best Sellers” to Jerome, and he follows the links to check out the list. The layout of the page, compared to other sites, is less confusing to Jerome, who quickly surmises the left column is a list of indices and the right (main) column are highlights of the books. Jerome found the excerpts from the books very helpful in making his decision on purchasing new books, especially ones by authors he does not yet know. The ’window dressing’ of the homepage does not have too much effect on Keith as he makes a bee-line for the search button. Without a good source of reviews by his peers, Keith 17 found it difficult to decide on which book would most likely be of use to him. Keith browses around the site for a little while, looking at the links, but eventually heads off to another site to do his research on the books he needs. ‘0 °a°m9=mr '- l ' We; ‘ MIHQIMMNM ”.1010! _ tour I IS r;»:n;:v:fiodu totl' A lw'd mum-2* men," “mm “a! lawn 8;" Janna Ito-r”; {swank em I .....- .. ... Even though it uses a variant of the Amazonian layout, the technical bookstore fatbrain manages to give its menus a more personal, less rigid look. The hand-written subtitle, "Because great minds think a lot,” conveys a casual, non- businesslike atmosphere. Fatbrain looks like the ’little bookstore around the comer’ compared to the corporate chain Borders. However, Fatbrain is one of the Net's biggest 18 e-books sellers, selling these downloadable electronic books online for about $5 each. [Sach, 76] Opting to dispense less information, the tabbed menu bar has more visual space around it to separate and highlight it from the rest of the information on the page, providing a clear visual information hierarchy. Fatbrain has an advantage over the generic bookstore since it only carries technical books (compared to Amazon carrying music, videos and other merchandise). It is able to allot more space and effort when presenting the books with better targeted descriptions. Keith finds himself right at home at Fatbrain’s site. All the labels and lingo look familiar, and Keith can immediately find his way around, reading through the editors’ choices, navigating through the hierarchical menu, checking out books from other topics he is mildly interested in. Fatbrain’s business department is equally well organized by topics which are familiar to Lawrence. Using the topical menu and associated links, Lawrence manages to filter down to a handful of elementary economics books that he might be interested in teaching with, reads through the summaries and reviews from other customers, and decides to order two of them. He also buys a book that his instructor recommended at a much reduced price. Not bad for an aftemoon’s work. 19 3.1.6. 61.3,}..1 mg ‘ mm 0 1’}- hgg‘ “~\ “"6 "or Boar; "rm-Mm . va;m I, ATSISi Since eFollett uses the same formula to present its various pages for the colleges it is affiliated to, I elected to look at its page for Michigan State University (MSU). As it has a very targeted audience — students who are buying textbooks - it uses a very utilitarian page for the MSU Bookstore. The page provides the most essential items that a college student needs in the left column, and a pointblank ”search by term” engine. Zero frill. Due to its affiliation to the college, it sees no necessity to lure or retain customers, since there is virtually no competition. However, things may start to change with the increase of online college bookstores like VarsityBooks. Lawrence obtained the URL to his college’s bookstore from one of eFollett’s flyers. Once he got to the customized eFollett’s store for his college, he immediately begins retrieving the relevant information based on the class he is 20 . ' . .llsq' I'.'Il' ' ' In. ': "h" J ‘ i" '1 L.‘ .A or) . t " -I A . ' ‘ ‘ , a . 0 . . ' ‘ - . . 4' ' I . i ,_ . I i a. . h- I - . ' , ,. u. . . .I ' ' . I - ‘ , I ,‘ 4 .- . Ir .J ' I ,3 " I v ' i ' ‘ I 2 ‘ , , ' I ~ , . I -— | I . ' ‘I‘ I I V . I I I C I ' I I ' l [I I, . I I v enrolled in, without any distraction from advertisements. With the menu ordered by semesters, followed by department then course number, finding his assigned readings is child’s play. It does not even require him to type in any text. The book list that Lawrence ends up with also includes pricing for used books, a big bonus for someone tight on the purse string. However, Lawrence is also hoping to compare notes with a list of readings other colleges use for introductory economics classes similar to what he will be teaching. Unfortunately he is not going to find it here, not in either MSU Bookstore nor the main site of eFollett. 1»me NM 1“. ”WWW (dun: Min. '1ch gnu-v nth boa-um uncut-4 you |‘U$I blah-1 search for books Ad‘s- I'M. 3m“ . nan»: Ii & . , , Am" ‘ 'V‘ ' ’ emit-Ivan wFREE rl mica m ., M E ‘__ __ Au.“— , "!.-"'m' {~~1H~4=W ’- nil»: m : (up... an> v mum“ I 3,“. I ..{a In .. -.- “4,. ,.-.-w 3%.; “ms-1 “3...".-- VarsityBooks tries to enter the college textbook market by advertising savings of up to 40% off the publisher’ s price. They do indeed have cheaper prices on certain books, but the 21 book lists are less accurate. Having a wider audience than other college bookstores, VarsityBooks also earns extra revenue selling ads placements to sponsors. Lawrence types in VarsityBooks’ URL from the flyer that he took off the notice board. It is a pretty simple URL to remember. He went through several pages to locate his school and finally lands in a page that asks him for the title of the book, searching only in the database pertaining to his school. Lawrence found the books without much trouble, but he has to double check the list with the one his instructor gave out, and though discounted, the prices are not as attractive as used books. In comparison, eFollett makes use of its affiliation to the schools to construct a more streamlined process for students. 22 3.2. Cards Let us go to something free. Electronic greeting cards have a high fixed cost but almost no variable cost. The provider needs to set up a database and a mail server, and intermittently add or replace card selections. Since it costs next to nothing to send an e-card, all the these sites have a free selection of cards. Most of them are funded solely by sponsor advertisements, while some also provide additional services for a price. It is thus the prerogative of a site to attract as much traffic as possible - by providing a large selection of cards so as to make it a one-stop-shop for repeated visitors. Most of the sites look about the same — banner ads, multiple lists of card categorization / indices, and a card pick-up point. Almost all of the sites have a holiday or special occasion cards link, displayed rather conspicuously. Interestingly, some sites provided a search function, which I do not really see a purpose for since all the categories are already listed in plain view. So, unless I have seen a phrase in some cards that I really wanted to send, and that the keywords in the images are indeed in the search database, I find a search function rather useless. Also, providing a search function means that it will take a lot more effort on the part of the site maintainers to categorize and cross-index the cards, not only according to occasions but also according to text and image content. Sites which provide such search capabilities are welcomed but in the interest of time and resources, such free service sites do not really do a commendable job in categorizing their card choices. 