CAP. 9

Question 1

Introduction

Answer 1

New approaches to analysis and design required for digital business systems.
The importance of analysis and design is such that even if an effective strategy has been developed, its execution can be destroyed by ineffectual analysis and design.

Question 2

Analysis for digital technology projects

Answer 2

Analysis for digital systems is concerned with understanding the business and user requirements for a new system. Analysis activity can be broken down into understanding the current process and reviewing possible alternatives for implementing the digital business solution.
Delivering quality info to employees and partners, or exchanging it between process, is the key to building information systems that improve efficiency and customer service.
Analysis should be used as a tool to optimise the flow of info inside and outside organisations

Question 3

Process modelling

Answer 3

Traditional approaches to process analysis use established systems analysis and design methods that are part of methodologies, like the data flow diagram technique outlined in Bocij et al. (2008). Such approaches often use a hierarchical method of establishing:
* The processes and their constituent sub-processes;
* The dependencies between processes;
* The inputs (resources) needed by the processes and the outputs.
The processes and sub-processes are the activities/tasks that need to be performed by the business information system, so are referred to as activity-based process definition methods. A process can be defined at the business level in terms of the main activities of a business. Each process can be broken down further. Significant business processes are elements of the value chain. Davenport (1993): even for large multinational organisations, the number of main processes will rarely exceed ten.

Question 4

Process mapping

Answer 4

Existing business processes often overlap different functional areas of a business. Before detailed activities are identified, the analyst needs to identify where in the organisation processes occur and who’s responsible. This procedure is often known as process mapping, and it’s important for identifying potential users of a digital business system.

Question 5

Task analysis and task decomposition

Answer 5

Before a process can be designed and implemented, a more detailed breakdown is required: this is referred to as task analysis.
Noyes and Baber (1999): a difficulty with this type of process or task decomposition: there are no set rules for what to call the different levels of decomposition or how far to decompose the process. The number of levels and the terminology will vary according to the application you’re using and the consultant. Georgakoupoulos et al. (1995): ‘task nesting’ or tasks broken down into subtasks as part of the activity-based method for describing workflows. Curtis et al. (1992): process units or elements at each process level:
1. Level 1 – business processes are decomposed into:
2. Level 2 – activities which are further divided to:
3. Level 3 – tasks and finally:
4. Level 4 – sub-tasks.
e-workflow.org: workflow is ‘The automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, info or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules’.
The key benefits of workflow:
* Improved efficiency.
* Better process control.
* Improved customer service.
* Flexibility.
* Business process improvement.

Question 6

Process dependencies

Answer 6

Process dependencies summarise the order activities occur, according to the business rules that govern the processes. Activities occur in sequence and are serial; sometimes can occur simultaneously (=parallel). Data flow diagrams and flow charts are widely used as diagramming techniques to show process dependencies.

Question 7

Workflow management

Answer 7

Process dependencies are a core part of analysing and revising an organisation’s workflow as part of workflow management (WFM).
Workflow Management Coalition: WFM is ‘the automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules’.
Applications of workflow include actioning queries from external customers or handling internal support queries. Workflow helps manage business processes by ensuring tasks are prioritised to be performed:
As soon as possible;
By the right people;
In the right order.
The workflow approach gives a consistent, uniform approach for improved efficiency and better customer service. Workflow software provides functions to:
Assign tasks to people;
Remind people about their tasks, which are part of a workflow queue;
Allow collab between people sharing tasks;
Retrieve info needed to complete the task, such as a customer’s personal details;
Provide an overview for managers of the status of each task and the team’s performance.
For a b2b company, digital business applications of workflow might include:
Administrative workflow.
Production workflow.
Flow process charts
A flow chart is a good starting point for describing the sequence of activities of a workflow. Flow charts are effective because easy to understand by non-technical staff and highlights bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
Flow process charts are used when solving digital business problems.
Box 9.1: Use of flow process charts for design of workflow systems
Effort duration analysis
It’s an analytical tool used to calculate the overall efficiency of a process when we have performed a detailed analysis. We sum the average time it takes to complete every activity making up the overall process, then divide it by total length of time of the whole process. The total process time is often longer since includes when the task is not being worked on. Efficiency relation can be:
Efficiency=(Σ(T(effort on tasks)))/(T(total process time))
Network diagrams
Flow diagrams and flow process charts often don’t give a sufficiently tight, formal definition of the process sequence necessary for input into a digital business, workflow or ERP system. To do this we can use a network diagram known as a GAN. Nodes are added between the boxes representing the tasks, to define the alternatives that exist following completion of a task. Where alternatives exist, the logic is defined at the node as: where a single pathway is taken from two or more alternatives, the node is defined as an OR node, and when several pathways may be followed this is an AND node. Join nodes combine previous activities, and splits determine which activities occur next. When there are alternatives, business rules are defined as pre-conditions or post-conditions.
Activity 9.2: Transforming invoice processing at a b2b company
Event-driven process chain (EPC) model
One of the most widely used, popularised by its application to re-engineering of enterprises performed using the SAP R/3 ERP product. Business functions are triggered through transactions on business objects, which also lead to a business event. Control flows link the activities, events, and logical operators. Entities or information objects are items such as sales orders or invoices.

