E-Commerce is transactions involving goods or services using technology. E-Commerce often uses 'transactional web sites'. Transactional web sites are web sites where a business provides a service or goods on the Internet that the customer can buy. They collect details and payment from the customer. (A purchase is a transaction carried out between the customer and the company providing the goods or services.)
The web site I will be looking at is the site for 'Attitude Cothing' - http://www.attitude.uk.com/. The company does not have a traditional store, goods from Attitude are only available via the Internet or postal order (there is an Attitude Clothing catelogue available).
Purpose of the Site and how Successfuly it Meets it's Objective
The purpose of this web site is to sell alternative clothing online. The web site offers a vast range of clothing types, for example jeans, skirts, tops, t-shirts and shoes. It also sells clothes that fit into different genres, for example 'Streetwear' and 'Punk Clothing'. The first impressions of the web site are very good and it would immediately appeal to the type of person who would usually shop there because of the dark colours, bright logos and pictures of some of the clothing.
I think the web site is successful in achieving its objective to sell alternative clothing because it is clearly laid out making it easy to find the right products (this is also helped by the search facility) and it guides the user through the process of purchasing an item making it easy for them to buy it.
How is it Structured
The structure of the web site is very good - navigation is easy and it is very attractive which entices potential customers.
Down the left hand side of the page is a menu which allows the user to find items they want quickly and easily. There are a number of different ways they are able to look for products. Firstly there is the search facility, an essential for any transactional web site with a reasonably large range of stock. This allows the user to either type in their own search criteria using key words, search by brand, band or product. Such a variety of search tools makes it easy for the user to find the item they want without wasting too much time.
The user can also browse through the items sold on the site using the categories shown down the left hand side. For example 'footwear', 'accessories', 'gothic clothing' or 'punk clothing'. When the user hovers the cursor over one of these headings another menu appears which allows them to choose from the various brands selling products and types of product within that category, for example if the user hovered over 'Punk Clothing' a list appears for the user to choose from including brand names such as 'Poizen Industries' and 'Criminal Damage' as well as the types of clothing such as 'skirts' and 'dresses'. This enables the user to narrow down their search so they do not have to browse through lots of products they are not even interested in.
Further down the page on the left hand side is a section containing links to other web sites that other users are likely to find interesting. This is a good technique to encourage users to come back because if they do not remember the URL of one of these sites they may go to Attitude to get the link.
Down the right hand side of the home page are links to various different brands that are sold on the web site, there is a picture link to represent each brand. This is not particularly useful to the user because there are many other places where there are links to the different brands, however in a way it makes navigation easier because if there are more places to find the links the user is less likely to get 'lost' or be unable to find them. However, these also make the page look attractive as the colours in the logos and pictures brighten up the page and make it look more interesting.
There are other, larger pictures in the centre of the home page. These provide links to new products, special offers and competitions. These also make the page look attractive and interesting.
Although the home page looks attractive and interests the user, it is a little bit too cluttered. This means it is distracting to the user and even though the varios links and pictures are put there in an attempt to improve navigation, it actually makes it more difficult because with so many pictures it is difficult to see where everything is.
There is a navigation bar at the top of the page which contains the following links: 'Home', 'Login', 'News', 'Forum', 'Quickshop' and 'Checkout'. This makes navigation for the user much easier.
On the pages away from the home page, the navigation bar on the left hand side stays there. This is useful because it makes navigation much easier for the user and reduces the chance of them getting lost on the website. The navigation bar at the top of the page also remains at the top of all pages. This is particularly useful because it contains a link to the home page, therefore it is virtually impossible for the user to get lost because if all else fails they can always just go back to the home page and start again.
Each of the pages displaying the different products only show 9 products on each. This means the user does not have to keep scrolling down the page which can be irritating. However, instead they must keep clicking the next button or skip to a certain page number which is even more irritating than scrolling down. This is because in going between the pages the user has to wait for each one to load, which takes quite a long time because of the pictures and hyperlinks etc on each page. Therefore looking through the products becomes tedious. I think it would be much better if all of the products within a certain category were displayed on one page, or where there are too many products to be able to do this there definitely be a lot more than 9 on each page.