23 3.2.1. Profiles We first look at some prospective customers. Alex is a fairly web-savvy grandfather, who has just found out from Yahoo that he can send free personalized greeting cards to his grandchildren. So he goes to Yahoo, types in ”cards” and clicks on one of the links to a virtual card site. Alex does not know a lot about the new technology. His browser is probably not configured to peruse Flash animations or even listen to the accompanying music selection. Alex does know how to pick a card off the shelves of a supermarket. He is probably going to go by the categories he is familiar with. What about Bob? As a middle-aged son and father, Bob has Internet access at home and probably a good computer and connection at work, maintained by the company. He receives a card from a co-worker. He follows the link to pick up the card, and decides to send one to his wife, who is currently on a business trip. Bob does not have too much time to browse the lists of categories and their respective cards. He just wants something suitable to say a few words to his wife before his next meeting with a client. Claire is a student at the university. She is in a computer lab, answering emails, when she receives a card from a friend. She follows the link and collects the card, and is then intrigued by the amount of cards available. She thinks of browsing through them for some ideas on a project that she is doing, or 24 maybe just looking at the funny jokes some of the cards have. If she finds a good one, she might even share it with her friends. Claire does not have a class for the next hour or so (or she would not be in the lab writing emails) and so she has some free time to look the choices carefully. Perhaps she would even fire up the search engine and look at more than just tlus particular card Site. t .1" -. rt. .,,,. ‘-' Ill '1- ‘lu '.'."«:-lr‘.. 1' ‘v i-‘. V' > ‘ . .F' ”‘I’ xbh .- c ‘ ‘1‘}?! “1:71.33 sh: .7 in ’ _-.~w-~ Q 1}..st * tin" -. ‘33 ‘3. -‘ 15% “fink "-r 1v 4 . .4 .. q ,7. . l}J-‘.U?.i."3‘ Jug] an...» .rl .' "It sums ‘ .3. , n .. w-r"'\!' ‘ pin-odd “bun r; wrote-1'15 I a D11 q ...... ‘lro ’ f ‘_ k ‘ '< ,' W a?“ '3» ”a: (u a. _- — 'I‘-‘5‘ g." ;_ - - r (4.5”! l.‘ ‘ . '3. . "1} :I-V'J a-pu—fi mar-0.")! ~VIJM'. f". 7 rent omuwmuurmuhru "l' I Q“ ‘. ~ ——.—_.— g “up 'w-» h”"'OI-‘ 1.2.4,. -u _"~ ........,.... ......:'“'"" 331“] T- . s ,. "a..." :........ . .. " hrr:.l , x m _ \ .c .. - L j t . l“ 4 ’1 . V .‘ Irv . ‘_,Y m , ,, .. I! r. : ., i ' o “a r I V. ._ ‘I- r u ,. o- '1. LA I. O. I Ith ‘0 c It '~.... ‘vr Hi mas-ask I .. ..Juvv ‘ t Blur-r- Mina-Ii . , \ u . ... o . . . . .1. .. .1 .a, , M. » _ ., , ..4 , . .-. .. .r .-. . e.. a .r- . 1001 Postcards has a huge selection of cards and a very elaborate categorization scheme — sorted not only by holidays and occasions but by various other topics like objects, artists and movies. Luckily it provides a few one-click selections, a 25 ‘f } ..‘fi'lf. list of ”top 30 categories” and a search function conveniently located at the top. As with most e-cards, the primary objective is to facilitate communication - a card must reach its receiver. The pick-up location occupies a prominent space on the page. The site is liberally sprinkled with sponsor ads but are in the ’standard’ places, thus not too distracting to the users. However, the ”Pick a category” drop down menu is way too long for anyone to reasonably go through it - just watch it scroll! Our grandfather Alex will probably be confused by the sheer number of categories as he scrolls down the page. If he is not looking for a holiday card, he would probably pick something from the ”top 30” list and start from there; or perhaps click the ”back” button and try another site. On the other hand, Claire might well like a huge list to choose from. She can do the ”fun stuff” or send a card starring her favorite actor. Since Claire has the time to look around, she will probably send more than one card to her friends, perhaps even for the various occasions listed in the left column. 26 \lmllulufl 313 ’ (ii-ruin!!! In 1 .s -. .. ”E ‘u‘.:‘,',‘if:.:‘u' . .-x'.‘ ." .044 I'lullflh". dun-ri‘uatbt. nun rt' u.» aha...” l:r‘bu~< us. 53- w " h.¢..« 5)....» v a... rm I: out mam £12“; I. . .. . Ivcn ' L g . . . r. ’ ' ., Yr . {1... .y t - .. H. . “a; , _ “.1.”- i 1 L. (““3"""”".‘§ ‘ ‘ I.» . , f" "3 I"? i ‘I'—u rm On but” In ..‘I .~ l . . . 5' MUM-H I . ~ g, "1“" "r '- .- . ' ". tum a s I 1.053: r i a -. . . a _ ., I 8‘ I, I g .' ‘.OI.¢ " k pnflw~mrg \C' ' ' Hm Coo! lumen _ . - . .... . ,I ,,.p _ hum M0141“. .' .r - ham Isl-vat 4 v’nfim . :..1.. ' I Lo I , . ._ 'J r ’I' i. ». .1 ') ‘ ._ Pawns-onus" .a‘ i! '7‘1 ' ' . t... ‘I'-w -... Our! stall-nah“ “I ‘“ 7‘ ‘Q’Dflxlrlv I. ix 7 a : _ , . if! ,. ‘r‘u lop Clid‘ . M“ (I; * 39.5. ‘ ' :11” 7' V x “1;... F .I-lih‘ 915:. 9 'I‘-..s-J'; . I-'- '- ‘ . ..... . .. .-_ . .. 94...“; ~ Nu: 4.»:- b “‘41,“; u $1,. u . . ' ' $4313.“ Hm . it». vrw - '5'. 5“ At the 123 Greetings site, its homepage is formatted using a very large table. This is unfortunate as browsers need to load all the table information before displaying the entire table, and thus users will have to stare at a blank page for an extended period of time while table data completes loading. A nice thing about this site is that it provides a ’reminder’ of nearing holidays and occasion — useful if one visits the site regularly, or happens to be sending a card for some other occasion. It has a lot more obscure events (”Cotton Candy Day”?!) than some others. This listing (right column), however, seems more haphazard than the chronological listing that appears on the left column of 1001 Postcards. 27 Instead of a drop-down menu, 123 Greetings provides a at-a- glance menu of the popular topics at the top of the page, saving the users from scrolling down looking for an index. If a user examines the page carefully, he can find extra services to manage his cards, popular selections of cards and help, all listed beneath an ad in the left column This left column is most likely to be ignored starting from the ad. User attention has been diverted to either the center column that lists the selections, or the right column which lists occasions. After waiting a long time for the page to download over his 33.6K modem, it was not gratifying for Alex to find only an extended list of card choices. He feels he should have been able to download a similar text list much faster. While he is at the site, he looks at its list of cards for little known events. He has never seen the special ”Jazz Day" category before in the stores, and probably would not know what to make of it nor who to send to. Bob would definitely appreciate the ”midweek crisis" card, right at the top in plain view, but being a busy person, he might not even have the patience to wait for the page to load. 28 ,x'xnmlflv MM“ — ’43“ _mec:.