Introduction:

ECommerce is growing rapidly. In a stats, online retail sales has been increased an
estimated from 40% from last year in the US (Lawrence Nijjar, Handbook of human
factors in Web design). Websites interface is now a major success factor since customers
interface with seller in cyberspace through the seller websites. Lack of standard interface
features customer move towards another site. It is important to integrate the stand
features for global interface design especially for ecommerce solution where business
depends on electronic transaction.
The purpose of the literature review is to identify and understand the problem domain and
assist in providing the solution of context of the problem as well as answering some
research question. This review will focuses on ecommerce and its interface design of
websites.
About Ecommerce:
Definition: Commercial transaction conducted electronically in the internet (Global
Directory)
Ecommerce mean that where selling and buying of goods and services take place
electronically using EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). According to the online resource,
EDI is an electronic form of communication medium that provides standards for
exchanging information electronically overt the internet.
There lots of definitions are available for ecommerce and it depends on perspectives and
dimensions. EC is the electronic contracting for the exchange of value through the use of
computing and technology (Dr. Jerry Allison).
The technology underlies all of ecommerce; however the main ingredient of running an
eCommerce solution is the Internet. Though, different technologies are available to adopt
an ecommerce solution, such as Wireless Application Protocol. By the help of those
technologies business organization offer their services and products online.
Ecommerce is a fast growing system in the world in terms of speed, security, reliability
and availability. Using ecommerce business organization as well as other organization
does transaction of their information and services online. And every thing is depends on
its driving force called INTRENET.
Internet:
Internet is a buzz word for fast evolving world where life is much more dynamic. Internet
is a source center of information and we can able to find any information as we need.
Today it is part and parcel of our life but very unfortunately it is not as much as cheap
most of the developing countries like Bangladesh. But good news is many of the
organization are working on it and they are interested in doing business online especially
in ecommerce sector. Involving more and more people in ecommerce business we have to
make internet cheaper and make them interested on electronic shopping. By the blessing
of internet it is now possible to buy and sell products or services by clicking mouse in
moments. Let take close look on the global internet user
(http://www.internetworldstats.com)
WORLD INTERNET USAGE AND POPULATION STATISTICS
June 30, 2012
World
Regions
Population
( 2012 Est.)
Internet
Users
Dec. 31,
2000
Internet Users
Latest Data
Penetration
(%
Population)
Growth
2000-2012
Users %
of Table
Africa 1,073,380,925 4,514,400 167,335,676 15.6 % 3,606.7 % 7.0 %
Asia 3,922,066,987 114,304,000 1,076,681,059 27.5 % 841.9 % 44.8 %
Europe 820,918,446 105,096,093 518,512,109 63.2 % 393.4 % 21.5 %
Middle East 223,608,203 3,284,800 90,000,455 40.2 % 2,639.9 % 3.7 %
North
America
348,280,154 108,096,800 273,785,413 78.6 % 153.3 % 11.4 %
Latin
America /
Caribbean
593,688,638 18,068,919 254,915,745 42.9 % 1,310.8 % 10.6 %
Oceania /
Australia
35,903,569 7,620,480 24,287,919 67.6 % 218.7 % 1.0 %
WORLD
TOTAL
7,017,846,922 360,985,492 2,405,518,376 34.3 % 566.4 % 100.0 %
NOTES: (1) Internet Usage and World Population Statistics are for June 30, 2012. (2) CLICK on each
world region name for detailed regional usage information. (3) Demographic (Population) numbers
are based on data from the US Census Bureau and local census agencies. (4) Internet usage
information comes from data published by Nielsen Online, by the International Telecommunications
Union, by GfK, local ICT Regulators and other reliable sources. (5) For definitions, disclaimers,
navigation help and methodology, please refer to the Site Surfing Guide. (6) Information in this site
may be cited, giving the due credit towww.internetworldstats.com. Copyright 2001 - 2013, Miniwatts
Marketing Group. All rights reserved worldwide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage
Brief history of ecommerce websites:
By definition ecommerce or electronic commerce, is online selling and buying of
products or services via the internet. (Miva Merchant)
Now it is impossible to thinking life without eCommerce, it wasnt until few decades ago
when the idea of electronic commerce has been come in front. After the introduction in
1970s, the growth of ecommerce has been tremendous and exponentially brilliant.
According to the pew internet and American life project, 66% American have purchased
a product online and 93% have used ecommerce activities such as research and biding.
