Interface Design
What is difference between B2B and B2C Applications
B2B refers to business-to-business transactions where customers are other businesses; where as business-to-consumer transaction refers to businesses dealing with individual consumers or end customers.
B2B transactions are more complex and have a greater need for security than B2C e-commerce. B2B transactions involved many complex issues such as system integration within the firm as well as with its trading partners raising many questions about the security of the information exchanged as well as having to have systems that ensured that the rules and regulations governing the exchange of information were followed. The cost of installing the infrastructure proved to be prohibitory and many businesses and suppliers reverted back to using phones or faxes inhibited by the costs, hardly realizing that in the long run they will be saving tons of money as operating costs are cut drastically as well as ensuring a better control over the supply chain integration. The major hurdle was to get the partners to collaborate in implementing B2B networking, establishing common goals to be achieved hence B2B has not become as popular as it should have been.
Some Differences between B2B and B2C E-Commerce:
• B2C offer spot sourcing contract management that offer a flat rate retail price for each of the goods sold.
• B2B transaction involve direct-sourcing contract management which involves negotiation terms that will establish the price based on which other factors such as warranty coverage, volume-based pricing, carrier, and logistics preferences etc. will be decided.
• B2C does not require the business to spend on expensive, extensive infrastructure.
• B2B requires huge amounts to be involved in spent in integrating the systems of the organization as well as those of its business partners that made the process expensive, time consuming and raising many questions about security etc.
• B2C e-commerce just involves used defined profiles and email promotions.
• B2B e-commerce needs the involvement of complex issues studying order history data, such as the preferences of trading partners, payment records, locations etc.
• B2C requires that sellers update their site regularly regarding product cost and incorporate product catalogue with picture and description of the product.
• B2B involves syndication of catalogues of different suppliers that need to be formatted, priced, and presented to buyers in a consolidated fashion. It has a greater need for Business intelligence systems as well as analytic software.
• B2C is far easier as options like cyber cash enable the business to function easily.
• Payment options are not that easy with B2B, which involves back-office connectivity, invoicing etc.
• B2B have only one major benefit that is good supply chain coordination. B2B e-commerce cannot compromise on time, quality and credibility of its products.
These are just some of the main differences between B2B and business-to-consumer e-commerce.
There are companies that offer services as well as products to help run business successfully.
Usability Testing
some important notes for usability testings
Q: What is usability testing?
In a usability test, representative users try to do typical tasks with the product, while observers, including the development staff, watch, listen, and take notes. The product can be a Web site, Web application, or any other product. It does not have to be a finished product. You should be testing prototypes from early paper-based stages through fully functional later stages.
Q: How does usability testing fit into user-centered design?
Usability testing is a major part of user-centered design. A user-centered design process should include a series of tests developed specifically to evaluate both performance and preference.
Q: When should do usability testing?
Test early; test often. Usability testing lets the design and development teams identify problems before they get “set in concrete.” The earlier those problems are found and fixed, the less expensive the fixes are. As the project progresses, it becomes more and more difficult and expensive to make major design changes. The more you test and change based on what you learn, the more confident you can be that the site will meet your objectives and your users’ needs when it is launched.
Iterating—developing a prototype, testing it with users, analyzing the test results, changing the prototype based on the findings, and then repeating the test, analyze, revise cycles—is the best way to produce a successful Web site or Web application.
Q: What can learn through usability testing?
In a typical usability test:
* Are the test participants able to complete the task scenarios successfully?
* Considering successfully completed tasks, how fast do participants do each task?
* Considering successfully completed tasks, how many pages (clicks) does it take to complete each task?
* Do participants perform well enough to meet the usability objectives?
* How satisfied are participants with the site?
* What changes are needed to make sure that the site will enable more users to perform more successfully?
More specific questions. For example, How well the search function works for users:
* Do participants click to pages or do they use search?
* What words do they use most when searching?
* Is the search box in a good location and is it large enough for most of the words used?
* Do the search results provide leads to quick answers to users’ questions?
* When search results do provide answers, are the answers usually on the first page of results?
* Does the search do a good job of detecting and helping to resolve typing errors?
Alan Cooper coined the terms “sovereign posture” and “transient posture” to discuss these approaches. Sovereign-posture applications work with users as partners; users spend time in them, give them their full attention, learn them well, and expand them to full-screen size. Transient-posture programs are brought up briefly, used, and dismissed. These roughly correspond to the two extremes I posited, but not entirely.