—: to do a trip ' 3.5%; ... '4 4 u Sin-M in: 1 Activegrams can be seen as one of the ’speciality’ e-card websites. It has a lighter air than others and more character. The user can mail his recipient a series of animated cards based on various protagonists, fake news and memos. The cards even come as attachments instead of the recipient having to pick them up. The banner ads on this site constantly stay on the page since they are housed in a separate frame. This decreases the number of banner ads that the site can display, but maximizes the chance of visitors seeing the ads. Claire enjoyed her time going through the list of funny quips at Activegrams. Alex, on the other hand, is more baffled than finding anything suitable for his needs. Clicking through the various links, Bob decides that he does not have the time to 29 ‘ratb-f click a link for just one card. He needs to be able to scan through a number of cards quickly. 'I’O'h‘ m l ..EEEJIU i, mMehMIMu-un mw'mm‘w WIN!“ "fif‘i‘iu og- auu sync-u N "h ”L Orv-lung Md— .1“ Mill m‘ . -. nm» van-n gum in“. 1~ . . w” “- . “2%,. lfln”—~| '0. I“ W Iva-- illunn‘u l-IM w:- o .0: on; ul‘ 1,” Min-.413“: Ra-.. :D-Mwhh‘lhw “‘r‘vu- Inn-n at“! *‘N 0 Wm . ‘ .. A». ‘r- ....... um. ~- I... - bum-un- v... influx. .3.» an. . , m an in u" Ivor—v ' u _ ~vsqurv+ :m. 00.4.: h...“ ~u‘u rm )5 run“... - aux—v x1”. a...“ 0‘ ..n l..,..~. 1.. .p. ..__. .. m. r o.‘.-.‘ ~ .rj"..-!‘..:‘3 "a O V-w' any“... 0-‘O'3 “In..." '" rum. I‘ve-kin w u.”- yam-r43 7”. .. ‘ ... a -‘ .n a. n- a... »...- .o I 'a: \J‘l-nrrvj . «as, we ‘ ..ixv ,. .. q ”-0 n L- .... n .. .--...‘.n w. Card 4 You presents a similar long listing as 123 Greetings and 1001 Postcards. Each of its categories, however, comes with a little icon and some blurb about it, which helps the decision process. One can easily identify the ”Animals” and the ”Games and Flash” selections. It uses ads and mailing lists to draw customers. This site is definitely more friendly to Grandpa Alex, with pictures and explanations to help him make more sense of the 30 -«.\r selections. Although ”Christmas” and ”Love” might be familiar to him, ”Karaoke” or ”Weekend” pretty much belong to the online categories. Bob and Claire might also find the icons and examples useful. 3.2.6. (can it: maxim: \P'IMQ'MI" (m: h I»! MI: W Wu. m. up. ”-53.. Keeping with the theme of its site, Carez donates 10% of its ad revenue to environmental funds. The categories also differs from the usual. Instead of ”congratulations” or ”get well”, it has classifications like ”wild animals” and ”adoption”. The white, lighter background on the right diverts the attention of the user from the green background menu on the left. Most of the ’useful’ links, like holiday greetings, are thus 31 . . z t .* o ..1. w . u 1 n . A r _ ‘ Q V t «t. . In. - I l s. a . . I“... . _ C.-. 1 . . . . l .o I Q . 0.. . . .~ ...v . . ~ .- ... . . . it I . p . a N ”A! .. P . z I t .. . . v 5 a I in a less conspicuous location. To make matters worse, each item in this menu has a border around it, making it appear like a banner ad if not inspected carefully. Aged Alex or busy Bob might not notice the menu on the left, and instead browse through the categories on the white background. Since this is a site that places emphasis on a ”nature” theme, Alex and Bob might not be able to find something familiar or suitable for their tastes. Claire, on the other hand, might be attracted to the ”Friendship" and ”Loony Toons” selections. e-cards 'g. . i" C-O 0*IQOQ “A. :.‘~-?’ Cv'ohtu .1 N.“ ‘5‘}:- ~"“’ 00". .1.‘ #2.: : tax. .as: “Gav-c ?~ I1. .2“ ‘u as “In.” '91." "an hf. . figs _..-._ ', .‘_ .’.:;‘. w: t. .“ :1 '- 5." o'l'I'rl" s?! at a .2 4 xxx;- ‘J. 12.1.. . £2:T=;.l‘.~'2.4 .‘Il.'i.i.'-..::' but 0 50h ’AL'.p1§.'".aJ.' 4.11 ha. 59".! ‘31 1‘ 57.9 . Q n: .4 .41. i l. . , ~ . . é Q. a:fi--'fl.‘..,_.vnfla.ul )2 l1.-. 1‘3! ;2 at i f ' . 51‘). x .4.f..! .3. as luv-aha 1m l the. t 1,-1er “3" minor! :j‘i T lit-5.7? ‘I'}."Efdfi T‘ and wm! '50" s": ope-‘4; 40! .‘_,’. --.0,.. .‘ 'r }. -o~‘p¢-( '5‘: 9-6 ‘2. {5.11 so i O g g. .4 ‘01". ‘vfl'Q. . ' ‘ ;.t‘ h A." . A - (in: V1 1.5.“! Rm «.‘4 do) WW Rn , ¢ R .1. am”, I 7! . 4': am . . ' .....J salt n- . . {it‘lifhfa-ki'r; a“ ..x h. #:le in; la: ...v 1;." 1. Isa-vb»: "Ir-v 32 Wi—TW—‘T— ’- - . P As one of the major greeting card manufacturers, Hallmark has a large pool of talented writers and artists to draw its e- card selections from. On one hand, Hallmark is able to capitalize on its brand name, yet on the other, it is likely that a visitor to Hallmark’s site will have a certain expectation of the quality of the e—cards. It is no wonder that many of the e- cards come with animation and music, some even in Flash format. The categories are also in the more familiar shelf language, with broader groupings of ”milestones”, ”just a note” an ”special collection” to the more defined ones like ”anniversary” and ”blanks”. This front page listed quite a selection of thumbnails versions of e—cards with various topics to make it easier for a visitor to go straight to the relevant page. Hallmark has obviously been subsidizing this site with sales from its related gifts and flowers site, since I did not find any kind of advertisements on the pages. Other than the fact that Alex might be a little miffed by the bleeding edge in web teclmology and has to install Flash, the Hallmark site would be wonderful for Alex, who is already familiar with the card categories, and would feel right at home with many of the featured cards in plain view. These highlighted cards are quite a handful to choose from, especially for Bob, who needs just to send a quick note without going through the hierarchical menu of choices. These many choices are also just what Claire likes, including the humorous Shoebox collection. 33 3.2.8. Just Postcards 'h- ~a"-v +- ”Al-mu”: mur-N Iran's awn" nyw watch-ohm In! .4"qu .cd a g. s. 1 ' Q 5., J3... r... .9... a. — ..u .2. 2.3. I}; G I m m w M 3!... .3... .5. .5. - a. - A! Just Postcards is rather similar to Card 4 You with its icons layout. It does not, however, provide the ”Top cards” choices that Card 4 You does. An experience surfer might overlook the top banner automatically (I know I do) and thus miss the holiday card link. Instead of putting ads at the top of page, Just Postcards left them at the bottom. With the popular card link at the top of the page (special events and holiday cards), the effectiveness of the ads is questionable, although I am pretty sure that the ”Jokes” mailing list generates a certain amount of revenue from its sponsor ads as well. In comparison, the categories for Just Postcards look smaller 34 than Card 4 You, which actually makes it easier to go through. Since it does not provide further explanation, Alex might be a little perturbed by some of the categories (for example, ”dessert") while Claire will just try out the link The spaces between the icons are spacious enough for Bob to easily spot the ”I miss you” category, if he ever scrolls down enough. americanggreetingsmm "' ’.“‘-.'.‘~~:~ .399 M: ,clkf-"f am”. up“; ”415 ivy.» _ sivw .‘I v‘s y s; :arlu amino "an an IR 3-..