Designing for E-commerce: Storefront 101
Class Description

There are a number of criteria the successful e-commerce business must meet to make the customer happy, not the least of which is a well-designed site that addresses the user's needs and preferences, enhances the shopping experience, and builds trust and credibility in the process.

In this class, which Donya developed in the fall of 1999 for the San Jose State University Professional Development Internet Business Certificate program, students compare a variety of commerce-enabled sites to gain insight into and understanding of what it takes to design a successful e-commerce site. Students also learn about the pros and cons of different types of development tools available, and identify how access to technology and resources impact the final product.

In this class we:

• Look at the strategic planning and goal-setting processes and evaluate the likelihood of online success based on a business' product or service
  
  
• Examine the range of costs associated with developing a site and know what resource and budgetary issues and concerns to anticipate
  
  
• Determine site content and features based on relevance to your goals and to the customer's needs
  
  
• Recognize importance of the home page design, good site & information architecture, and easy navigation
  
  
• Evaluate and critique different shopping cart and online catalog implementations/methodologies.
  
  
• Evaluate and rate a site's overall effectiveness and the quality of the shopping experience, independently as well as in comparison with the competition's
  
  
• Identify technology-driven components of a commerce site and review tools/options available for implementing them.

See a detailed outline of this class