Question 8

• Flow process charts

Answer 8

A flow chart is a good starting point for describing the sequence of activities of a workflow. Flow charts are effective because easy to understand by non-technical staff and highlights bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
Flow process charts are used when solving digital business problems.
Box 9.1: Use of flow process charts for design of workflow systems

Question 9

• Effort duration analysis

Answer 9

It’s an analytical tool used to calculate the overall efficiency of a process when we have performed a detailed analysis. We sum the average time it takes to complete every activity making up the overall process, then divide it by total length of time of the whole process. The total process time is often longer since includes when the task is not being worked on. Efficiency relation can be:
Efficiency=(Σ(T(effort on tasks)))/(T(total process time))

Question 10

• Network diagrams

Answer 10

Flow diagrams and flow process charts often don’t give a sufficiently tight, formal definition of the process sequence necessary for input into a digital business, workflow or ERP system. To do this we can use a network diagram known as a GAN. Nodes are added between the boxes representing the tasks, to define the alternatives that exist following completion of a task. Where alternatives exist, the logic is defined at the node as: where a single pathway is taken from two or more alternatives, the node is defined as an OR node, and when several pathways may be followed this is an AND node. Join nodes combine previous activities, and splits determine which activities occur next. When there are alternatives, business rules are defined as pre-conditions or post-conditions.
Activity 9.2: Transforming invoice processing at a b2b company

Question 11

• Event-driven process chain (EPC) model

Answer 11

One of the most widely used, popularised by its application to re-engineering of enterprises performed using the SAP R/3 ERP product. Business functions are triggered through transactions on business objects, which also lead to a business event. Control flows link the activities, events, and logical operators. Entities or information objects are items such as sales orders or invoices.

Question 12

Validating a new process model.

Answer 12

When developing a wish list of process capabilities and corresponding business rules, the stages described by Taylor on concurrent engineering may be useful: once processes have been established they’re checked by performing a ‘talk-through, walk-through and run-through’. The design team will describe the proposed business process as a model in which different business objects interact. The final run-through stage is a quality check in which no on-the-spot debugging occurs.

Question 13

Data modelling

Answer 13

Data modelling of digital business and e-commerce systems uses well-established techniques such as normalisation that are used for relational database analysis and design.
ER modelling:
1. Identify entities
Entities define the broad groupings of info. When the design is implemented, each design will form a database table.
2. Identify attributes for entities
Attributes describe the characteristics of any single instance of an entity. When design is implemented, each attribute forms a field, and collection of fields of the entity will form a record.
With the growth of social media services, there’s a need to link customer data from different sources. The development of APIs from social networks to enable social sign-in has helped.
3. Identify relationships between entities
The relationships between entities require identification of which fields are used to link the tables. A primary key is used to uniquely identify each instance of an entity and a secondary key is used to link to a primary key in another table.
Normalisation is an additional stage used to optimise the database to minimise redundancy or duplication of info.
4. Big Data and data warehouse
Digital business systems manage a vast number of transactions with data recorded for each.
Box 9.2: The growth in social sign-in
Box 9.3: Analysis of the business applications of Big Data

Question 14

Design for digital technology projects

Answer 14

The design element of creating a digital business system involves specifying how the system should be structured and how the end-user functionality and ‘back-end’ integration with other projects implemented.

Question 15

Architectural design of digital business systems

Answer 15

Starting point for design: ensure that a common architecture exists (hardware and software technology, apps and business processes).
Digital business systems follow the same client-server model architecture of many created in 1990s. They are mobile devices connected to a ‘back-end’ server computer via intranet, extranet or Internet.
A key design decision in client-server systems is how different tasks involved in delivering a working application to the users are distributed between client and server. Typical situation for these tasks:
* Data storage.
* Query processing.
* Display.
* Application logic.
A typical digital business architecture uses a three-tier client-server model where the client is mainly used for display with application logic and the business rules partitioned on a server, which is the second tier and the database server is the third tier. This architecture is sometimes referred to as a ‘thin client’, because the size of the executable program is smaller.
Different servers are needed, which combine applications logic and database storage for different requirements. The purpose of each of the servers is:
* Web server.
* Merchant server.
* Personalisation server.
* Payment commerce server.
* Catalogue server.
* CRM server.
* ERP server.
The best approach to simplifying the design is to reduce the number of suppliers of components to improve the ease of data and applications integration.