According to the article, the first ecommerce was took place in the 1971,students of
Stanford University using Arpanet engaged in a commercial transaction with their
counterparts at Massachusetts institute of technology and the product was undetermined
amount of marijuana. That was the first transaction using online. After a long period of
time in 1984 Tesco the UKs best online store began their journey.
Various forms of ecommerce business are available; some common forms are, such as:
B2B (Business 2 Business): Companies doing business with each other, such as
manufacturer selling products to distributor and whole seller selling products to retailer.
For example, Intel incorporated business with Lenovo and Lenovo selling the products to
Computer Source.
B2C (Business 2 Consumer): Business takes place directly with consumer, such as
distributor to consumer, for example, Dell selling his products to consumer directly.
C2C (Consumer 2 Consumer): Where Customer posts their products online and another
customer buying the product or products from online auction or biding or selling websites.
For example, online auction or biding sites say, cell bazaar.com where customers are
acting as seller and buyer.
There are few many types of forms are available like, C2B (Consumer to Business),B2E
(Business 2 Employee, its typically using intranet system),G2G (Government 2
Government),G2E (Government 2 Employee),G2B (Government 2 business) etc.
Ecommerce relies heavily on technology and it is necessary to adapt it, if anyone wants to
conduct business electronically.
EC and User Interface:
Web design for international user increasingly important issue for for webs based e-
Commerce. Generally, a good web design increase customers interest and interactivity.
A companys web site design and content reflects its business strategy as well as its
operational policies such as, pricing and service. Designing a user interface for
eCommerce website is very challenging. An ecommerce site is for all user and include a
significant amount of user interactivity and still be easy to use. Most of the researchers
have been investigating the important features of an effective ecommerce website. Some
of them are:
Coopee et al. (2000) suggested that web site designers should include some essential
features into any commercial web site they design, as follows: catalog development, users
tracking, payment processing, online fulfillment, web site security, privacy, business-
business sales models, and business-customer sales models.
Najjar (2001) stated that designing the user interface for an e-commerce site is very
challenging. The major sections to design include the overall page format, navigation,
catalog, registration, personalization, checkout, and customer service. In page format, he
considers download speed, avoiding scrolling especially home page. Putting user
interface in familiar location, putting sign in entry field in home
page(Bernard,2001,cyberatlas,1999). Including tag line ( Nielson,2001),placing shopping
cart summary on every page(cyberatlas,1999; Ragus,2000) etc.
Tarafder and Zhang (2006) had summarized a number of characteristics that can be used
to describe website from various researchers. There were five features involved: content,
navigation, usability, personalization and technical properties of the websites.
To design effective user interface for an ecommerce website, Ben Shneiderman proposed
eight golden rules in his book Designing the User Interface. To improve the usability
of a websites application it is important to have well designed interface. Most of that
rules are very effective for designing an interactive and attractive user interface.
The importance of Standard navigation for browsing products:
Standards in web developments are of increasing importance as programmers strive to
make their components work across all browsers and accessible by the broadest set of
customers (Clary, 2003). Navigation should be easy, intuitive and consistent (Najjar,
Designing Ecommerce User Interface, 2003). A standard can ensures that user can
understand individual interface elements in an ecommerce site. By the standard a
customer may able to where should to look for what features. User spends most of their
time to visit other sites stated by jacobs law of web experience (Nielson, 1999). Thus,
majority of conventional usages may burn into users mind and make them deviate from
use the sites. Lack of standard navigation user can move towards other potential sites and
may increase bad impression to shopping online further from those sites. This result
shows how important a standard navigation is. And it conform that user interface should
be ease of use for the users as well. It is very simple equation that, without standard
efficient and user friendly navigation, the user likely to get confused and frustrate and
leave the sites quickly as possible.
Some possible recommendation may be helpful on this regard:
Use well labeled and accurate link (not broken).
Avoid frames use(frame making book marking difficult)
Keep consistent navigation
Provide an effective search engine in the site
Use distinctive hot button (Hot button provides easy navigation and a
personalized effect to the web page)
Generation confirmation page after certain purchase make.
Web site functionality for global issues across countries:
Todays fast evolving world competitions are very high in ecommerce sector. As global
competitions are increased, companies faced new challenges to provide their services and
products to the audiences. But by the blessings of information technology and invention
of electronic commerce it is made very much easier then ever because the distribution of
services and products relies heavily on electronic transfer. But the challenge still remains
for cultural discrimination across the globe (Hofstede, 1998). Many studies had proven
that, the form website designs are very much varies on county to county. Ess and
Sudweeks (1998 ) identified four general assumptions that future may reshaped by the
internet, among those one on them says the technology of the internet and web- the
computer codes, interfaces etc. are homogeneous across national n-border. This will
make the communication transparent and make the web based communication universally
understandable (E-ISSN 2229-4686).
