Design and Functionality of Business Sites - Case Study Example

Topic: Assess the Design and Functionality of Existing and Established e-Business Sites Introduction: E-business is defined as the organised effortsof the individual to produce and sell, for a profit, the products and services that satisfy society's needs through the facilities available on the internet. A business must combine human, material, informational and financial resource, in the e-business, some specialised resources are required. With the presence of the internet specialised human resources are required like people who design, create, and maintain web sites. Material resources include specialised computers, equipment, software and high speed internet connection lines. The specialised informational resources include the computer programs that track the efficiency of the firm's web site operations and that offer insight into customer's interactions with the web site. Greater participation by the individual entrepreneurs and the venture capitalists for the money required for the firm's initiation, maintenance and growth. Some of the new customer's needs that could not be possible by the conventional business practices are satisfied by the e-business along with the traditional needs. (1. William. M. Pride) Methods of evaluation of websites: The evolution of any internet strategy develops over four phases; conceptualisation, development, integration and evaluation. Computerised evaluation methodologies: The potential for using the website itself to collect and analyse the evaluative data, is one of the most exciting prospects for the website evaluators. The most important methodological areas of this type are the use of software to monitor, analyse and report on the utilisation of this site. Another way to employ the website itself for evaluation is to construct online surveys to collect users' information and feed back. Becker gave a detailed description as to how this can be accomplished; he has given the procedure to construct forms and the details of different input that can be created in constructing a form. Common gate way interface (CGI) that can be used to process the data that users submit through online forms, a number of simple and practical approaches to storing and accessing submitted form data including how to have the data automatically sent to an e-mail address and the use of a generic CGI script program that can save the data to disk in a variety of formats that can then be imported into databases and statistical programs for analysis have also been described by him. Survey methodology: Surveys can be used during the conceptualisation and development phases to conduct market research, identify potential users and ascertain their information needs and computer expertise. It can be conducted during the implementation and evaluation phases to assess user reactions to both content and usability of the site. Experimental and quasi-experimental designs: Experimental and quasi-experimental designs are the major tools that the evaluators have for addressing the questions like effectiveness, benefit or return attributable to the site itself as opposed to the alternative casual factors. (2.Johns Hopkins) Cognitive walkthrough: The walkthroughs require a detailed review of a sequence of actions. In a code walkthrough, the sequence represents a segment of the program code that is stepped through by the reviewers to check certain characteristics. In the cognitive walkthrough the sequence of actions refers to the steps that an interface will require a user to perform in order to accomplish some task. The evaluators then step through that action sequence to check it for potential usability problems, the main focus of the cognitive walkthrough is to establish how easy a system is to learn. For doing a cognitive walkthrough four things are required: Fairly detailed description of the prototype of the system such as the location and wording for a menu can make a big difference The description of the task the user is to perform on the system, this should be a representative task that most users will want to do. A complete written list of the actions needed to complete the task with the given prototype. An indication about the users and the kind of experience and knowledge the evaluators can assume about them. Given this information, the evaluators step through the action sequence to critique the system and tell a believable story about its usability. For each action the evaluators try to answer the questions like: The users' reaction to the effect of the action. Ability of the users to notice the availability of the correct action. The reaction of the users for the action, after they found out the correct action at the interface. Ability of the users to understand the feed back they are getting after the action. It is good to produce standard evaluation forms for the walkthrough; any negative answers for any of the negative questions for any particular action should be documented on a separate usability problem report sheet. This information will help the designers to decide the priorities for correcting the designs. (3.Gregory Aboud). Heuristic evaluation: Heuristic evaluation is the usability engineering method for finding the usability problems in a user interface design so that they can be attended as a part of the iterative design process. The ten principles of the heuristic evaluation by jakob neilsen include Visibility of the system status Match between the system and the real world User control and freedom Consistency and standards Error prevention Recognition rather than recall Flexibility and efficiency of use Aesthetic and minimalist design Help users recognise, diagnose and recover from errors Help and documentation.(4. Nielsen, J.1990) Checklist of the evaluation guidelines: The basic evaluation guidelines for the users of the internet that is the CARS check list include: Credibility about the authors' credentials. Accuracy on the upto date and complete knowledge on the information provided. Reasonableness of the author, whether fair or objective. Support, that is the author is available for the support of the information, are the sources listed and about the other sources having similar information. Design and technology like clarity of the pages that is pictures colours and links(5. Robert Harris) Goals of evaluation: Web evaluation begins with defining goals and expectations that are user centered. They are Usability evaluation goal setting Early paper testing Story board testing Interactive prototype setting(6. Albert N Badre) The established and existing three websites: AOL : this web site is the leading online interactive, ICP will be responsible for all communications, hosting and connectivity costs and expenses associated with the linked site, it will use commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that the functionality and features within the linked site are optimised for the client software then in use by the AOL members and supported by the AOL, and do not require an upgrade to the user's browser software or the download of the plug-in. ICP will maintain a graphical user interface within the linked site that is competitive in all material respects with interfaces of other similar sites based on similar technology.(6. AOL ,home page) Yahoo:A leading internet brand globally, and the most trafficked internet destination world wide, its top priority is to provide users with the information they want on any device, to ensure this the company offers a broad and deep array of products and services that provide the users with a power to connect, communicate, create and access and share information online. Lycos: A service provider to the internet community,The lycos net work provides its users the ability to access and edit the personal information in their user profiles. Human computer interaction: The fundamental objective of the human computer interaction is to make systems more usable, more useful, and to provide users with experiences fitting their specific background knowledge and objectives. Designers of collaborative human computer systems face the formidable task of writing software for millions of users while making it work as if it were designed for each individual user. AOL is the best example for this type of definition.(7. GerhardFischer) References: 1. William M. Pride, TexasA&MUniversity, Robert.J.Hughes, Dallas County Community College Jack Kapoor, College of DuPage Business:7th Edition, e-Business , Chapter 4: Navigating the World of e-Business. 2. John Hopkins: centre for communication programs, Web site Evaluation Methods. Available at www.jhuccp.org. 3. Gregory Abowd, CS 3302 Introduction to Software Engineering,Winter 1995,: Performing a Cognitive Walkthrough 4. Nielsen, J., and Molich, R. (1990). Heuristic evaluation of user interfaces, Proc. ACM CHI'90 Conf. (Seattle, WA, 1-5 April), 249-256. 5. Robert Harris: Evaluating Internet Research Sources (1997) available at www.virtualsalt.com 6. Shaping Web Usability: Interaction Design in Context by Albert N Badre pp 236. 7. AOL, technical operating standards: available on line www.aol.com 8. GerhardFischer, User Modelling in Human-Computer Interaction, User Modelling and User-Adapted Interaction, Issue: Volume 11, Numbers 1-2 Date: March 2001 Pages:65 - 86 9. Yahoo, company info available at www.yahoo.com 10. Lycos, home page available at www.lycos.com Read More