Question 16

User-centred site design and customer experience management

Answer 16

The importance of human-computer interaction in the design of web applications is high. Bevan (1999): ‘Unless a web site meets the needs of the intended users it will not meet the needs of the organisation providing the web site. Web site development should be user-centred’.
Noyes and Baber (1999): user-centred design involves more than user interface design. It can be conceived of as centring on the human, but surrounded concentrically by factors that affect usability.
Improvements to the UX of systems have been extended to consider the context of access of systems within the location of the user. This is known as customer experience management (CXM). The development of UX to CXM has been prompted by:
* The use of smartphone and mobile devices;
* Dual or multiscreening where a smartphone or tablet may be used alongside other devices;
* Multichannel shopping behaviour – mobile devices may be used in-store as part of the purchase decision, or the decision to purchase offline is prompted by online experiences and vice versa;
* The website experience being closely integrated to other online company platforms, including company social network pages and email communications;
* The integration of offline customer service with other customer service through services such as live chat and call-back integrated into websites.
CXM is important to multichannel or omnichannel transactional. Forrester (2011): CXM in terms of different systems that can be used to deliver customer experience. CXM is an ongoing process of improvement using analytics and structured testing as part of a conversion rate optimisation (CRO) programme. CRO is increasingly being used to improve the commercial contribution of online presence. Design for digital business should be considered as a continuous investment.
User-centred design starts with understanding the nature of and variation within the user groups. Bevan (1999): issues to consider include:
* Who are the important users?
* What’s their purpose in accessing the site?
* How frequently will they visit the site?
* What experience and expertise do they have?
* What nationality are they? Can they read English?
* What type of info are they looking for?
* How will they want to use the info: read it on the screen, print it or download it?
* What type of browsers will they use? How fast will their communication links be?
* How large a screen/window will they use, with how many colours?
Usability and accessibility are only one part of the overall package that determines a visitor’s experience. The concept of online brand promise is related to that of delivering online customer experience.
‘A good site should always begin with the user. This includes understanding who your competitors are and how they operate online. You need continuous research, feedback and usability testing to continue to monitor and evolve the customer experience. Customers want convenience and ease of ordering. They want a site that is quick to download, well-structured and easy to navigate’.
Creating effective online experiences is a challenge since there are many practical issues. De Chernatony (2001): delivering the online experience promised by a brand requires delivering rational values, emotional values and promised experience. Christodoulides et al. (2006): tested the importance of a range of indicators of online brand equity for online retail and service companies. This analysis was performed across these five dimensions of brand equity, assessed by asking:
1. Emotional connection
Q1: I feel related to the type of people who are [X]’s customers
Q2: I feel like [X] actually cares about me
Q3: I feel as though [X] really understands me
2. Online experience
Q4: [X]’s website provides easy-to-follow search paths
Q5: I never feel lost when navigating through [X]’s website
Q6: I was able to obtain the info I wanted without delay
3. Responsive service nature
Q7: [X] is willing and ready to respond to customer needs
Q8: [X]’s website gives visitors the opportunity to ‘talk back’ to [X]
4. Trust
Q9: I trust [X] to keep my personal information safe
Q10: I feel safe in my transactions with [X]
5. Fulfilment
Q11: I got what I ordered from [X]’s website
Q12: The product was delivered by the time promised by [X]
Box 9.4: UK decline in customer experience (CX) scores
Box 9.5: Fourteen reasons businesses are failing at user-centred (UX) design

Question 17

The development of UX to CXM has been prompted by:

Answer 17

• The use of smartphone and mobile devices;
• Dual or multiscreening where a smartphone or tablet may be used alongside other devices;
• Multichannel shopping behaviour – mobile devices may be used in-store as part of the purchase decision, or the decision to purchase offline is prompted by online experiences and vice versa;
• The website experience being closely integrated to other online company platforms, including company social network pages and email communications;
• The integration of offline customer service with other customer service through services such as live chat and call-back integrated into websites.

Question 18

User-centred design starts with understanding the nature of and variation within the user groups. Bevan (1999): issues to consider include:

Answer 18

• Who are the important users?
• What’s their purpose in accessing the site?
• How frequently will they visit the site?
• What experience and expertise do they have?
• What nationality are they? Can they read English?
• What type of info are they looking for?
• How will they want to use the info: read it on the screen, print it or download it?
• What type of browsers will they use? How fast will their communication links be?
• How large a screen/window will they use, with how many colours?