On the other hand, some researcher found that the site design structure of South Korean
and American national products websites did not differ significantly (Yoon and Corp,
1999), in terms of graphics, animated contents and hyperlinks. In Bangladesh, many
ecommerce sites have used lots of graphics, animation and image hyperlinks to their sites
as well. In the security and payment (check out) issues most of the UKs and US sites are
very strongly maintained but in terms of that, sites from developing countries are still
facing the challenge. Checkout is biggest reason people can not buy from site (Rehman,
2000).
For a common global interface, design, functionality and content characteristics should
be the same across all the countries. In addition, other studies prove that, there is no
difference in the design characteristics of US, China, German and Indonesia ecommerce
websites (International Refereed Research Journal, vol-2, issue 3).
Research Methodology:
In order to identify the major determinants of electronic commerce website design, I
conducted an extensive literature review. But due to fact that ecommerce is a growing
trend in todays business world I am unable to find much more academic research.
Instead of that I found many published paper and journals and some written copies by the
experts. And also found few resourceful surveys on ecommerce as well. Which help me
lot to write the review. A very recent survey over 100 ecommerce websites identified few
important issues during a website design and it categorized as page loading speed,
business content, navigation efficiencies, security and customer focus.
I examined 50 leading ecommerce website for this study. These sites are selected under
each product category with well known brand and sophisticated web presence. I
examined the sites by browsing each pages over specific items beginning with home page
content and navigate to product page. Web pages were examined depending on the
number of pages to checkout and reached to target page.
To collect the data I spent about 115 hours by visiting over 50 world leading ecommerce
websites. Few captured screen shots are given in appendix.
Findings:
As I mentioned in earlier section few published paper are existed on what convention are
used in practice on the web. According to kangas, gathered data on the home page of 87
popular sites to determine average content and layout characteristics (2001). The data
showed that the average home page had: 500 words of text , 80 links , 25 graphics , a file
size of about 50 kb , a page height of 1127px (kangas,2001,para 5-10). Another survey
conducted by Bernard to determine where user expected to find common ecommerce
objects on a page (2000). The studies were involved 302 participants in percentage
respectively 43% male and 57% were female. Where all of them are regular ecommerce
website user and had purchase at least one product on line. Participants were asked to
place the object in a grid where they expected to find the object in web sites. That was
called as Bernard findings (2002, para 7-14). The summary is given below:
Ecommerce Objects Expected location of objects
Shopping cart Top right corner
Log in /register Top Left Corner
Help Top right corner
Search Top Center
Link back to home page Top left corner
Navigation Left side
Privacy policy footer
The Bernard findings are corresponding to the location of the major ecommerce website
like amazon.com.target.com (2000) etc. However the study did not include a systematic
analysis of ecommerce site to determine how closely the actual practice aligns with user
expectation.
If we more closet look at few worlds largest ecommerce website, we will see the below
finding in terms of above outcomes (Bernards Findings):
Features Tesco.co.uk Store.sony.com Reebok.com
Shopping Cart Top right corner Top right corner
Navigation Menu Left side Top center Top center/ left side
Search box Top center Top right Top Left side
Sign In Header top center Top center
Privacy policy Footer Footer Bottom
The literature review also identified few major categories for ecommerce websites that
should count strongly as well, below table lists the categories with their frequency of
citation.
Category Number of Citation Percentage (%)
Page loading 33 19.3
Content 53 31.0
Navigation 29 17.0
Security 11 6.4
Consumer Focus 45 26.3
A sample of consumer survey was conducted at California in long beach at summer 1998.
Consumer was asked to identify the relative importance of each of the categories and
rated them within 1(very important) to 5(very unimportant). The result shown in table
below:
Category Average for groups Percentage (%)
Page loading 2.37 21.9
Content 2.16 20.0
Navigation 2.18 20.1
Security 1.96 18.1
Consumer Focus 2.15 19.9
From above survey we see the security category have less percentage both on citation and
consumer review. However, as authors perspective security is a very big concern in terns
of online business manner.
Conclusion:
Ecommerce is an important channel of communication between customers and sellers.
However, from the survey it has been quiet clear understandable about importance of the
page loading, content, navigation, security, downloading etc. are how much can make
impact during the designing a global interface but nevertheless, pricing and service is a
big factor to consider to establish a successful ecommerce solution in terms of consumer
perspective because customer/consumer first looking for the service quality and then
pricing issues as from authors point of view.