“.3. Another card company, American Greetings, offers a few free e-cards as an enticement to its other paid card products — better designed cards, create-your-own cards and paper cards. And like Hallmark’s, it uses strategic placement of 35 numerous thumbnails of various cards helps expedite the card selection process. It also carries a few comic series that might keep users coming back. It is interesting to note that American Greetings is the only one that uses a hybrid method to generate funds - ads, draw and membership, compared to the others who depend almost entirely on banner advertisements. As such, the better card designs have been restricted as a paid member privilege, effectively disappointing visitor expectations. The site looks great at first with various choices, but Alex runs into a snag. He had picked a card he likes, but he cannot send it without paying for the membership. Alex will soon learn to notice the ”FREE” label beside the thumbnail image, but Bob might not want to spare the time or energy to go down the blind alley. Claire, who likes to browse around, does not think that this site offers enough choices. 36 3.3. Toys The toy business is a very commercial and kids-driven economy. Other than the standard set of ’must-haves’ - Lego and teddy bears — the demand for toys is mostly fueled by the popularity of a product among the children, especially school kids. Manufacturers create and fuel this hit wave and use all sorts of marketing gimmicks to get children to persuade their parents to buy them the toys of their dreams. An eCommerce interface becomes acceptable either by its intuitiveness, or by mass indoctrination - people learned to use it and are now familiar with it. The tabs-on-top—and-categories-on-left pioneered by Amazon is pervasive in most online storefronts. It has became the de facto interface and presumably works well for sites with massive amounts of standardized merchandise, so why re- invent the wheel? Fortunately, every merchant in this category realizes the need for customers to easily locate a particular toy, and offers a search function. Most of the sites have a ’shop by’ area, where users can search through merchandise by age, category, brand, characters, etc. This is especially useful in helping users narrow in on what they want. This function, amazingly, is unique to the toys sites. I suspect it is either a very common phenomenon that merchants notice in physical toy stores, or that site designers copy extensively from each 37 other. In a typical retail store, the sales assistants always greet the customers and ask what they can do to help. Such customer service is a way to keep the customer in the store and hopefully they will find something to buy. Asking for recommendation is a typical response for someone buying a toy for a relative’s or friend’s offsprings, since most are not buying toys for themselves but for an unfamiliar child whose needs and interests change quickly from year to year. The recommendation section of an online toy store should thus be rather extensive and easily accessible, yet the sites I visited seldom provide such a guide or advisor. I also noticed that order tracking is not of great concern with online toys stores, and I am unable to understand why this is so. A customer who places an order online wants the product as soon as possible, and an order tracker eases the anxiety especially for a child. I find it disturbing that most of the sites are designed for the 800x600 or larger screens. With a smaller window or screen, the customers can easily miss out the right column entirely, where most of the speciality shops and coupons and offers are located. As for target audience, the sites that I have examined talked more to the parents than the kids, which is reasonable, since the parents are the ones with the money. 38 3.3.1. Profiles Delia’s adult son recently bought her a computer so she can receive all the digital photos he takes of her three grandchildren. She read in a magazine article that she can now go online to buy toys and have them sent to her grandchildren without her even leaving her living room. Delia thought she would give it a try. Delia does not know a lot about computers or toys. She just wants to spend some money on her grandchildren and make them happy. But spending money on a total of eight grandchildren is quite a bit. Delia hopes she can find something wildly popular at a discounted or affordable price. Not being in touch with the grandchildren everyday makes her somewhat unsure of what appeals to them nowadays. She would most likely make use of any recommendations she gets, though she may not realize such services are available online or where she might find them. She could ask the kids, but that would spoil the surprise. Being a father who works full-time, Eric is less attuned to the daily necessities of his children, but he prides himself on keeping on top of what toys and games they like. He would sometimes supervise the computer games that his 8—year-old son and 11-year-old daughter play, and, being a child at heart, more than often joins them in building models or playing PlayStation games. Eric has a little time during his lunch hour and wants to get a Toy Story 2 figurine for his son’s birthday, 39 am _ 3'! since the son was rather excited about the movie the whole family went to see last weekend. Eric is also experienced enough to remember to get an item of lesser value for his daughter, in the name of fairness. But since it is not her birthday, Eric is considering getting something more educational in nature. Fiona is a 10-year-old who watches the Pokemon cartoons almost religiously. She has a small collection of cards and games which she plays and trades with her friends. The Harry Potter magic is also brewing strong in school. Fiona aced her end-of-terms recently and her mother said that she can get something under $50. Fiona has the time to look online for the perfect toy or game to impress her friends and make her popular. 40 v-. own-9‘11!“ I'll ..uamn. — h v n .- man-a... luu bu M ., a... a"... ..‘I.-,4'I.Oaa. a-Ol.§‘e «It 36,! tn ’1 u'~.