Question 19

Customer experience management framework

Answer 19

CX specialist Customer Input designed a comprehensive management framework, built on years of experience, consulting and customer experience optimisation.
The first step in implementing a CX strategy involves research and audit activities aimed at gaining a holistic view of the customer experience. This includes:
* Customer experience lifecycle audit.
* Customer research.
* Organisational alignment.
Customers, as well as the company’s products, services and policies, change over time so these exercises should be conducted periodically to re-evaluate the customer experience and realign the framework.
- Customer experience design
Findings from the framework alignment phase are translated into effective solutions to enhance the delivery of great customer experiences. Existing knowledge of a company and its customers can help integrate the experience design within the research and design process. Solutions can be designed to fix critical/negative experiences and create new customer value through innovation.
- Implementation
An Econsultancy guide to Implementing a Customer Experience strategy (2017) provides 10 tips to implementing CX best practice:
1. Define what great CX looks like
Price is no longer a significant driver of customer choice. Brands should be focusing on seamless interactions, but very few organisations are ready to embrace that.
2. Break down the channel focus
Executives still seem to prefer measuring and designing CX on a channel-by-channel basis and then wonder why they find the landscape too complex when it comes to understanding the customer journey or meeting expectations. Focus on the CX goal and manipulate channel activity accordingly. This improves agility.
3. It’s all about the customer journey
Channel focus fails when build a view of the customer journey. If strategy depends on first-party, identifiable data and the majority of customer interactions are on mobile where customers plunge into a cookie less black hole.
4. Take charge
Many companies have no single person or department driving the CX strategy.
By defining a goal for CX, it becomes clear which person/people have the skills to deliver it. Creating a working party with a clearly defined leader at its helm will help anchor CX in business reality.
5. Brand building is fundamental to differentiation
Today, companies can differentiate based on their varying ability to deliver on the practical elements of CX.
Adding values such as sense and emotion will become critical to differentiation. Brands that will win will begin tying brand values to experience today.
6. Create your own framework
Building a framework that sets out the behaviours and goals the organisation needs to adopt to succeed at CX demonstrates strengths and weaknesses.
Setting out a SWOT analysis according to the major components of good CX delivery creates a plan of attack.
7. Technology is a tool, not a solution
Organisations should be encouraged to bootstrap before parachuting in new technology? If new systems are the solution, make sure the rest of the business is properly aligned to serve it. If this is going to be difficult, explore the growing availability of managed services or outsourcing until the internal capacity increases.
8. Make room for innovation but choose wisely
Marketers are aware that their companies need to be seen to be innovative. When exploring innovation adoption, make sure the experience it delivers will be consistent, be in keeping with the brand and can be maintained.
9. Leadership is key
To secure investment or organisational alignment with CX, responsibility lies with CEO.
CX may be a movement with a great deal of evidence to support it but the leadership team has to examine and justify reacting to any number of pressures. Gaining support for CX implementations, even if it’s iterative and has small beginnings, needs a strong proof of concept. Set goals, a clear path towards achieving them, and measure and communicate success.
10. Start now
The price of inaction is high. There’s a recognition that implementing CX is essential to drive consideration and loyalty in the future. CX/UX takes a long time to get right, but when organisations do, there’s a positive impact on the bottom line.
- Usability
Usability is a key concept within user-centred design applied to the analysis and design for a range of products to define how easy they are to use. British Standards Institute (1999): usability as the ‘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’.
The concept can be readily applied to website design. Designing Web Usability (2000): usability is ‘an engineering approach to website design to ensure the user interface of the site is learnable, memorable, error free, efficient and gives user satisfaction. It incorporates testing and evaluation to ensure the best use of navigation and links to access info in the shortest possible time. A companion process to information architecture’.
Usability involves two key project activities. Expert reviews are often performed at the beginning of redesign project as way of identifying problems with previous design and usability testing involves:
1. Identifying representative users of the site and typical tasks;
2. Asking them to perform specific tasks such as finding a product or completing an order;
3. Observing what they do and how they succeed.
For a site to be successful, the user tasks or actions need to be completed:
* Effectively;
* Efficiently.
Nielsen suggests that around 10% of a design project budget should be spent on usability, but often actual spend is significantly less.
- Evaluating designs
A test of effective design for usability is dependent on 3 areas:
1. Effectiveness – can users complete their tasks correctly and completely?
2. Productivity – are tasks completed in an acceptable length of time?
3. Satisfaction – are users satisfied with the interaction?
User involvement is vital to assess the effectiveness of design and focus groups have traditionally been used as part of a website prototyping approach and for conversion rate optimisation (CRO).
Econsultancy (2008): Hiscox approached a site redesign using 3 models of user interaction:
* A distribution model in which visitors pick the type of customer, then choose their product;
* A retail model, where customers pick the product they want, then choose how to buy it;
* A needs-based model to help customers choose products.
Eye tracking is a technique for assessing design effectiveness. Usability tests have been completed during analysis and design, but many businesses now gain feedback continuously via tools. Smart Insights (2010) identifies 5 types of tools:
1. Website feedback tools.
2. Crowdsourcing product opinion software.
3. Simple page or concept feedback tools.
4. Site exit survey tools.
5. General online survey tools.

Question 20

• Customer experience design

Answer 20

Findings from the framework alignment phase are translated into effective solutions to enhance the delivery of great customer experiences. Existing knowledge of a company and its customers can help integrate the experience design within the research and design process. Solutions can be designed to fix critical/negative experiences and create new customer value through innovation.

Question 21

• Implementation

Answer 21

An Econsultancy guide to Implementing a Customer Experience strategy (2017) provides 10 tips to implementing CX best practice:
1. Define what great CX looks like
Price is no longer a significant driver of customer choice. Brands should be focusing on seamless interactions, but very few organisations are ready to embrace that.
2. Break down the channel focus
Executives still seem to prefer measuring and designing CX on a channel-by-channel basis and then wonder why they find the landscape too complex when it comes to understanding the customer journey or meeting expectations. Focus on the CX goal and manipulate channel activity accordingly. This improves agility.
3. It’s all about the customer journey
Channel focus fails when build a view of the customer journey. If strategy depends on first-party, identifiable data and the majority of customer interactions are on mobile where customers plunge into a cookie less black hole.
4. Take charge
Many companies have no single person or department driving the CX strategy.
By defining a goal for CX, it becomes clear which person/people have the skills to deliver it. Creating a working party with a clearly defined leader at its helm will help anchor CX in business reality.
5. Brand building is fundamental to differentiation
Today, companies can differentiate based on their varying ability to deliver on the practical elements of CX.
Adding values such as sense and emotion will become critical to differentiation. Brands that will win will begin tying brand values to experience today.
6. Create your own framework
Building a framework that sets out the behaviours and goals the organisation needs to adopt to succeed at CX demonstrates strengths and weaknesses.
Setting out a SWOT analysis according to the major components of good CX delivery creates a plan of attack.
7. Technology is a tool, not a solution
Organisations should be encouraged to bootstrap before parachuting in new technology? If new systems are the solution, make sure the rest of the business is properly aligned to serve it. If this is going to be difficult, explore the growing availability of managed services or outsourcing until the internal capacity increases.
8. Make room for innovation but choose wisely
Marketers are aware that their companies need to be seen to be innovative. When exploring innovation adoption, make sure the experience it delivers will be consistent, be in keeping with the brand and can be maintained.
9. Leadership is key
To secure investment or organisational alignment with CX, responsibility lies with CEO.
CX may be a movement with a great deal of evidence to support it but the leadership team has to examine and justify reacting to any number of pressures. Gaining support for CX implementations, even if it’s iterative and has small beginnings, needs a strong proof of concept. Set goals, a clear path towards achieving them, and measure and communicate success.
10. Start now
The price of inaction is high. There’s a recognition that implementing CX is essential to drive consideration and loyalty in the future. CX/UX takes a long time to get right, but when organisations do, there’s a positive impact on the bottom line.

