Designing to Sell Online: Persuasive Power in Action  

Electronic commerce promises to radically transform business. To remain competitive, businesses must address many issues before success can be realized. Key to the success of ecommerce will be the effectiveness of the web design interface interacting with consumers. Our user-centered case study, which received an STC Research Grant last July, evaluates consumer attitudes to the on-line shopping experience by observing this interaction. We measure the rhetorical power of design elements on an e-commerce site by using classical rhetoric as the theoretical framework for analyzing our results. This paper reports the preliminary findings of this research.

Winn, Wendy and Kati Beck. STC Proceedings (2000). Design>Web Design>E Commerce>Rhetoric

Did Poor Usability Kill E-Commerce?

User success rates on e-commerce sites are only 56%, and most sites comply with only a third of documented usability guidelines. Given this, improving a site's usability can substantially increase both sales and a site's odds of survival.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Do Too Many Graphics Reduce Sales Page Conversion Rates?

Optimizing an offer page to maximize the number of people who make a purchase or pay for a subscription is a delicate process. You need to get the balance just right.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2006). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>E Commerce

Does the Intrusiveness of an Online Advertisement Influence User Recall and Recognition?

This study investigated the effect of the type (banner ad, pop-up ad and floating ad) and state (animated and non-animated) of online advertisements on recall and recognition of the advertisements. It was hypothesized that floating ads, pop-up ads, and animated ads would be easier to recall due to their intrusive nature. Results showed that participants in the pop-up ad and floating ad condition had better recall of the presence of the ad as well as better recognition. Animation did not significantly influence any of these measures.

Shrestha, Sav. Usability News (2006). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Donation Gravity: An Analysis of Donations Made to the Red Cross through Amazon's Honor System

In light of recent terrorist attacks on the United States, Amazon.com set up a page to collect donations for the Red Cross. Over the course of about two and half days, I recorded the donation activity on that page. An analysis of the data revealed that the average amount of money donated by each person steadily increased (i.e., donation gravity). This manifestation of donation gravity is discussed, along with several usability ideas that can help you design a better online donation web page.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2001). Design>Web Design>E Commerce>Usability

E-Commerce

In e-commerce sites the crucial design parameters are efficient navigation and search, along with speed to the final 'place order' button. During the 'dot-com' market bubble many new e-commerce sites spent fortunes of their investors' money on elaborate Macromedia Flash or digital video presentations and quickly failed — some went bankrupt before the site was launched. Meanwhile, the Web's most successful commerce sites kept things technically simple and basic. Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, and other successful Web commerce sites use remarkably spare page design schemes and simple text- or tab-based navigation systems. Another area where e-commerce sites often fail is in providing search engines that are smart enough to 'degrade gracefully' when there is no exact match to a request.

Lynch, Patrick J. and Sarah Horton. Yale University (1999). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

E-Commerce Imagery: Persuading with Pictures

The use of effective images to sell online is crucial. Read through these essential guidelines and find out how to use images to increase conversion rates.

Kodali, Mrudula. Webcredible (2007). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

E-Commerce Usability

This website is for people who want to improve the usability of their e-commerce site.

Userfocus (2003). Design>Usability>E Commerce>Web Design

E-Shop Accessibility: From Theory to Reality

This article will explain how it is possible to apply WCAG 1.0 (and also how to comply with the future WCAG 2.0 and ISO 9241-151) to create an accessible e-shop shopping-cart and backend management system, analyzing the problems and the proposed solutions.

Lemon, Gez. Juicy Studio (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>E Commerce

An eCommerce Primer for Technical Communicators  

The burgeoning eCommerce industry has redefined not only traditional business processes, but the technology required to impart them. Roles are being created or redefined, where programmers, systems analysts, and engineers now have to have almost as much knowledge of business process development as they do of their technical specialty. The same can be said for technical communicators. Technical communicators involved in eCommerce today need to have an understanding of the major issues involved in eCommerce. This paper addresses five of these major eCommerce areas: the statistics behind eCommerce issues, eCommerce infrastructure providers, managed electronic commerce, business object technology, and data mining.

Le Vie, Donald S., Jr. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Web Design>E Commerce

ecommUSE user experience strategy

The first objective of this research was to build up substantive knowledge about which specific factors make customers trust e-commerce websites. The second objective was to build up and validate methodological knowledge in the form of tools that HCI practitioners can use to design and evaluate trust-shaping factors in e-commerce websites. On the basis of literature on trust and e-commerce surveys, a first model of trust in e-commerce (MoTEC) was developed. Through user tests, the initial model was refined to increase its descriptive power. The final MoTEC model contains four main dimensions, containing components and subcomponents.

