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