Question 22

• Usability

Answer 22

Usability is a key concept within user-centred design applied to the analysis and design for a range of products to define how easy they are to use. British Standards Institute (1999): usability as the ‘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’.
The concept can be readily applied to website design. Designing Web Usability (2000): usability is ‘an engineering approach to website design to ensure the user interface of the site is learnable, memorable, error free, efficient and gives user satisfaction. It incorporates testing and evaluation to ensure the best use of navigation and links to access info in the shortest possible time. A companion process to information architecture’.
Usability involves two key project activities. Expert reviews are often performed at the beginning of redesign project as way of identifying problems with previous design and usability testing involves:
1. Identifying representative users of the site and typical tasks;
2. Asking them to perform specific tasks such as finding a product or completing an order;
3. Observing what they do and how they succeed.
For a site to be successful, the user tasks or actions need to be completed:
* Effectively;
* Efficiently.
Nielsen suggests that around 10% of a design project budget should be spent on usability, but often actual spend is significantly less

Question 23

• Evaluating designs

Answer 23

A test of effective design for usability is dependent on 3 areas:
1. Effectiveness – can users complete their tasks correctly and completely?
2. Productivity – are tasks completed in an acceptable length of time?
3. Satisfaction – are users satisfied with the interaction?
User involvement is vital to assess the effectiveness of design and focus groups have traditionally been used as part of a website prototyping approach and for conversion rate optimisation (CRO).
Econsultancy (2008): Hiscox approached a site redesign using 3 models of user interaction:
* A distribution model in which visitors pick the type of customer, then choose their product;
* A retail model, where customers pick the product they want, then choose how to buy it;
* A needs-based model to help customers choose products.
Eye tracking is a technique for assessing design effectiveness. Usability tests have been completed during analysis and design, but many businesses now gain feedback continuously via tools. Smart Insights (2010) identifies 5 types of tools:
1. Website feedback tools.
2. Crowdsourcing product opinion software.
3. Simple page or concept feedback tools.
4. Site exit survey tools.
5. General online survey tools.

Question 24

Use-case analysis

Answer 24

The use-case method of process analysis and modelling was developed as part of the development of object-orientated techniques. It’s part of a methodology known as Unified Modelling Language (UML) that attempts to unify the approaches that preceded it. Jacobsen et al. (1994): give an accessible introduction and describe how object modelling can be applied to workflow analysis.
- Persona and scenario analysis
Marketers create web design personas; this is a powerful technique for influencing the planning of online campaigns and the usability and customer-centricity of a website.
Personas are a ‘thumbnail’ description of a type of person. They’ve been used in research for segmentation ad advertising, but in recent years have proved effective for improving website design by companies that have applied this technique.
Customer scenarios are developed for different personas. Patricia Seybold: ‘A customer scenario is a set of tasks that a particular customer wants or needs to do to accomplish his desired outcome’.
Scenarios can be developed for each persona; each scenario is split into a series of steps or tasks.
The use of scenarios is a simple but powerful web design technique still relatively rare in website design. Scenarios can be used when benchmarking competitor sites a spart of situation analysis. Guidelines and ideas on what can be included when developing a persona:
1. Build personal attributes into personas
* Demographic
* Psychographic
* Webographic
2. Remember that personas are only models of characteristics and environment
* Design targets
* Stereotypes
* 3-4 suffice to improve general usability, more are needed for specific behaviours
* Choose one primary persona that, if satisfied, means others are likely to be satisfied
3. Different scenarios can be developed for each persona. Write 3 or 4; examples:
* Information-seeking scenario
* Purchase scenario – new customer
* Purchase scenario – existing customer
Once different personas have been developed that are representative of key site-visitor types or customer types, a primary persona is identified. Wodtke (2002): ‘Your primary persona needs to be a common user type who’s both important to the business success of the product and needy from a design POV – a beginner user or a technologically challenged one’.
Secondary personas can also be developed. Complementary personas: don’t fit into the main categories and that display unusual behaviours. Such complementary personas help ‘out-of-box thinking’ and offer choices or content that may appeal to all users.
Mini case study 9.1: How Miele Professional used personas for lead generation
- Stages in use-case analysis
Schneider and Winter (1998): stages for analysing using the use-case method:
1. Identify actors. Actors: people or objects involved in using or interacting with a system but not part of it. In a customer service application, the actors may be a customer and the customer service person at the company.
Schneider and Winters (1998): actors include software and hardware control devices that change the state of process and external systems that interface with the system under consideration.
2. Identify use-cases. Use-cases are the different things users of a system want it to perform. These can be described as activities or tasks that are part of a dialogue between an actor and the system. Common use-cases:
* Starting up, shutting down or amending a system.
* Adding or amending info on a system.
* Using a system for reporting or decision support.
Bevan (1999): importance of defining key scenarios of use. This stage, knowledge elicitation, involves interviewing users and asking to talk through their current or preferred way of working. Card-sorting techniques can be used to check that no stages have been missed during the talk-through – a walk-through of the cards is performed.
3. Relate actors to use-cases.
4. Develop use-case scenarios.