Process and Planning for website design
Process
- Analyze your needs and golas,
- Define developement process outlined,
- Create site specification document that details what you intend to do and why,
- Waht technology and content you’ll need,
- How long the process will take,
- How you will assess the result of your efforts
The site specification document is crucial to creating a successful site, as in both development and deliverable.
Planning:
Develop the website need to help your partners like content experts, writers, information architects, graphics designers, technical experts, and a producer or committee chair responsible for seeing the project completion.
What are your goals?
Two to three gloals should be foundation of your website design.
- Which the wbesite will be designed
- How long the site design and construction periods will be
- Qualitative measures
- Kip in mind – long term editorial management and technical maintenance
Know your audience:
To identify the potential readers of your Web site so that you can structure the site design to meet their needs and expectations. There are different kind of audience which are divided in to age groups and those users which are visiting every day or occasionally.
Design critiques
Each member of a site development team will bring different goals, preferences, and skills to the project. Once the team has reached agreement on the mission and goals of the project, consensus on the overall design approach for the Web site needs to be established. The goal at this stage is to identify potential successful models in other Web sites and to begin to see the design problem from the site user’s point of view.
Unfortunately, production teams rarely include members of the target audience for the Web site. And it is often difficult for team members who are not already experienced site designers to articulate their specific preferences, except in reference to existing sites. Group critiques are a great way to explore what makes a Web site successful, because everyone on the team sees each site from a user’s point of view. Have each team member bring a list of a few favorite sites to the critique, and ask them to introduce their sites and comment on the successful elements of each design. In this way you will learn one another’s design sensibilities and begin to build consensus on the experience that your audience will have when they visit the finished site.
Many offshore development centers webdesigners work under management pressher, have no idea about target audiance, even if head of the designer team have lake of experince in webdesigning as user point of view and only consuntrate on small things like button color, rollover effect collor, spacing and alignment which are important but not morthan usability point of view.
Content inventory
Once you have an idea of your Web site’s mission and general structure, you can begin to assess the content you will need to realize your plans. Building an inventory or database of existing and needed content will force you to take a hard look at your existing content resources and to make a detailed outline of your needs. Once you know where you are short on content you can concentrate on those deficits and avoid wasting time on areas with existing resources that are ready to use. A clear grasp of your needs will also help you develop a realistic schedule and budget for the project. Content development is the hardest, most time-consuming part of any Web site development project. Starting early with a firm plan in hand will help ensure that you won’t be caught later with a well-structured but empty Web site.
web style guide
The capacity for perception depends on the amount, the kind and the availability of past experiences…. We see familiar things more clearly than we see objects about which we have no stock of memories.
— Aldous Huxley
USERS OF WEB DOCUMENTS don’t just look at information, they interact with it in novel ways that have no precedents in paper document design. The graphic user interface (GUI) of a computer system comprises the interaction metaphors, images, and concepts used to convey function and meaning on the computer screen. It also includes the detailed visual characteristics of every component of the graphic interface and the functional sequence of interactions over time that produce the characteristic look and feel of Web pages and hypertext linked relations. Graphic design and visual “signature” graphics are not used simply to enliven Web pages — graphics are integral to the user’s experience with your site. In interactive documents graphic design cannot be separated from issues of interface design.
web style guide
Site Design
In architecture as in all other operative arts, the end must direct the operation. The end is to build well. Well building hath three conditions. Commodity, firmness, and delight.
— Sir Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture
THE DESIGN OF THE SITE will determine its organizational framework. At this stage you will make the tactical design decisions about what your audience wants from you, what you wish to say, and how to arrange the content to best meet your audience’s needs. Although people will notice the graphic design of your Web pages right away, the overall organization of the site will have the greatest impact on their experience.
The fundamental organizing principle in Web site design is meeting users’ needs. Ask yourself what your audience wants, and center your site design on their needs. Many organizations and businesses make the mistake of using their Web sites primarily to describe their administrative organization, and only secondarily do they offer the services, products, and information the average user is seeking. Most readers won’t care how your company or department is organized and will be put off if such inside information is all your site appears to offer. Talk to the people who make up your target audience, put yourself in their shoes, and make the items and services they want the most prominent items on the home page.
web style guide