Overall I think the structure quite good however it has many negative aspects. It would be much better if the home page was less cluttered and if on the sub pages there were more items per page as this would make shopping on the web site a much more pleasurable, less frustrating experience for the user.
Goods and Services Offered
The web site makes it reasonable clear what goods it is actually selling by showing picutres on the home page of some of the items. The navigation bar at the side also gives the user an idea of what they are selling, for example some of the headings are 'gothic clothing', 'footwear' and accessories'. These not only tell the user what actual items are sold, but also the type of clothing. The logo and name of the web site also gives away what they are selling - at the top of the screen is a large logo that says 'Attitude Clothing' making it obvious to the user that they sell clothing on the site. This is good because if what the web site is selling is clear the user will know straight way whether or not it is worth looking on the web site. It also benifits the comany because the user cannot buy something from the web site if they do not even know what they are selling.
Here is a list and goods and services offered on Attitude:
- Jewelerry
- Bags
- Belts
- Coats
- Dresses
- Tops
- Band T-Shirts
- Jeans
- Skirts
- Gloves
- Jackets
- Hair dye
- Makeup
- Necklaces
- Scarfs
- and much more...
Product Information Provided
Attitude provide quite a lot of information about each of the products. When the user chooses a product (for example a t-shirt) and clicks on it the user is given a picture of the product (which they can click to enlarge) the following information:
- Material
- Gender
- Style
- Sizes available
- Delivery time
However, the information given about the product varies depending on what the product is. For example the user will have to know different information if they are looking at a bag to a T-shirt, for a start the sizing will be entirely different.
I do not think the web site gives enough information on the products and it would be much improved if the basic information (which is already given) was presented to the user at first and there was a link to find out more information about that product. For example when looking at a T-shirt it may say 'printed' but not tell you what the print is - this is something that is often not clear in the photograph. Also, the sizes are given as 'small', 'medium' and 'large', however there is not a size guide to tell you what these convert to in standard British sizes. Also when looking at products other than ordinary clothes such as bags, necklaces etc, the dimensions of the product are not given. For example when you click on the product 'Evil Fairy Exile Bag', a picture of the bag appears with some basic information on it, but information on the dimensions of the bag are not given. As far as the user is concerned, this bag could be of any size as the picture does not indicate how big it is. It would be much better for both the user and the comany if either the dimensions of the bag were given or there was a picture showing the bag with a model so the user can see the size in proportion to a person.
I also think that product information could be given in a more interesting way - for example on other web sites such as 'schuhstore.com' there is an interactive method where the user can click to see the product from different angles and zoom in on certain parts. This would be very effective on this web site because they would be able to see the detail on certain parts of the product.
Types of Transaction Made
A transaction is an interaction with a database management system. Transactions vary in complexity, a transation could simply be clicking on an image to check if a certain item is in stock or it can be more complex, for example when buying goods entering details into an order form, especially for a new customer because the company need to capture all of their details.
The system needs to collect a number of different details from the customers, for example credit card number and other details used to validate the card and name and address of the person paying the bill and the delivery address. Text boxes are most commonly used as a way of interacting with the page, the user types in information into the text boxes. Another method that can be used is drop down menus, this is when a choice is given to the user in a menu, they select the option they want to use.
Attitude uses both text boxes and drop down menus as methods of data capture. The first time the user uses a drop down menu is when the select the size product they wish to purchase. Then the user must give their details and become a member before they are able to buy anything. The user gives almost all of their details to become a member using text boxes - they must give a username, password, email address, first name, last name, address, postcode and country. The only one of these that uses a drop down menu instead of text box is 'country' because there is a limited number of countries they can deliver too and therefore there are not too many options to put on a drop down menu. This is good because it is clear what details the web site is asking for and using drop down menus helps to eliminate spelling errors in those sections.
No comments:
Post a Comment