Research+of+Ecommerce+Website+Usability+Design

Research of E-commerce Website Usability Design*Jiao Guo, Pei YanMathematics and Computer Science College, Chongqing Three Gorges University, Chongqing404000, Chinalegend_j@, peisharp@Abstract: The need for improving the usability of the website and providing satisfying service to customers is prominent in e-commerce. A constantly increasing number of e-commerce websites and an increase in their information make them more complicated to use. The typical problems faced by customers in e-commerce websites are analyzed, the reasons are discussed, and the solutions to implement the website usability design are presented. To get high usability, e-commerce site should adopt user-centered design method, and take the design principles of usability as the standards for design, implementation and evaluation, and make use of usability support tools for site evaluation and improvement in the later stage of site building. The usability design methods and principles of e-commerce website may be extended into other interactive systems of e-government, digital libraries, travel information resources, etc.Keywords: Web usability, E-commerce, UCD, Web design, Design methods1. INTRODUCTIONWith the popularity of the WWW and the constant emergence of new technologies designed for the Web, the WWW has revolutionized our lives and the way business is conducted. Since e-commerce appeared, it gradually has penetrated into all areas of modern business [1]. There are many types of e-commerce, of which e-commerce websites is the most common form in the Web. A large number of e-commerce websites offer a new way to shop online for people. According to the study by Renaud et al, online shopping process is divided into two stages. Theⅱⅰand searching for the information about products that meet the user’s criteria; ) first stage includes :) viewingcomparing the similar products. The user needs a variety of information about the chosen products. The second stage refers to the user’s purchase process, in which the users should enter some personal information, select the payment method and delivery method, and so on. At the stage, the feedback information is essential and must be timely and accurate. Otherwise, once the users suppose the transaction is at risk, they may cancel it, and then exit. The users won’t do another transaction on the website which has frustrated them. This will result in the profit loss and user of the website. According to the survey on 20 E-commerce sites done by Nielsen, the reason of these sites lost more than half of the trading opportunities is that the sites failed to meet the requirements in usability of customers. This shows that the usability of E-commerce site is essential for its development.2. THE USABILITY OF E-COMMERCE WEBSITE2.1 The concept of usabilityISO 9241 defines usability as “Extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use” [2]. Effectiveness refers to the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified goals. Efficiency refers to the resources expended in relation to the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve goals. Satisfaction refers to the freedom from discomfort, and positive attitudes towards the use of the product.2.2 Usability issues of e-commerce websiteMany e-commerce sites remain difficult to use, which means they are with low-usability. Nielsen asserts that poor Web site design is a major factor affecting the profitability of e-commerce sites [3]. He describes a study in which users made 496 attempts to perform various tasks on 20 large and small e-commerce sites – with only 56% of those attempts being successful. If these results are indicative of the larger population of e-commerce sites, then e-commerce sites may be losing a large percentage of potential sales simply because their sites are confusing and difficult to use. Nielsen describes a number of design mistakes that many Web sites commonly make [4], including: slow download times, non-standard link colors, long scrolling navigation pages, scrolling text or looping animation, orphan pages, bleeding-edge technologies, and so on. Specifically include * Supported by Chunhui Plan Ministry of Education of China (NO: S2008-1-63007)the following aspects: ) information architecture. The customers are sⅰubmerged in a large number of productⅱinformation. It is difficult to find the information they want. It is easy to lose their location and direction. ) information search. Search results deviate from the user expectations, the user can not obtain the required ⅲThe page layout, fonts and colors in pages are lack of readability, so the user can information; ) page design.not effectively read the information on the page and not be satisfied with it; ) response time. The responseⅳⅴtime of some operation is too long to lead users may abandon waiting; ) feedback. Facing the system with little feedback, users become puzzled. If the uses don’t know what happen next, they feel uneasy, and then exit.2.3 The reasons of e-commerce website usability issuesThe designers often pay too much attention to websites’ features and technologies, fail to balance these functions and the real needs of users; The designers do not balance between business objectives and user goals, the system provides the features and functionality which do not match user’s need. The user needs are researched insufficiently in the design and development process, resulting in lower-usability system.3. THE METHODS TO