Question 25

• Persona and scenario analysis

Answer 25

Marketers create web design personas; this is a powerful technique for influencing the planning of online campaigns and the usability and customer-centricity of a website.
Personas are a ‘thumbnail’ description of a type of person. They’ve been used in research for segmentation ad advertising, but in recent years have proved effective for improving website design by companies that have applied this technique.
Customer scenarios are developed for different personas. Patricia Seybold: ‘A customer scenario is a set of tasks that a particular customer wants or needs to do to accomplish his desired outcome’.
Scenarios can be developed for each persona; each scenario is split into a series of steps or tasks.
The use of scenarios is a simple but powerful web design technique still relatively rare in website design. Scenarios can be used when benchmarking competitor sites a spart of situation analysis. Guidelines and ideas on what can be included when developing a persona:
1. Build personal attributes into personas
* Demographic
* Psychographic
* Webographic
2. Remember that personas are only models of characteristics and environment
* Design targets
* Stereotypes
* 3-4 suffice to improve general usability, more are needed for specific behaviours
* Choose one primary persona that, if satisfied, means others are likely to be satisfied
3. Different scenarios can be developed for each persona. Write 3 or 4; examples:
* Information-seeking scenario
* Purchase scenario – new customer
* Purchase scenario – existing customer
Once different personas have been developed that are representative of key site-visitor types or customer types, a primary persona is identified. Wodtke (2002): ‘Your primary persona needs to be a common user type who’s both important to the business success of the product and needy from a design POV – a beginner user or a technologically challenged one’.
Secondary personas can also be developed. Complementary personas: don’t fit into the main categories and that display unusual behaviours. Such complementary personas help ‘out-of-box thinking’ and offer choices or content that may appeal to all users.

Question 26

• Stages in use-case analysis

Answer 26

Schneider and Winter (1998): stages for analysing using the use-case method:
1. Identify actors. Actors: people or objects involved in using or interacting with a system but not part of it. In a customer service application, the actors may be a customer and the customer service person at the company.
Schneider and Winters (1998): actors include software and hardware control devices that change the state of process and external systems that interface with the system under consideration.
2. Identify use-cases. Use-cases are the different things users of a system want it to perform. These can be described as activities or tasks that are part of a dialogue between an actor and the system. Common use-cases:
* Starting up, shutting down or amending a system.
* Adding or amending info on a system.
* Using a system for reporting or decision support.
Bevan (1999): importance of defining key scenarios of use. This stage, knowledge elicitation, involves interviewing users and asking to talk through their current or preferred way of working. Card-sorting techniques can be used to check that no stages have been missed during the talk-through – a walk-through of the cards is performed.
3. Relate actors to use-cases.
4. Develop use-case scenarios.