~ll&la0 o- The bricks-to-clicks Toys 'r' Us is a late comer to the eCommerce scene, and had its fair share of trouble during the release of their annual Toys 'r’ Us Big Book with severe server crashes and site inaccessibility. I happened to be attempting to visit their site during this period and was turned away all but one time. Toys 'r’ Us uses the familiar ’tab’ interface to sort its departments. The big attractive animated graphics of ”T oday’ s hottest toys” catches the eye, and displays a toy car and Barbie just below it, satisfying the most generic buyer’ s basic concern for a gender-based toy. Presenting sales items on the first page is as common a ploy as window dressing in a physical store, serving to draw visitors into the store to look 41 at some other items. Each of these special items on the main page has an ”add to cart” button nearby, encouraging impulse shopping. I doubt that any one would click on these buttons without reading the detailed descriptions on the items’ individual pages, and thus Toys ‘r’ Us will successfully entice shoppers into the e—store and promote other deals or more profitable products. Toys 'r’ Us is also very sensitive to consumer demand, creating a separate department ”Pokemon Central” for the current hit collectables. Given its history and size, Toys ’1’ Us will probably appear on every search result for ”toys” or any online toy store directory. Delia would definitely feel comfortable with the Toys ’r’ Us name, as she has most likely purchased toys from them before. Since Delia is shopping for several grandchildren, she notices the ”by Age” category on the left, and thinks that it might be the best way to get some ideas - much easier than shopping in the toy store. But Delia also wants a variety: buying the whole set of a series of toys would seem fair to all her grandchildren. The "by Category” link might work. . . . She is not worried as she waits for the pages to load; after all, she is not a rushed schedule. Eric’ 8 shopping list is less generic than Delia’s. He has already determined that he wants a Toy Story figurine. The first thing he looks for on the page is the Toy Story logo. Seeing none, he might click on the ”hottest toys” link, or simply move on to another site since he would rather buy both toys from the 42 same store and save on shipping cost. The use of a minor character from Toy Story 2 — Tour Guide Barbie -— was ineffective advertising on this prime space. However famous Barbie is in her own right, one of the movie’s main characters, e.g. Woody, might have caught Eric’ 3 attention more successfully. As for Fiona, she would immediately head to the ”Pokemon Centr ” department, clicking the icon button even before the page has completed loading. ,aumrsifin Hal MM“ [9!” "A” um Milan-rho "'1an p. “In. .54” Even though I had cookies turned on, toysmart interpreted 43 5? no .*.-0. 05m" my non-Netscape, non-Explorer browser incorrectly and gave me an error message which advises me on how to turn on cookies, and would rather forgo any kind of sales or publicity by turning away potential customers who do not use the two ”traditional" browsers. Not very smart, toysmart. Such problems aside, it is interesting to note that toysmart carries furniture, a first that I have observed among the online toys stores. Toysmart also has a ”Children’s Favorites” column on the right, highlighting the current favorite protagonists — it seems to be missing Pokemon, though. After looking briefly through right column and deciding that there is too much text for her ailing eyes, Delia glances sideways and notices the ”Top 10 Toys” and ”Toys under $25” links - what wonderful help with her shopping. The animated ”free shipping" label at the top also pleases both Delia and Eric. Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story 2 in the center and on the right catches Eric’ 3 eyes easily. Glandng down further, Eric also finds the ”School at a Glance” picks, which might be useful for his daughter’s gift. Unfortunately for Fiona, no Pokemon toys or games are listed anywhere. The search engine also reported 0 item with that name. Fiona is really disappointed with this site. She might have changed her mind and decide to get a Harry Potter book if she happened to glance down the list on the right far enough. 3.3.4. : We! : ‘ stratum ‘ In} Imam; ; e ’0. center "nil: ..‘t! wi‘ak ';Zu...131 huh . _ T , , ‘ Discovery oys . M New? 5“ r v”. _;.;« ~u:1 .121 ' i a.» fantastic inds "‘ V'N’ 8! "' 'IM' 3 Elia-.1515 -. -.. ,- n-y .a‘v 1.1.1.; 5 . . ... x 10!: - Proving that one can sell toys online, eToys has successfully captured more than 50% of the online toy business in 1998 and is still the current leader. [Gree, 93] eToys did not manage this feat by being online, but because customers can easily find toys on their site. Part of the reason, beside ironing out the logistics, lies with the user-friendly interface. By expending some effort to organize and sort toys into logical categories, eToys made a successful decision on how to advertise and draw people in. I am confident in saying that its interface is the one that has been mimicked by so many other sites. The strategically placed ”last minute gift” is a neat idea to get the indecisive or last minute buyer to buy a gift 45 certificate. For somebody who is undecided, eToys offers the most selections in terms of types of recommendations - instead of just recommendations for toys under a certain dollar amount or suggestions for toys for a certain age group, eToys also has other suggestions like ”special needs” and ”fantastic finds”. The ”200 under $20” link on the recommendation list in the left column, if Delia scrolled down far enough, looks like a great place to start - it fits her budget and 200 toys seems like an awful lot to choose from. Eric, however, is unable to find a link to Toy Story products, except perhaps under the ”hot list” link or searching for it. Too bad it wasn’t his wife shopping, or she would probably be interested in the Gap discount. Intent on his search for Toy Story products, Eric probably will not read through the fine prints on the left column for ”Action Figures" and attempt to search there. On the other hand, scrolling down the page a little, Fiona easily finds her Pokemon shoppe icon and off she goes. 46 'ovfimo gig; j':_’:?*:?,".,. W “’1 mm quiriii~ I la! Irrn- {m fin.$ lluluLxrsf : "1 '1!“ ' 1!: first) 1 Iain: Hm ism _ . lint“. 1””:‘59'4 i‘u'lrl'l'pl‘5p , “(‘0‘ 3‘." :3“) ‘ ‘-‘A ”at. d islet: !'~ >94 . » "lflmieler‘pv‘ , -. To make things clear for the user, web pages are usually divided into menu and contents sections. Most of the time the menu stays on the top or left, and the contents occupy the rest of the page. Occasionally, a designer might plan a third column to hold extra information like special offers or services, news and other dynamic information. ToyTime’s page has four columns instead of the normal three column format used on many sites. The first column of menus and second of special items are pretty much standard. The third seems to mimic the speciality shops of eToys. I question the wisdom of this column since it only lists a few of the toys available and requires the user to click again to see the full 47 selection, which is the same as clicking on ”Do ” and then on ”Barbie” (or just clicking on the brand ”Barbie”). This third column is also slightly difficult to read because the bounding boxes of its listing seem to lead the user’ 8 eyes towards the icons in the fourth column. All in all, I find the page layout of ToyTime’s homepage rather disorientating and haphazard -— there are too many lines that do not help separate the page into easily processable visual, and thus logical, chunks. With eight grandchildren, Delia is probably going to spend more than $75, and would promptly click on the ”Free $20” coupon. The sweepstakes on the right catches her attention, too. After filling out the lengthy sweepstakes forms, Delia continues to look for some suggestions or some good sale items. Not knowing what toys to look for, she finds there are too many headlines screaming at her - Toy Story 2, Furby Baby, $20, $75, Enter