IMPROVE E-COMMERCE WEBSITE USABILITYIn Internet time, Web-based applications are to interact with users through the Web user interface in Internet. Web interface is a specific human-machine interface based on Internet technology, and Web is a special interactive system in the Internet environment. Web usability engineering is that principles and techniques of the usability engineering are applied to Web design, so that Web designers construct user-centric website rather than the technology-centric website, which should focus on its user, rather than the computer's input and output [5]. That is, Web design is changed from technology-driven to user-driven. Web interface design is developed from the graphical user interface (GUI) design about software based on screen, and the design to following the same design fundamentals of other [6]. That is Web design must directly face “users with the specific needs”, and must ensure that users are pleasant to successfully complete tasks with Web. Web design usually adapts a design - evaluation iterative design process to improve its usability.Web usability design mainly focused in three areas: high-usability Web site development method, website usability design principles, e-commerce website usability design principles, and website usability supporting tools. The method adopted provides implementable developing process, the website usability design principles should be throughout the while process. Specially, some usability design principles aim at usability issues for e-commerce websites. Usability supporting tools are used in usability evaluation.3.1 High-usability Web site development methodThe usability of e-commerce website design method is based on user-centered design methods. UCD was originally coined by Norman and Draper [7]. They emphasized the importance of having a good understanding of the users. Norman described UCD as that user-centered design emphasizes that the purpose of the system is to serve the user, not to use a specific technology, not to be an elegant piece of programming. The needs of the users should dominate the design of the interface, and the needs of the interface should dominate the design of the rest of the system. The e-commerce website usability design and development is generally divided into the following main stages:3.1.1 User requirements analysisUser requirements analysis is the basis of e-commerce websites usability design. User requirements analysis solves the following problems [8]: Who are targeted users or potential user? What information is needed by the users? What services are required? Specifically, user research includes: What is users’ purpose of visiting the website? What experience and professional knowledge is users have? Where are the users? How to view the website? How to use the information? What type of browser is used by users? How fast the user's communication link? How size of screen and window is used by user usually? At the end, User requirements represent any externally visible function, non-functional property or constrain that is required in order to satisfy the user needs [9]. The designers combine the user research results and the business aim of the website to get implementable user requirements that is the important for the following works.3.1.2 Conceptual designFirstly, define the users how to visit the website, the key scenes to be visited, as well as what task desired to be achieved for users, which will be help to determine the design priorities, but also be the focus of the evaluation.Secondly, determine the website’s structure that should be user-oriented and different from the company's internal information structure. A good structure will help users to find and understand information. In addition, the conceptual design should determine site content, and the level of detail [10]. The designers must adopt familiar terms to users, establish the familiar information. Finally, Conceptual design may determine the site's writing style.3.1.3 Establishment of a prototypeBased on conceptual design, the designers rapidly develop a prototype of website [11]; and then organize user testing to gather user feedback or organize experts to evaluate usability, in order to find as much as possible potential usability issues; improve the prototype based on evaluation results; repeat this process until the usability goals are met.3.1.4 System implementationOn the basis of the prototype, further develop to implement the final system. During the system implementation, use user testing to improve the system, until the site's business goals are met.3.1.5 Usability evaluationAt the design stage, designers should gather feedback through a variety of channels. The most common method is user testing and expert evaluation. User testing method is able to directly find using problems in websites [12], expert evaluation refers that the experts in human-machine interface design and system functions based on their experience examine the usability issues that may be existed in the design. At the implementation and evaluation stage, developers adjust the high-fidelity prototype finally, and then publish the website on the Internet. Designers often find a variety of new problems and suggestions from users. After collecting and analyzing the information, designers will modify the Web Usability design. At this stage, designers can collect the problems encountered and suggestions, and track user usage and satisfaction to modify the Web usability design again, in