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MBA9009

Human-computer interaction content

Website issues

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The Importance of Customers

– Competition• “fighting” on customers

• to succeed : control the 3Cs

– Customers• customers becomes a King/Queen

• to succeed : finding and retaining customers

– Change• EC is a new distribution channel

• to succeed : convince customers to go online and then to choose your company over the online competitors

• The major pressures are labeled the 3Cs

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A Model of EC Consumer Behavior

• Purchasing decision begins with customer’s reaction to stimuli

Vendors’ controlled System

Logistic

SupportPayments,Delivery

Technical

SupportWeb design,Intelligent-agents

CustomerserviceFAQ,e-mail,Call centers,One-to-one

DecisionMakingProcess

Stimuli

MarketingPrice

PromotionProductQuality

OthersEconomicalTechnology

PoliticalCultural

Buyers’ Decisions

Buy or notWhat to buy

Where (vendor)When

How much to spendRepeat purchases

IndividualCharacteristics

Age, gender, ethnicity,education, lift style,

psychological, knowledge,values, personality

EnvironmentCharacteristics

Social, family,communities

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• Consumer Types– Individual consumers: get much of the media attention

– Organizational buyers: do most of the shopping in cyberspace

• Purchasing Types– Impulsive buyers: purchase products quickly

– Patient buyers: purchase products after making some comparisons

– Analytical buyers: do substantial research before making the decision to purchase products or services

• Purchasing Experiences– Utilitarian: shopping “to achieve a goal” or “complete a task”

– Hedonic: shopping because “it is fun and I love it”

A Model of EC Consumer Behavior (cont.)

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After purchase serviceand evaluation

Purchase and delivery

Alternative evaluation,negotiation and selection

Information search(What? From whom?)

• The Purchasing Decision-Making Model

Consumer Purchasing Decision-Making (cont.)

Need identification(Recognition)

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Model of Internet Consumer Satisfaction

Customer Satisfaction

Logistics Support

Customer Service

Pricing Attractiveness

Web-site Store Front

3rd PartySeal of Approval

Trust inWeb-shopping

VendorReputation

Repeat Web Purchase (Brand Loyalty)

Security

Authentication

Privacy Transaction Safety

Non-repudiationIntegrity

SystemReliability

Speed of Operation

Ease of Use

Content,Quality

Format

Reliability

Completeness

Timeliness

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Keys to successful online business• Reliability - must convince consumers

business can and will deliver• Security - must convince consumers

transactions are secure• Understanding the audience - will they buy

online? Does the audience have access?• Image of the business - trust,

advertising of site, building image.• Service and value add of trade.

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• Supporting technical infrastructure

• Customer fulfilment, how, when, where will goods be delivered

• Capacity to fill orders and fill in a timely manner.

• Customer service and after sales service

• Quality of web site and ability of consumer to transact business.

Keys to success cont..

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Building a successful commercial website.

Easy to use

Rich functionality

Reliable

Integrated

and

and

and

EqualsCustomer

satisfaction

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Promoting web sites

• Dozens of millions of web sites and hundreds of millions of pages indexed. How will users find a businesses web site?

• Range of marketing strategies:– online– offline

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Online marketing strategies

Most users use search engines to find specific sites or products, business must ensure their site gets ‘hits’.

Search engines:

• Some search engines will automatically list the site if the URL is sent to them.

• Other search engines rely on people to enter information sent to them.

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Improving search engine results

• Ensure pages are named - ie have a page title tag.

• Customise page title for each page using keywords that describe site/business.

• Business needs to watch and monitor hits to the site and check listings with search engines.

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Links to other sites

• Related businesses can charge users of their site for referrals that result in a sale.

Eg A site selling travel might have links to a luggage retailer, insurance agency etc.

• Joining malls and portals also advertises businesses.

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Other strategies

• Customer loyalty programs

• Incentive programs

• E-newsletters

• Finding out who wants to link to your site

• Advertising web address electronically

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Offline strategies

• Similar to other businesses

• Advertising TV, print, radio

• Brochures

• Incentives for users shopping online eg lower costs, discounts etc

• Press releases

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• Reasons include: Users likely to revisit site again if first experience

good Users more likely to make a transaction More successful transactions completed Users’ reactions to a site has direct impact on whether

users purchase goods from that site. Users make more use of site and more information

distributed if site easily navigated Users are more satisfied,

Why good design is important

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one study found that

“Web sites which are developed using human factors input do actually produce higher user satisfaction levels than sites which, however well crafted technically, have not benefited from this kind of input.”

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Usability

• Usability applies to all aspects of a system with which a human might interact

• Includes installation and maintenance procedures• Usability is not a single, one-dimensional property

of a user interface• Usability has multiple components and is

traditionally associated with five usability attributes.

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Usability Attributes

1. Learnability2. Efficiency3. Memorability4. Errors5. Satisfaction

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Learnability:

The system should be easy to learn so that user can rapidly start getting some work done with the system.

Efficiency:The system should be efficient to use, so that once the user has learned the system, a high level of productivity is possible.

Memorability: The system should be easy to remember, so that even the casual user is able to return to the system after some period of time not having used it, without having to re-learn everything all over again.

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Errors: The system should have a low error rate, so that users make few errors during the use of the system, and so that if they do make errors they can easily recover from them.

Satisfaction: The system should be pleasant to use, so that users are subjectively satisfied when using it.

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WEB Design

• WEB based interfaces offer:

– Familiarity, popularity is growing quickly– Portable and low maintenance interfaces– Access to a large audience– Effective use of existing infrastructure– Ease of development

• They are seen as strategic for commercial success!