to Win, Win $500 a Day, Deal Time - all on the top part of the screen. In addition, the primary colors used beg for her attention. The Toy Story 2 gang should claim Eric in a heart beat, and he reckons that ToyTime should have the largest and most complete selection of Toy Story products. Fiona would find the Pokemon icon and go straight there, ignoring the rest of the ruckus on the page. 48 tin. u? 71 and! N11 or“ X“! Olly w; I: - >I» ‘ ' 2' £ 10.15 3i - I! w . *L. It If ‘0'”:th A speciality store is Are You Game, which carries only toys for the mind - games and puzzle. Are You Game does not have as many categorizations as eToys due to this specialized nature. However, there are extra sortings, hidden in the drop down menus on the left, listing types like ”brain teasers” and ”magic” under ”Your Interests", and ”Dr. Seuss” and ”Peanuts" under ”Your Favorites”. These menus will take some exploring for a first-timer, but are not very difficult to remember, although I think ”Your Favorites” should be named ”Favorite Character”. The rest of the page is pretty typical of other toy sites - thumbnails of the product listed as specials on the front page, with super savings and other ads. Notice, however, on the lower right hand corner, is the ”Our Favorites" recommendation link. This is surprising, since a 49 -u¢s recommendation link is like a sales associates making suggestions to the customers. Leaving it in this most inconspicuous corner is, in my opinion, not the best way to garner business. Since most of the games are for multiple players, Delia thinks she might be able to get away with buying one game per family, which means she has to select the games carefully, catering to the ages of the kids. Two of the three families have children of similar age, and the third has a variance of six years between the youngest and the eldest. In order to find a game suitable for them, Delia would have to think hard about what the kids enjoy most and look under those categories. In a physical store, she might have to read the instructions to figure out whether or not the game is suitable, but unfortunately, this is not given in the detailed description of the game, even as a summary. Well, at least the categories in the drop down menus are using large enough fonts. 50 W. W"? 73' .n-mm 3.3.7. ' - ‘ (ammo flamers-gags? . mm mmm ' ' ' " "' ‘ mmwimrmm- h...- u I. ”4".“ are 'uor y.‘ a.“ all m’ has-i; , rum mg «5’33" 3" ‘11 Egan-n. ,‘I 2'!‘ ..I . .. .. .. SmarterKids targets its sales pitch at the parents, providing more in-depth reviews and ranking of the educational toys. This is actually quite a good selling point, which is why SmarterKids reserves a unusually large area on the screen for the age group category, coupled with icons. It also offers a ”Parents Center” for advice seekers. If I were the designer, I would move the ”learning style” survey to the top of the page or into this ”Parents Center” to let the parents find matches for their children. SmarterKids would be perfect for Eric, in search of a ’parenting tool’ for his daughter. He might have to look 51 somewhere else for the the Toy Story figurine, but he will be sure to bookmark this site the next time he needs some advice. Delia could use of the advice on the site as well. There are the ”Gift Ideas”, ”Best Sellers” and ”20 under $20” recommendations, which she could not go too wrong with. With only two main columns / colors of information to tackle, Delia can definitely understand the layout of the site much faster than some of the other sites. 3.4. Clothes and accessories A study by PeopleSupport finds that women make up 50% of online shoppers. [Bung] Also, in an article distributed by the Washington Post, the reporters reported that, ”...women are not only going online for the first time at a greater rate than men, they are opening their purses to electronic merchants faster than predicted. made women hungry for the convenience and lower prices the Internet promises [Stou].” Shopping for clothing is very personal yet the customer rarely knows in advance exactly what he or she wants - color, texture, style, size and fit are all important considerations for such items. The customer likes the option of feeling the fabric, trying on the item, matching it with other items and so on. Trying to imitate this shopping procedure as closely as possible is an online challenge, which prompted Internet-based companies to open up physical stores. [Stei] The other alternative for the customer when unable to try on the clothes at the store would be to risk ordering it, then returning if unsuitable. Thus, sizing measurements and the return policy should be in a prominent and / or easily accessible place on 52 the page. And because it has to be customized, I relaxed the rule of the 'front page', for my analysis, to the secondary pages leading into either the men’s or women’s section. I found the largest variance in the design of the online storefront in this category. There are the usual new items, sale, customer service, categories, shopping basket, etc., but the look and placement of these menus and choices vary so much from site to site that a user usually has to re—leam the interface of each site. Although a similar look—and-feel helps the user, it also nullifies the uniqueness of the site. It is thus necessary that each of the sites who emphasize selling 'individuality’ be different in layout but similar in function. Like design or advertisement companies, a major part of the site design is to impress. It is also interesting to note that most of these sites do not have a search function. The products are so irregular that there is really no standard to address them, for example, jeans, pants, trousers, chinos, stretch, regular, twill, cargo, khaki, etc. can all be used to describe various types of trousers-like wear. The color naming convention is also non-standard with names like oatmeal, ivory, bone or cream referring to similar yet slightly differing shades. Unless the customer already has the catalog number handy, it is almost impossible to find an item based on the ’name’ of the piece of clothing. Furthermore, the menu hierarchy of most sites are shallow enough for the user to engage in only a few clicks before getting to a page which they can browse through specific selections. 