order to improve the usability of the website.3.2 Website usability design principlesWebsites usability design focuses on web design. A Web interface is a complex mix of text, links, graphic elements, formatting, and other aspects that affect the Web’s usability. Instead of spending time to explain how to use interface, it is better to take advantage of the self-describing information of interface elements to dominantly display the using process of the software, at the same time, Interface performance and behavior must be consistent with user actions habits and mental models [13]. In Web design, standards-based design has the following advantages: download and read faster, better accessibility, more conducive to search engine rankings, adaptability, easy to develop and maintain it. In a word, standardized Web can enhance the usability and significantly enhance the user experience. Consequently, Web design entails a broad set of activities for addressing these diverse aspects: information architecture design, readability design, search design and page design.32.1 Information architecture designIn information architecture the focus is on the organization, navigation, labeling, and search systems that offer accessibility to the end user [14]. With information architecture coupled with good user interface design principles, there is hope that the users will be better able to realize what information resides in a large website and then be able to navigate through it to find what they want. Specially, organization systems are composed of organization schemes and organization structures. Navigation system plays a major role in shaping our experiences on the Web. It provides access to information in a way that enhances understanding, reflects brand, and lends to overall credibility of a site. And ultimately, Web navigation and the ability to find information have a financial impact for stakeholders [15]. A navigational mechanism is a link or group of links that behave in a similar way and have a similar appearance. Links and label names mute are specific; make sure users can easily understand your navigational labels.3.2.2 Readability designWith a few exceptions, people visit the Web for its utility, not its beauty. User chooses clarity over confusion. The Web is a user-directed medium, where people adopt information-seeking strategies to save time. They tend not to seek information in a linear fashion. Instead, they rely on the visual cues that give off the strongest signal that their answer is nearby. People direct their attention to these areas and ignore everything else. So, write for the way people read on the Web. Design Web's content to match human behavior and tailor it foroptimum scannability and comprehension. Use simple language, out of respect for users' time and reading skills, keep Web's writing simple and concise. Three guidelines for better Web writing: skip the jargon, avoid acronyms, and bar sarcasm, subtle word play [16].Artistic elements such as typography and color schemes play an important part in making a good first impression with website [17]. Typography gives people a feeling for your company and conveys information about what they can do on your site. Different fonts can signify whimsy or gravity, and point size and color can emphasize content. Sustaining positive impressions throughout the site means choosing the type and colors that work best on the Web. Four top guidelines for type: use common fonts sized at or above 10 points, avoid busy backgrounds, use black text on white backgrounds, keep moving, all-cap, and graphical text to a minimum. When choosing a font for your website, make sure to opt for those that are available on your users' computers and browsers. Limit the number of font styles on your site and apply them consistently. Along with the right typeface and size, the right color contrast ensures legibility and readability on your site.3.2.3 Search designSearch is such a prominent part of the Web user experience that people have strong expectations for how it should work. Search is one of the most important design elements on a website. User wants the search on websites to work like that of their favorite major search engine. Given how ingrained Search is, avoid invoking a user's mental model of search for other interactions. Users are now forming mental models that they expect to apply across the Web. The No. 1 guideline for search result pages design is to mimic the search result pages on the major Web-wide search engines. Provide a linear list of search results, with the most recommended on the top. Usually the search engine results page should be sorted by relevance, and no other options should be made available, since they will only confuse the user. For some types of sites, however, it makes sense to make other sorting criteria available.Users almost always turn to search engines with a new problem but almost never read beyond the first page of results, so search engine optimization (SEO) should be one of the most important parts of Internet strategy. There are three major classes of “white hat” SEO techniques [18]: linguistic SEO, architectural SEO, and reputation SEO.3.2.4 Page designPage design includes two parts, the first is graphic, and the second is HTML coding. Graphic design focuses on visual presentation. Experience design encompasses all three of these categories, as well as properties that affect the overall user experience (download time, ads, popup windows, and so on) [19]. HTML