Website Design Considerations - Case Study Example

Website Design Considerations Designing a website to market a product line begins with the overview of what the firm expects from the website. This will be driven by what the customer needs, and what the site's visitors expectations will be. The myriad aspects must include usability and user-friendliness. The site must be quick, efficient, and intuitive to use. E-commerce researcher Lin Hsui-Fen found that convenience, product offerings, and financial security were the major aspects of customer satisfaction (p.356). The layout, design, colors, and graphics must be geared to the audience it is intended to attract, as well as being product appropriate. These considerations carry even more weight when we explore the factors that will determine a successful website that markets toys. The complexity of marketing toys on the Internet begins with the target audience. The website offering toys will be visited by young children, their parents, and grandparents. There will be vast differences in Internet capability and a wide variety of tastes. The site should be simple enough to navigate for a 10-year-old child, yet offer the sense of security and trust required for an adult to feel comfortable. The test of 3 websites offered by major toy retailers showed some important differences in usability across age groups. To begin the investigation, we attempted to shop for two toys on etoys.com, toysrus.com, and fatbraintoys.com. These sites were selected by their prominence on the major search engines, which indicate they are probably most selected by consumers. While toysrus.com and etoys.com are for general toys, fatbraintoys.com has a niche market for educational toys. We looked for an erector set for a ten-year-old boy, and a Barbie doll for a ten-year-old girl. While toysrus.com used age brackets, such as 3-4 and 5-7 years of age, etoys.com and fatbraintoys.com listed each age below 8 separately. In addition, the website fatbraintoys.com listed all ages and both genders separately, which was very confusing. This may be overkill as an appropriate toy for a 6 year old may also be appropriate for a 5 or 7 year old. Age bracketing reduces clicks and aids navigation. However, in all cases, the shopper was presented with the total inventory of the store for that age group, which could be thousands of items. Shopping by department fared no better. On toysrus.com, we looked for the erector set under building sets and retrieved hundreds of different toys. Narrowing the search by age the results were still overwhelming. Simply shopping for an erector set was not realistic. Only on fatbraintoys.com was the erector set a separate category. However, the search for a Barbie doll was much simpler. ToysRUs and etoys had a listing for 'characters' and 'brand', and Barbie was listed as a main category of toy. In fact, toysrus.com had 50 items listed under the Barbie category priced from $10 to $200. The Barbie department at etoys.com had over 100 Barbie items. The site operated by fatbraintoys did not carry a Barbie doll. When the search was narrowed to the 2008 Holiday Barbie doll, toysrus.com and etoys.com had the doll and both were identically priced. All three websites offered toys that were categorized as boy's or girl's toys. Marketing differentiation is a difficult task on the Internet, and will certainly come down to product placement. Shopping for an erector set simply by narrowing the age group or shopping a department would take more time and patience than any child or adult would expend. However, all three sites have an easy to use site-specific search engine. By entering the word 'erector', all three sites returned their selection of erector sets. However, there were significant differences in the results. While etoys.com listed 3 different erector sets priced between $40 and $100, fatbraintoys.com listed 20 different sets in the range of $18 to $90. However, though toysrus.com only listed 8 different sets, they covered the wider price range of from $20 to $300. Clearly, when a consumer is shopping for a specific class of item, they will want a wide selection. A greater variety and price range will be one of the most differentiating features of a toy website. All 3 websites offered thumbnail pictures of the items being offered. By clicking on the thumbnails, the consumer was offered a page with a full description, customer reviews, and any other pertinent information (age appropriateness, battery requirements, stock condition, and shipping time). In addition, etoys.com offered free shipping on minimum amount orders as an extra inducement to purchase. All three sites had a method to track previously placed orders as a customer convenience. In addition, toysrus.com offered a baby registry and gift cards. Because toysrus.com also has brick and mortar outlets, it has a handy store locator on its site. The site fatbraintoys.com has several resources for customers such as American made, toy safety, and special needs. These extra additions to the site are a helpful addition to the customer only if they are easy to use. The look and feel of a website is an important aspect of the companies identity and the comfort that a customer will feel when visiting the site. The site should have a form, color scheme, and theme that is product appropriate. Tim Brown, website designer, notes that, "Color is the single greatest way to influence your viewers. You can have a beautiful layout and a host of great features, but if the colors are not "right" it can cancel out any positive impressions your viewers may make". All three of the sites researched used bright colors with red, blue, and yellow predominating. These are the colors that are traditionally associated with children's toys. When I visited websites that sold tools, the color scheme was more edgy. It tended to be black, maroon, and gray. These colors are more closely associated with industrial applications. In addition, the graphics on the toy websites were lighthearted, without being frivolous. There were no sharp corners or hi-tech graphics. One of the major complaints about websites in