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WEB Design

• Three basic criteria:– Effectiveness

• Well organised, complete and accurate.

– Affectiveness• Captures the viewers attention by being

interesting, stimulating, and enjoyable.

– Navigational Efficiency• Easy to find desired information.

Material in this lecture adapted from Dave Deal from:Conger, S.A. and Mason, R.O. Planning and Designing Effective Web Sites. Course Technology.

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WEB Design

Viewers:

– Surfers• People who access and view pages.

– Users• People with a defined interest and will act on or

make use of information found.

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WEB Design

Three basic purposes:– To inform

• Viewer obtains facts, learn, or understand.• Emphasis on completeness, clarity, simplicity.

– To entertain• Viewer wants to have fun.• Emphasis on whimsy, surprise, action and variety.

– To enable exchange• Viewer wants to perform a useful action.• Emphasis on advertising, persuasion, fast access.• Search facilities are used to assist the viewer.

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Issues

• For effectiveness, Text must be:• Complete or comprehensive

– Accurate (or labelled with an accuracy level)– Easy to read– Clear– Useful to a defined audience– Concise

• Tone determines a site’s affectiveness.

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Issues contVariables– Layout

• consider placement of text and other media• proximity, alignment, contrast and repetition

– Typography• typefaces (fonts) and type style (italics, bold)

– Type size– Colour– Grouping

• location, alphabetic, time, quantity• presenter designed categories

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Issues cont– Page formatting

• menus maps

• frames

Table of Contents

DallasOverviewAccommodationRestaurantsDay TripsShoppingEvents

…

Businesses Hotels Day Trips Dallas Restaurants Shopping Events

Great cities Greens Tourist Guide Dallas Overview Accommodation Restaurants Day Trips Shopping Events

Dallas Texas A city of sustained activity. Located in the plains area of Texas, Dallas has inv ested heavily in the development of an enjoyable lifesstyle for its citizens….

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An Example of a Complex Scene

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Organization of Screen Elements

• Balance• Symmetry• Regularity• Predictability• Sequentiality• Economy• Unity• Proportion• Simplicity• Groupings

Source: Dr. Xia Lin, Principles of Good Screen Design, INSYS 110 HCI -- Week 4, College of Information Science and Technology, Drexel University

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Balance

• Equal weight of screen elements– Left to right, top to bottom

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Balance

Unstable

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Symmetry

• Replicate elements left and right of the centre line

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Symmetric

Asymmetric

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Regularity

• Create standard and consistent spacing on horizontal and vertical alignment points

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Regular

Irregular

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Predictability

• Put things in predictable locations on the screen

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Predictable

Spontaneous

Icon

File Edit View Insert Window Help

Kung Foo

Search for Movies

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Enter Keywords:Grasshopper Old blind guy

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Kung Foo

Search for Movies Cancel

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Enter Keywords:Grasshopper Old blind guy

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Predictability

• User expects title & menu bar on top of screen

• Visual scene needs to be completely processed - objects not in expected places

Icon

File Edit View Insert Window Help

Kung Foo

Search for Movies

CancelOK

Enter Keywords:Grasshopper Old blind guy

Icon

File Edit View Insert Window Help

Kung Foo

Search for Movies Cancel

OK

Enter Keywords:Grasshopper Old blind guy

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Sequentiality

• Guide the eye through the task in an obvious way– The Eye is attracted to:

• bright elements over less bright• Isolated elements over grouped• graphics before text• colour before monochrome• saturated vs. less saturated colours• dark areas before light• big vs. small elements• unusual shapes over usual ones

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Sequential

Random

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Economy

• Use as few styles, fonts, colours, display techniques, dialog styles, etc., as possible

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Economical

Busy

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Colour Clashes

What colour combinations should be avoided?

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It is very difficult to read red on blue, as the colours are at opposite ends of the

spectrum and it makes hard work for the eye and leads to eye strain.

It is also very difficult to read blue on red, as the colours are at opposite ends of the spectrum and it makes hard work for the

eye and leads to eye strain.

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Difficult to read

Easy to read

Easy to read

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Blue and green should never be seen

Blue and green should never be seen

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The yellow on turquoise looks slightly muddied.

The yellow leaps off the black box, clean and bright.

These two yellows are exactly the same colour value.

Compare the boxes

Source: Jim Duncan http://www.avalon.net/~librarian/bones/mapdir.html

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Blind me! Drive me crazy!

On a Web site, colour can be used for destructive purposes: it can obliterate the message you want to convey to your users; it can drive them blind and half-insane; and worse yet, it can cause them to promptly click that Back Button, never to return to your site.

Source: Jim Duncan http://www.avalon.net/~librarian/bones/mapdir.html

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Blind me! Drive me crazy!

On a Web site, colour can be used for destructive purposes: it can obliterate the message you want to convey to your users; it can drive them blind and half-insane; and worse yet, it can cause them to promptly click that Back Button, never to return to your site.

Source: Jim Duncan http://www.avalon.net/~librarian/bones/mapdir.html

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By putting bright colours next to each other, you can create some really nasty effects.

Mix them and you eliminate what potential value they might have had to enliven or brighten your topic.

Source: Jim Duncan http://www.avalon.net/~librarian/bones/mapdir.html

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Unity

• Make items appear as a unified whole (for visual coherence)– Use similar shapes, sizes, or colours– Leave less space between screen elements than

at the margin of the screen

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Unity

Fragmentation

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Proportion

• Create groupings of data or text by using aesthetically pleasing proportions

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Square - 1:1 Square Root of 2 - 1:1.414 Golden Triangle - 1:1.618

Square Root of 3 - 1:1.732 Double Square - 1:2

Pleasing Proportions

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Simple

Complex

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