coding is very important in page design. The HTML coding design should support of Web standards and browser compatibility.Web standards are a number of standards set developed by the W3C and other standardization organizations, in order to create and explain the Web content. Describe the structure of Web pages with the structured standard language (such as: XHTML, or XML); format the page presentation with the standard presentation language; define the behavior of Web pages with the standard behavior-controlling language. Specifically: (1) Separation of structure and presentation. HTML documents save the content and structure, and CSS (Cascading Style Sheet, Cascading Style Sheets) documents control the performance of the documents. (2) Using XHTML. XHTML1.0 Strict and valid document type (doctype) can create a strict website.（3）Using CSS. The structured and semantic XHTML describes the Web document; CSS efficiently controls the layout [20]. In the CSS design process, designers must fully understand CSS syntax and model, instead of relying only on its presentation.From Web pages towards Web applications, Web browser becomes an application platform [21]. The browsers are in a wide range. According to the statistics data in December 2009 [22] , the current widely used browsers are: IE8(13.5%), IE7(12.8%), IE6(10.9%), Firefox(46.4%), Chrome(9.8%), Safari(3.6%), Opera(2.3%) and etc. Therefore, the browser compatibility problems are considered necessarily in the Web design. Due to differences in understanding and support for Web standards, the same page may be interpreted to different results by different browsers. Without a browser compatible design the website may be serious usability problems through some browsers.3.3 E-commerce website usability design principlesThe above section looks at very important aspects of web usability, however, they apply to web use in general, not just e-commerce. The following is the typical principles applied to e-commerce websites.3.3.1 Provide high-quality information and servicesInformation quality is a key component of any e-commerce Web site. It is the online company’s responsibility to ensure that the product and pricing information is complete and accurate, and all other information posted on the Web site is correct and up-to-date [23]. Any possible mistake should be corrected as soon as it is reported or discovered. Accuracy of information is the key to maintaining consumers’ trust and confidence in the company.Users find related products' information to complete the online shopping through e-commerce websites. Therefore, the usability of e-commerce is first reflected in its information and services provided. E-commerce sites with high usability should provide the information and services users required. The pictures, text descriptions, prices, assessment by customers about products, and the credibility of business are core information of e-commerce sites. E-commerce sites provide timely communication tools, BBS, and other services to discuss and exchange information online or offline. E-commerce websites provide personalized service, and so on.3.3.2 Consistent page designConsistency is one of the most basic rules for usability [24]. If the user knows the same order or the same operation will always produce the same effect, then their use of the site will be more self-confident, but also encourage them to explore learning, because they already have to use some of the basics of the new web site. Consistency isⅲreflected as the following :) the same site logo ;) consistent highⅰⅱ-level screen layout; ) consistent mechanism ⅳⅴfor browsing ;) consistent font and color harmony ;) consistent expression of interface elements.3.3.3 Response time as fast as possibleⅰMiller described the three important limits of response times [25].) 0.1 second is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously, meaning that no special feedback is necessary ⅱexcept to display the result.) 1.0 second is about the limit for the user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted, even though the user will notice the delay. Normally, no special feedback is necessary during delays of moreⅲthan 0.1 but less than 1.0 second, but the user does lose the feeling of operating directly on the data.) 10 seconds is about the limit for keeping the user's attention focused on the dialogue. For longer delays, users will want to perform other tasks while waiting for the computer to finish, so they should be given feedback indicating when the computer expects to be done. Feedback during the delay is especially important if the response time is likely to be highly variable, since users will then not know what to expect. Therefore, response times should be as fast as possible. If the system can not response immediately, it should promptly provide the information about the current process to allow users to maintain a good sense of control. In order to shorten response time, the page size should be as concise as possible, avoiding unnecessary flash animation or multimedia elements, and images in the website must be with compression format.3.3.4 Provide feedbacksIf the site operation carried out by a very long response time, the feedback is becoming very important. Web site should continue to tell the user what it is doing now, it is how to respond to user input. Regardless of user actions is correct, the system must provide timely feedback.3.4 Website usability supporting toolsWebsite Usability supporting tools are mainly