Egger, Florian N. Eindhoven University (2003). Books>Web Design>User Centered Design>E Commerce

Eight Quick Tips for a More Usable E-Commerce Web Site

If you are a Web site developer and you want to create a safe, warm, and comfortable e-commerce environment for your users, then you will want to consider several issues. Start first by thinking about your own online shopping and purchasing concerns. What do you like? What don't you like? What do think are the indicators of online security and personal and financial privacy?

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (1999). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Examining the Role of De Facto Standards on the Web

Just what are the design practices on the web that have the highest frequency? And are there design practices that all (or nearly all) sites employ?

Adkisson, Heidi P. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>Standards>E Commerce

Filter and Sort: Improving Ecommerce Product Findability

Filtering and sorting are essential for helping users find the products they're looking for. Find out how to make best use of this essential functionality.

Webb, Jonathan. Webcredible (2006). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

From E-Sex to E-Commerce: Web Search Strategies  

The authors examine the idea that human information needs and searching behaviors are evolving along with Web content.

Jansen, Bernard J., Tefko Saracevic, Amanda Spink and Dietmar Wolfram. Pennsylvania State University (2002). Design>Web Design>Search>E Commerce

Good Information Architecture Increases Online Sales

This article explains how information architecture can impact the sales process, and how and effective information architecture can help a site flourish.

Walsh, Ivan. SitePoint (2003). Design>Web Design>Information Design>E Commerce

Guide to Buying Traffic

While many niches depend on PPC search traffic, there’s a wide group of sites that benifit from bought traffic from individual sites. Often times you can get very high quality traffic that converts very well from niches that tend to deal in a more direct site to site type traffic deal, rather than 3rd party ad networks. This guide is mostly to be used when buying traffic from forums, from individual websites, and from “plug” type packages, yet there are many things that transfer over to more traditional PPC outlets.

Robbins, Kyle. ReEncoded (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization>E Commerce

Hats Off to Your Own Web Business

Sahil Parikh built and runs his web app DeskAway a world away in Mumbai, India. In this article he shares some of the things he’s learned and hats he’s worn while creating his successful and profitable web app business.

Parikh, Sahil. Vitamin (2008). Articles>Management>Web Design>E Commerce

How FreshDirect Delivered e-Commerce Success

The lessons for FreshDirect's usability success can be applied to many e-commerce businesses.

Seiden, Alan. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Is There a Way Out Beyond Google to Bring in Revenues?

No webmaster worth his salt can rule out the indispensability of Google for enhancing the prospects of one's business potential the online way. The ways and means to augment your business statistics are fine as long as they are paving the way in your business interest. The fact is that end results are always important and determine the continuation of a set of strategies or tactics in the future. Notwithstanding the enormous benefits accruing from top positions in Google's rankings, you will end up to lose sight of the long term survival if you drive your business on a Google-only focus.

Azam, Rahbre. Amateur Writerz (2008). Articles>Web Design>E Commerce>Search Engine Optimization

Issues You Will Confront When Using Third Parties To Build Out Sites

Nearly every ecommerce site revolves around a database to support inventory, listings and transactions. Building out the database can be a challenge. Here is what to expect.

Pires, Halstatt. Ezine Articles (2006). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>E Commerce

The Latest Hot Trend Tests Usability of Web Sites

E-tailers grapple with everything from out-of-sight marketing costs to troubles with shipping. But another problem is close to home: Sites are hard to use, and that's turning off customers. Thirty leading e-commerce Web sites are riddled with flaws, concludes a soon-to-be-released site usability report. The study by Forrester Research and User Interface Engineering, a Bradford, Mass., usability testing company, is based on the experiences of 18 customers who were given $50 to buy things online. Amazon.com, L.L. Bean's site and REI.com were among the 30 sites surveyed. Forrester will issue the full report card later this month, but all sites had flaws. Shoppers in the test ran into dozens of problems that ranged from locating products to finding enough information to make a purchase decision to checking out.

Riedman, Patricia. AdAge.com (2000). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Lessons in Internationalization  

By examining some of the mistakes his company made while implementing an e-commerce Web site, Larson demonstrates the complexity of internationalization.

Intercom (2004). Design>Web Design>Localization>E Commerce

Live or Die on the First Screen

Pick up a Sears catalog and you can flick through the pages and get pretty close to the exact product you want in less than 5 seconds. Now visit an unfamiliar e-commerce site and you'd better put aside a few minutes to figure out where to find what you want, if it's there at all.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2002). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

The Money Page

Low tech, high yield: A funny thing happened on the way to the shopping cart. One Web designer found a simpler way to make e-commerce pay. Alan Herrell shows you The Money Page.

Herrell, Alan. List Apart, A (1999). Articles>Web Design>E Commerce