Question 27

Designing the information architecture

Answer 27

Rosenfeld and Morville (2002): importance of information architecture to an effective website design; they give alternative definitions of it:
1. The combination of organisation, labelling and navigation schemes within an information system.
2. The structural design of an info space to facilitate task completion and intuitive access to content.
3. Art and science of structuring and classifying websites and intranets to help find and manage info.
4. An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.
Creation of information architecture involves creating a plan to group info logically – creating a site structure often represented as a site map. Well-developed info architecture is important to usability since determines navigation options. It’s important to SEO, since determines how different types of content that users may search for are labelled and grouped.
Planned info architecture is essential to large-scale websites that include a large volume of product or support documentation. Info architecture is less important to small-scale websites and brand sites. The benefits of creating info architecture include:
* A defined structure and categorisation of info will support user and organisation goals.
* It helps increase flow on the site.
* SEO.
* Applicable for integrating offline communications.
* Related content can be grouped to measure the effectiveness of a website.
- Card sorting
Websites are frequently designed from the perspective of the designer, leading to labels, subject grouping and categories not intuitive. Card sorting or web classification should categorise web objects to facilitate info task completion or info goals the user has set.
Robertson (2003): questions when using card sorting to aid the process of modelling web classification systems:
* How the users want to see the info grouped by?
* What are the most important items to put on the main menu?
* How many menu items should there be, and how deep should it go?
* How similar or different are the needs of the users throughout the organisation?
Selected groups of users or representatives will be given index cards with the following written on them, depending on the aim of the card-sorting process:
* Types of document;
* Organisational key words and concepts;
* Document titles;
* Descriptions of documents;
* Navigation labels.
The user groups may then be asked to:
* Group together cards that they feel relate to each other;
* Select cards that accurately reflect a given topic or area;
* Organise cards in terms of hierarchy.
At the end of the session the analyst must take the cards away and map the results into a spreadsheet to find out the most popular terms, descriptions and relationships. It two or more different groups are used, the results should be compared and reasons for differences should be analysed.
- Blueprints
Rosenfeld and Morville (2002): blueprints: ‘show the relationships between pages and other content components, and can be used to portray organisation, navigation and labelling systems’.
Site maps or site structure diagrams, have much in common with these, except that they’re used as a design device showing grouping of info and linkages between pages.
- Wireframes
Wireframes: used by web designers to indicate eventual layout of a web page. Wireframe is so called because just consists of an outline of the page with the ‘wires’ of content separating different area of content or navigation shown by white space.
Wodtke (2002): wireframe is ‘a basic outline of an individual page, drawn to indicate the elements of a page, their relationships, and their relative importance’.
A wireframe focuses on individual pages; the navigation focus becomes where it will be placed on the website.
Storyboarding: process of reviewing wireframes, although the term is often applied to reviewing creative ideas rather than formal design alternatives. Early designs are drawn on large pieces of paper, or mock-ups are produced using a drawing or paint program.
At the wireframe stage, emphasis isn’t placed on use of colour or graphics, which will be developed with branding or marketing teams and graphic designers and integrated into the site towards the end of the wireframe process. Chaffey and Wood (2005): aim of a wireframe:
* Integrate consistently available components on the web page;
* Order and group key types of components together;
* Develop a design that will focus the user on the core messages and content;
* Make correct use of white space to structure the page;
* Develop a page structure that can be easily reused by other web designers.
Common wireframe or template features you may come across are:
* Navigation in columns on left or right and at top or bottom;
* Header areas and footer areas;
* ‘slots’ or ‘portlets’.
Slots on the home page may be used to:
* Summarise the online value proposition;
* Show promotions;
* Recommend related products;
* Feature news, etc.;
* Contain ads.
Wireframes are transformed into physical site design page templates, created using standardised Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Standards body W3C defines CSS as: ‘a simple mechanism for adding style to Web documents.
CSS enables different style elements to be controlled across an entire site or section of it. Style elements commonly controlled include:
* Typography;
* Background colour and images;
* Borders and margins’.
A style sheet consists of a series of rules that control the way selected elements should be displayed.
Benefits of CSS:
* Bandwidth.
* More efficient development.
* Reduces updating and maintenance time.
* Increased interoperability.
* Increased accessibility.

Question 28

• Card sorting

Answer 28

Websites are frequently designed from the perspective of the designer, leading to labels, subject grouping and categories not intuitive. Card sorting or web classification should categorise web objects to facilitate info task completion or info goals the user has set.
Robertson (2003): questions when using card sorting to aid the process of modelling web classification systems:
* How the users want to see the info grouped by?
* What are the most important items to put on the main menu?
* How many menu items should there be, and how deep should it go?
* How similar or different are the needs of the users throughout the organisation?
Selected groups of users or representatives will be given index cards with the following written on them, depending on the aim of the card-sorting process:
* Types of document;
* Organisational key words and concepts;
* Document titles;
* Descriptions of documents;
* Navigation labels.
The user groups may then be asked to:
* Group together cards that they feel relate to each other;
* Select cards that accurately reflect a given topic or area;
* Organise cards in terms of hierarchy.
At the end of the session the analyst must take the cards away and map the results into a spreadsheet to find out the most popular terms, descriptions and relationships. It two or more different groups are used, the results should be compared and reasons for differences should be analysed.

Question 29

• Blueprints

Answer 29

Rosenfeld and Morville (2002): blueprints: ‘show the relationships between pages and other content components, and can be used to portray organisation, navigation and labelling systems’.
Site maps or site structure diagrams, have much in common with these, except that they’re used as a design device showing grouping of info and linkages between pages.

Question 30

• Wireframes

Answer 30

Wireframes: used by web designers to indicate eventual layout of a web page. Wireframe is so called because just consists of an outline of the page with the ‘wires’ of content separating different area of content or navigation shown by white space.
Wodtke (2002): wireframe is ‘a basic outline of an individual page, drawn to indicate the elements of a page, their relationships, and their relative importance’.
A wireframe focuses on individual pages; the navigation focus becomes where it will be placed on the website.
Storyboarding: process of reviewing wireframes, although the term is often applied to reviewing creative ideas rather than formal design alternatives. Early designs are drawn on large pieces of paper, or mock-ups are produced using a drawing or paint program.
At the wireframe stage, emphasis isn’t placed on use of colour or graphics, which will be developed with branding or marketing teams and graphic designers and integrated into the site towards the end of the wireframe process. Chaffey and Wood (2005): aim of a wireframe:
* Integrate consistently available components on the web page;
* Order and group key types of components together;
* Develop a design that will focus the user on the core messages and content;
* Make correct use of white space to structure the page;
* Develop a page structure that can be easily reused by other web designers.
Common wireframe or template features you may come across are:
* Navigation in columns on left or right and at top or bottom;
* Header areas and footer areas;
* ‘slots’ or ‘portlets’.
Slots on the home page may be used to:
* Summarise the online value proposition;
* Show promotions;
* Recommend related products;
* Feature news, etc.;
* Contain ads.
Wireframes are transformed into physical site design page templates, created using standardised Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Standards body W3C defines CSS as: ‘a simple mechanism for adding style to Web documents.
CSS enables different style elements to be controlled across an entire site or section of it. Style elements commonly controlled include:
* Typography;
* Background colour and images;
* Borders and margins’.
A style sheet consists of a series of rules that control the way selected elements should be displayed.
Benefits of CSS:
* Bandwidth.
* More efficient development.
* Reduces updating and maintenance time.
* Increased interoperability.
* Increased accessibility.