three classes: the tools for evaluating implementation technology used by Web site, the tools based on intelligent browsing agent, the tools for collecting and analyzing user feedback. Evaluating tools is mainly based on a set of Usability evaluation guidelines to evaluate the site's HTML codes for each page in order to determine whether they follow the HTML standards; checks then contents such as background color, images, fonts, and the consistency of navigation elements. The tools based on intelligent browsing agent use a statistical model to simulate the user experience; use intelligent browsing agents to traverse the site visit to gather key statistics information, to evaluate the site from the accessibility, loading time, the contents, to use a fast digital analysis evaluated the level of site. The tools for collecting and analyzing user feedback are generally composed of online tools, which are helpful to gather user feedback and suggestions with User Survey questionnaires, thus to identify the web site usability problems. Such tools are the best, most easy to use and most effective usability supporting tools, because they are based on direct feedback from end-users to identify usability issues, but also truly reflect the "user-centric" principle.4. CONCLUSIONCompared with the traditional shopping, shopping through e-commerce site is convenient, fast etc. However, as customers and online store are separated in space, only e-commerce sites with high usability can successfully complete shopping. E-commerce website with high-usability is designed to meet the user's requirement, to raise their effectiveness in on-line information searching as well as the performance of other various operations, to enhance users’ satisfaction and sense of security with online shopping. To get high usability, e-commerce site adopts user-centered design method, and takes the design principles of usability as the standards for design, implementation and evaluation, and makes use of usability support tools for site evaluation and improvement in the later stage of site building. The usability design methods and principles of E-commerce website may be extended into other interactive systems of e-government, digital libraries, travel information resources, etc.REFERENCES[1]Christopher Avery, Paul Resnick, and Richard Zeckhauser 1999. The Market for Evaluations. American EconomicReview 89(3): pp 564-584.[2]ISO 9241, 1992/2001, Ergonomics Requirements for Office with Visual Display Terminals (VDTs), Geneva,International Organization for Standardization[3]Jakob, N. Designing Web Usability: The practice of simplicity. Indianapolis, New Riders. 2000[4]Nielsen, J., “Who Commits the ‘Top Ten Mistakes’ of Web Design?” Jacob Nielsen’s Alertbox,/alertbox/990516.html, May 16, 1999.[5]P. Thomas, et al, Introduction to the new usability, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Vol.9, No. 2,June 2002, pp.69-73.[6]Macdonald, Nico. What is Web Design? Mies, Switzerland: RotoVision, 2003.[7]Donald A. Norman, Stephen W. Draper, User Centered System Design; New Perspectives on Human-ComputerInteraction, L. Erlbaum Associates Inc., Hillsdale, NJ, 1986[8]Maguire, M., Bevan, N. 2002. User requirement analysis – A review of supporting methods. In Procs IFIP 17th WorldComputer Congress, (Motreal, Canada 2002), 133-148.[9]Kujala, S. 2002. User Studies: A Practical Approach to User Involvement for Gathering User Needs and Requirements.Doctoral dissertation. Espoo: the Finnish Academies of Technology. ISBN 951-666-599-3.[10]O.M.F. De Troyer, C.J. Leune, “WSDM: a user centered designmethod for Web site”, in Proc. Of Int. Conf. WWW7[11]Haav, H. M., Lubi, T.-L.: A Survey of Concept-based Information Retrieval Tools on the Web. In Proc. of 5thEast-European Conference ADBIS*2001, Vol 2., Vilnius "Technika", pp 29-41.[12]Norman KL, Panixxi E. Levels ofAutomation and User Participation in Usability Testing [ J ]. InteractionwithComputers. 2006, 18 (2):46 - 264.[13]Robert Hoekman, Jr., Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design, New RidersPublishing, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2006.[14]Rosenfeld L, Morville P. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, O’Reilly, 2002.[15]J Kalbach. Designing Web Navigation. O’Reilly.2007.[16]Jeff Johnson. Web Bloopers: 60 Common Web Design Mistakes, and How to Avoid Them. Morgan Kaufmann. April28, 2003.[17]Jakob Nielsen, Hoa Loranger. Prioritizing Web Usability. New Riders. April 20, 2006.[18]Wikipedia. Search engine optimization. /wiki/Search_engine_optimization. May. 2008.[19]N. Shedro, Experience Design 1, New Riders Publishing,Indianapolis, Ind., 2001.[20]Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlag ,The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web[M]. PeachpitPress,2005-12.[21]D. I. Antero Taivalsaari, Tommi Mikkonen and K. Palacz. Web browser as an application platform: The lively kernelexperience. SML Technical Report TR-2008-175, 2008.[22]W3C. Browser Statistics [EB/OL]. /browsers/browsers_stats.asp. 2009.[23]Nielsen, J., “Trust or Bust: Communicating Trustworthiness in Web Design,” Jacob Nielsen’s Alertbox,/alertbox/990307.html, March 7, 1999.[24]Kuniavsky, M., Observing the User Experience. A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research, 2003 (Morgan Kaufman:SanFrancisco)[25]Miller, R., Response time in man-computer conversational transac-tions, in AFIPS Conference Pro-ceedings of the Fall JointComputerConference, Vol 33,Part 1, 1968, pp. 267-277。