53 I elected to look at the ladies’ clothing section of the these stores, if there was a choice. Most of the sites were selling winter clothing, with the possibility of their summer stock on sale. Although they are all selling coats and gloves, each of the site pushes its own style and fashion, instead of factory-pressed products as with toys. 3.4.1. Profiles Although very few men will shop for female clothing, Gary represents the population who shop for someone dear. Gary needs to get a birthday present for his wife but feels uncomfortable walking into a boutique alone. He knows her size and somewhat her style and taste in her wardrobe, but he really wants something that is vogue and slightly spicy to surprise her. Gary does not really know the names of the boutiques, nor the different classifications of women’s clothing. He might even not have the particular measurements that are required by some companies, for example, he probably does not know his wife’s arm length or inseam measurements. In other words, Gary needs lots of help, but is somewhat embarrassed to ask. He thought he might give online shopping a try, hoping that it might provide enough information for him to make a decision. Helen is a mother looking for a good deal on the web together with her pre-teen daughters. Her kids are rapidly out-growing their current set of clothes, and Helen would like 54 to get something cheap but chic. Instead of going to the local mall with the unmanageable kids, Helen is amicable to the idea of an afternoon of quiet shopping, not having to constantly tend to the kids. Helen has been keeping in touch with technology and she is not uncomfortable with the Web, using it almost daily to send emails to her friends. Like most bargain hunters, she is drawn towards a sale. After settling her kids down in front of the computer, Helen closes her eyes and thinks of all the boutiques and clothing stores she frequents in the mall, plugs the store names into her browser, and hopes that they will lead to the relevant sites. Helen also goes to a search engine to look for some potential sites and finds links to most of the the major brands/ designers. As a college senior, Irene needs to get a few good outfits for her upcoming interviews. She will need formal blouses and pants, some shoes and possible a suit or two. Irene is on a budget, but she knows that she will have to spend some money on a good suit. From experience, she knows that especially for suits, she will have to try them on for their particular cuts and fits, and most likely she will have try on quite a few before finding something that really fits. With this in mind, Irene is also on a look-out for the company’ 3 return policy and any 'personal shopper’ services that might help her in securing the best fit with the least price. The college town Irene lives in does not have a large mall with the classy boutiques she needs, thus she thought she might be able to find a better selection using online stores, crossing the 55 accessibility barrier. Eddie Bauer lists only one special item (laptop case) on its storefront homepage. The rest are links to holiday shopping and other departments. Since an English-speaking user’ 3 eyes tend to start reading from the left, the picture on the left naturally guides the eyes to the main menu (men’s, women’s. . .) using the same background framing. It seems strange that the major attractions of the page is to get people to sign up for the mailing list and watch real video rather than purchase clothes. The menu on top has a drop down sub- category list for users whose browsers have DHI'ML 56 I) capabilities, or defaults to the first sub-category for users without DHTML. Each sub-category is then divided into yet another level of product classification users have to sort through. For example, women’s -> sweaters -> solid cotton sweaters, patterned cotton sweaters, sweater vests, and cardigans. This is great for database management and merchant classification, but may not coincide with the train of thought of a casual shopper, since a random shopper would most probably have little idea of the name of the product he or she is looking for. Fortunately, the site provides a thumbnail for each category, and all product names are listed in this same page, avoiding the need for the user to burrow to a deeper layer for the wrong items. ’ . . 7 £((l.14: .bttngxr To Helen, a bricks-and-mortar Eddie Bauer store looks very different from their online storefront. The familiar men’s and 57 women’s division in its bricks-and-mortar stores is not the center stage here. However, Helen swiftly adjusts. She takes a look at the ”Bonus Buy” selection, decides she is not interested, and goes to the ”women’s” department (either through the drop down menu on the left, or the overhead menu on the top). After clicking through a few categories, Helen realizes she has to click on the ”view all” button to take a closer look at the products - the thumbnails are simply too small to tell the difference in order to make an informed decision. This expands the subcategory menu on the left and loads pictures of each item in that product line. The dress clothes from Eddie Bauer are a little difficult for Irene to locate, since she has to go under ”Dress Casual” and look for ”Blazers 8: Jackets”. She would have spotted this section immediately if she had walked into a physical store. 58 3.4.3. Vanna '0an r"... u,“ , ._~.. . 'u $ V--‘ at -74"... s «bop—q.- ~ ,. .4’ ,5 gnu much up.“ won..- 1.... v J"7>_l'1'-1i '..- e ‘ r ..n: Compared to Eddie Bauer, Gap’s page is more focused on getting the users into their shopping area - men’s, women’s and others — using complementary colors, large but simple graphics, and limited choices. The page is also small enough to fit into even the smallest screen settings (640x480), which a lot of sites are ignoring. Gap used to have a comparison page, where the user can view two similar products side by side. (Great for products like jeans.) I was quite disappointed when they removed this feature, probably due to the high maintenance and need for multiple images and modeling. 59 “oceanic-ou- ”a... u... u. - m» C."- aw mm»: "I-*:;ME3 ~* ’9’ - -- -"-' ._- *4 ' -‘-I a “.‘:"l" O Y-'.»"ao ' n g . a _,,.__.. .k :“l- p .9. ,._:_._ I... .... _ ,. SNMI‘BHIV‘IDI!‘ ~.M“t'-.*L “0 fir' I“ 1‘: - ”U “in ,u »-~.7-:-.? r27 xiv m ‘nn‘xl‘ O . . a b. ewxr.‘.t‘c'?.4j massif «0- mm; ml. I VI to I1. Lea Arr-t L”. Gap uses a similar classification as Eddie Bauer, except for the ”view as images”. With the same amount of magnification, Helen is able to look at all the selections under a category instead. Although it takes longer to load, Helen gets to compare the entire catalog on a single page, rather than clicking back and forth among the different sub-sub- categories. This overall view would also benefit Gary, not having to guess at the names of items. 60 55—1“.de ' 5"?”1’35“ a as s; ‘ 28m. The mail-order powerhouse Lands’ End duplicated its large inserts from its catalog onto the web page, featuring a detailed shot of a single jacket. This would look great in a printed catalog, but the browser window is unable to display it all, both size and details, and thus loses the effect it achieved in the catalog. This picture serves more as window dressing than anything else. Lands’ End cleverly left the ”women’s” and ”men’s” link on this picture, which is good since the dark- blue-on-blue tabs on top do not really get noticed as a menu. On side note, the way my window was sized (640x480), I missed the entire column on the right numerous times, until I was taking screenshots. This is because of the large amount 61 all. of white space in that comer, deceiving users into thinking that they have seen everything on the page. As such, items listed on the bottom right are likely to be overlooked. Lands’ End has a lot more categories for Irene’s needs, tailored or casual, sorted in ”petite”, ”tall", and ”18W~26W”. Clicking on ”T ailored” lists all the sub-categories with a thumbnail. The thumbnails in the sub-subcategories are more visible, but not as detailed as one might like them. Irene can also take advantage of the "Personal Model" who would try on clothes for her. Like Eddie Bauer, Lands’ End’s ”view all" lists only images from the sub-sub-category, and Gary would have to move in and out of the categories to find 62 3.4.5. something, confusing him further since he is already unfamiliar with the names and terminology. ”w, ., . .,.. . .. in man I was}! cw ’ - mm a 52m 3ij “ Drum-r mm P“ Bills Like Gap, Dockers presents a minimalistic page, with key items and distinctive text. The special links on the left, khaki ’ticket’ and ”Mystery Men” logo, stand out a lot more than other sites with a million and one things on them. Again, Dockers’ page fits into a 640x480 window easily, giving the user a overall view of the available choices. The only thing I was unhappy about is the interaction with the menu on the left. A mouse rollover expanded a pseudo sub-menu, a description set in list form which gave the appearance of being clickable. I was quite disappointed when I was unable to click on this list, or on any of the pictures in the squares above. 63 .m al~1ut-':.-u ' ' g; ant-w}. m...- 4‘ 3th; 7!!! ' l;!lt l Lad”, l «a nun-1 ; ,1 Lu '- ‘ "L" I“ The women’s page does seem to have a more sophisticated air compared to the others that Irene has seen. Browsing through the choices provided by various links to other selections, although not in an easily visible or strict hierarchy, is more congruent to the way Helen shops in a physical store shops — by related items - since she does not have anything precise on her shopping list. For example, the Trends collection can be found through "Collections" -> "See The Trends Collection," and can also be found on the individual item page (e.g. Capri Utility Khakis). This keeps the ’browsing’ users like Helen around and interested in the collections, but might annoy goal—oriented users like Gary by leading him round and round to the same items. 3.4.6. jcrewcom a it’s rim time agais .. - u “ l .......‘_..,_._. Again, simple and distinctive graphical choices as we look at J. Crew’ s page — men’s, women’s, specials, sales - all neatly within the smallest window size. By listing menu items horizontally (instead of vertically in a column) saves a lot of redundant wrapping space. The site also maintains this horizontal flow in their clothing list, where the user would scroll and read through the selections in a left-to-right manner. One would think that this less common presentation will disturb visitors, yet]. Crew neatly resolves this problem by having each model's arm, elbow or hand intrude into the unused white space of her neighbor. This then creates a sense of continuity as the user notices a part of the next model and realizes that there is still more to the page. 65 icrew.com Eur 5:33,». an... ._ . ... a, :~Qp’ll: ‘I 9:21:41 150 an; t 1 n “Afillfi \Il' (fllflm N" - at M flunfli -vu uulatuuutum maven. . . \mu ma "(.1 «arm. . '.-.._Ia4~ len‘ I." a“ J ‘I‘“ uumm in“ 0mm (”'I'-IA- unamn All the information that Gary or Helen need is on one single page once they click into the ”women’s" department, with typeface and color differences indicating hierarchy. Irene 66 I .. I ‘1 ‘ \I II a 4 _ a A I- A.- A, . - ..‘ . ., , _ I . a . '4 .' .. . 5,. ‘ . l'l .n.-. - t.‘ n.- .uifi . ;.. I “~- ‘ED is u .o ‘U.’- C III e . I . I ‘ l ' '. l. . 1 ' ' ' . i . .1 even got some help from the ”ideas @ wor ” consultant for working clothes. 3.4.7. dEliAsfi-cflm . niwuoc hwmni 9“»! m.»- E'WIM¥.-Il #004 .vflh‘fl, -j;~ .- as W: m . ‘n ” ' , $.43; fins-.9!- ”the .austb- 'U‘M-riqlrtn I“ '1'. 0 “£171" N "no; . {arson-~ .u aspwwnhu. sun, . A-p.,. VIVIWCi’ “um, ...i L'b‘ul . r. . Ip‘ql‘fl -4 yes; N‘Ji' . -- ...... .u..u. Teenagers would definitely want to check out dELiAs. Its flashy and 'gossipy’ colors and looks work well in attracting girls of that age. With fashion guides and astrology readings, dELiAs aims to create a sense of community to keep its users coming back and sharing. Whether intended or not, the page layout is slightly disorganized, with five or more regions of information - sales bubbles in the center, highlighted topics on the left, related information on the right, a shopping- related sphere on the top right, and a tiny menu in the top 67 center. The user’s eyes will be guided to the center bubbles, but more time is needed to understand the other bubbles. For example, the ”Yours is a sign...” Taurus bubble and the ”Number among the great..." hash bubble are expansions of the lounge bubble (forward triangle in light blue) in the menu. With no guide as to which sub-menu they belong to, the user has to immerse herself into the symbols on the page first before comprehending this subtle relationship. This same example also shows the Taurus bubble in orange while being part of the lounge, which has a light blue bubble. The designer has thus missed using color as a useful relationship defining tool. The model-in-a-bubble really brings forth the discounted items to Helen and her two daughters, especially her middle school girl, who is sensitive to what the ”in” things are. Also, the yellow bubble with ”Start Shopping” and other essential links channels Helen's attention towards her task so that she does not feel too lost in the site. 68 3.4.8. WORLD PIECE 1 si‘f‘ figs; 3's}. 3."?! #701! s"): a! (1,»; ’J' . and. b‘ ..l... ... ..A l..|' ‘- weets! run-(Mr we 4: womo PIECE 2.: ~ ‘50: mt mums: oar :sQ- Q 5:553 ‘rF ‘0: A g I .5 .7“ ‘- L {3' $1": it"s- ” d ,D‘I‘O 3T; ’3. "s 3. H5575 17-3. f't“. €13?th wt us; 1 um um aloonduolluui Ibo «h {nuns-1| u it»! use d I. ”1 Our-Iv!- Mr no 'nl ~du’tfi0 «halogen. “0‘ law We“ 1H» I‘D “fi-#’ '1»; World Piece is by far the least sophisticated page among all. It does not have models to parade the clothes, nor graphic artists to touch up images. The font sizes are different, images are dithered, and buttons are bland. The page layout also needs work. I was quite surprised to discover that the company is actually serious about its site, since it does frequently update its selections. 69 WORLD PIECE fl '3 “M." x“... I}; I’ve .H'ut‘ d ‘4“ It tn, a'l .. ..... hat”: 7“ - {-140 in!“ 1'- ‘5‘. M. l.“ ‘ ' h'sm . ' r flu?" “aura-v.1 ”our: “in W". . ‘ ' t“- ‘I'... h- he.“ was 1‘- 40a. ' 'i-‘J 99.4.01 .“ " '” " "“'""""‘" ‘0! ‘....-;'.' l fry-basin, .' .6- -."~' Madam «a K —-.-' .-... b r‘ {r v.11 0.13? g] \n‘h- UL ' ' ' V d ran-J6 x I ‘nhn‘;; A .Nh'Jl'hflypA-‘f‘ i Irene was not impressed by World Piece’s page at all. She took a look at the suits and pants selections and decided that the site does not inspire confidence nor assurance, but instead left a disconcerting feeling that her orders would be filled by amateurs. The description of each item is very detailed and honest, but she encountered several database errors while retrieving the images, leaving her with the impression that although the company may be good at selling clothes, it is not good at selling clothes online. 70 rung-um». run-st uv- . nu 9r x‘J‘ Lu. u‘.‘ an: tan . "