general is that they are too busy. The toy websites were utilitarian and did not have meaningless animation or useless graphics to wade through. When designing a website for any purpose, there are two main questions that need to be answered. First; what will induce a customer to return to the site Second, what will prevent them from returning While there is some overlap between the brick and mortar stores and the Internet, there are also some major differences that must be taken into consideration. People will return to a website to shop because they have confidence in the product, service, and pricing. In the area of toys, Toys-R-Us has an advantage as a major toy retailer that has benefited from national advertising and multiple sales outlets. They have a recognizable name and that translates into buyer trust. The website operated by etoys.com is less recognizable and may present some reluctance on the consumer when they consider product support, warranty follow up, or return policies. Website operators would be well situated to actively promote these intangible assets on their website to alleviate consumer concerns. A toll free number for customer service is a must. Only fatbraintoys.com passed on this important aspect. While all three websites had a published return policy, etoys.com failed to list it as a category on their home page, and the consumer needed to search for it. This may dissuade some consumers from shopping on these sites. In addition to the reasons that a consumer returns to a website to shop for toys, are the reasons that they will be reluctant to shop. The biggest reason people will not shop on the Internet is because of a lack of trust (Cyr, Bonanni, Bowes, & Ilsever, 2005, p.8). Lack of trust is included in the failure to provide a direct method of contact and the failure to publicize the return policy. However, these small infractions can be overcome by price, selection, and reputation. A bigger concern of consumers is the concern they have of their personal information being compromised (Turban & Gehrke, 2000, p.114). A customer will not give their credit or debit card information out without a great deal of assurance that it is secure. Here, a website can be proactive. The site bigbraintoys.com offers a checkout that was clearly labeled 'secure checkout'. Both bigbraintoys.com and etoys advertised the fact that they were using the well-reputed secure systems of McAfee or Geosystems to insure the security of the customer's personal information. Toysrus.com had a notice that they used a secure transaction method, but provided few details for the nervous consumer. However, once the consumer moved to the checkout phase, the screens became more businesslike and professional. The fonts were changed and the colors were black and more appropriate for a money transaction. This instilled a higher level of comfort for the customer. In addition to the security of the transmitted data are the site registration screens. Many of the features, and of course ordering, requires a registration and an account. This personal information is subject to use based on the websites 'privacy policy'. Both toysrus.com and etoys.com had long and involved policies that were difficult to read and understand for the average consumer that is pressed for time. The website etoys.com has a policy that states they will share your personal information to 'partners' for advertising and marketing purposes. This invites spam e-mails and unwanted pop-up advertising. Toysrus.com has a policy that states they do not share any information, but the wording was listed in a lengthy list of policy attributes. Only bigbraintoys.com had a simple three paragraph policy that stated they did not share any information. Website marketers, whether for toys or tools, would be at an advantage to have a customer friendly policy of complete privacy for personal information. In conclusion, there are myriad aspects that must be considered when setting out to design a website that offers toys for sale. While the children may do some browsing and looking, it is the adult that will need to navigate these sites. The use of categories such as was found in reference to the Barbie doll are helpful in directing the site traffic to the product. Breaking down products to excess, such as all ages and genders listed separately, adds to the site's confusion and is not helpful. Clearly, once the products are located the primary concern will be selection and price. The website that has the largest selection at the best price will have a decided advantage. The website should also follow a color scheme and theme that is appropriate for the product. For toys, the bright primary colors and the lightness of rounded and simple graphics gave a feeling of warmth and trustworthiness. After the toys are selected, the intangibles of return policy, privacy policy, and personal contact become important. The checkout must also be made secure and the customer needs to be informed that it is. Any personal information exchanged should be secure and available only for the purposes put forth in the privacy policy. This policy should be short and easy to understand. The most important issues that should be followed when establishing a website to market toys are comfortable look and feel, ease of use, selection, price, and most importantly trust. Bibliography Brown, T., (2006), "Do your website colors help, or hurt, your sales", BLT-Web, viewed 4 August 2008 < http://blt-web.com/articles/website_colors.php> Cyr, D., Bonanni, C., Bowes, J., & Ilsever, J., (2005), "Beyond trust: Website design preferences across cultures", White Paper, Simon Fraser University, Surrey CA etoys.com, (2008), eToys Direct, Inc., viewed 4 August 2008 fatbraintoys.com, (2008), Fat Brain Toys LLC., viewed 4 August 2008 Hsui-Fen, L., (2007), "The impact of quality website dimensions on customer satisfaction in the B2C e-commerce context", Total Quality Management, vol.18 (4), pp.363-378 toysrus.com, (2008), Geoffrey, Inc., viewed 4 August 2008 Turban, E., & Gehrke, D., (2000), "Determinants of e-commerce website", Human Systems Management, vol.19, pp.111-120 Read More