Question 31

Customer orientation

Answer 31

A well-designed site will have been developed to achieve customer orientation or customer-centricity. For a b2b company, the 3 main types of audience are: customers, other companies and organisations, and staff.
Marketing-led or commercial-led site design is informed by marketing objectives and customer needs rather than a restricted view of info architecture or structuring a site simply around products or services.
Some key business requirements from a site design based on this commercial approach are:
* Customer acquisition.
* Customer conversion.
* Customer retention.
* Branding.
Marketing-led site design is also known as persuasion marketing.
Bryan Eisenberg: ‘during the wireframe and storyboard phase we ask three critical questions of every page a visitor will see: 1. What action needs to be taken? 2. Who needs to take that action? 3. How do we persuade that person to take the action we desire?’
BJ Fogg (2009): model to inform persuasive design. The FBM asserts that for a person to perform a target behaviour, he or she must (1) be sufficiently motivated, (2) can perform the behaviour and (3) be triggered to perform the behaviour. These three factors must occur at the same moment, else the behaviour will not happen.

Question 32

Elements of site design

Answer 32

Once the requirements of the user are established, we can turn attention to the design of the human-computer interface. Nielsen (2000): book on web usability according to 3 main areas:
* Site design and structure;
* Page design;
* Content design.
The increasing importance of mobile design means that designing for mobile devices is a key consideration.
- Site design and structure
The structures created for website will vary according to audience and site’s purpose, but we can make some general observations about design and structure.
Site style. An effective website design will have a style communicated through use of colour images, typography, and layout.
Site personality. The style elements can be combined to develop a personality for a site. A consumer site is usually more graphically intensive. Designers need to consider the constraints on the user experience. Rosen and Purinton (2004): assessed the relative importance of design factors that influence a consumer. Basic factors that determine the effectiveness of an e-commerce site:
i. Coherence.
ii. Complexity.
iii. Legibility.
Site organisation. Rosenfeld and Morville (2002): different information organisation schemes. These can be applied for different aspects of e-commerce sites, from the whole site through to different parts of it.
Rosenfeld and Morville (2002): identify info organisation schemes:
1. Exact.
2. Ambiguous.
3. Hybrid.
Site navigation schemes. Devising a site easy to use is dependent on the design of site navigation scheme. Hoffman and Novak (1997): importance of the concept of flow, which describes how easy is to find info they need as they move from one page to the next, but also includes other interactions such as filling in on-screen forms. Retie (2001): summarises the meaning of flow and gives guidelines on how it can be used to enhance the visitor experience. These statements describing flow were used originally by Csikszentmihalyi (1990) and more recently by Rettie’s research to test for a flow experience on a website:
1. My mind isn’t wandering. I’m not thinking of something else. I’m totally involved in what I’m doing. My body feels good. I don’t seem to hear anything. The world seems to be cut off from me. I’m less aware of myself and my problems.
2. My concentration is like breathing. I never think of it. I’m oblivious to my surrounding after I really get going. I think that the phone could ring, and the doorbell could ring, or the house burn down or something like that. When I start, I really do shut out the whole world. Once I stop, I can let it back in again.
3. I’m so involved in what I’m doing, I don’t see myself as separate from what I’m doing.
Rettie (2001): factors that limit flow: long download times, delays to download plug-ins, long registration forms, limited stimulation, boring sites, slow responses, sites that aren’t intuitive, navigation links that fail, challenge greater than skill, irrelevant adv. Conversely, reversing these factors can improve flow. When creating the structure, designers have to compromise between two approaches:
1. Narrow and deep approach.
2. Broad and shallow approach.
Site designers should ensure it only takes 3 clicks to reach any piece of info on a site; this implies the use of a broad and shallow approach on most large sites.
Lynch and Horton (1999): recommend a broad and shallow approach; designers should conceive of different home pages according to different audience types. Nielsen (2000): many users won’t arrive on the home but may be referred from another site or advert to a particular page  deep linking, and site designers should ensure that navigation and content are appropriate for users arriving on these pages. It’s also necessary to compromise on the amount of space devoted to menus. Nielsen (2000): some sites devote so much space to navigation bars that the space available for content is limited. The designer of navigation systems should consider the following info that a site user wants to know:
• Where am I?
• Where have I been?
• Where do I want to go?
Clear succinct labelling is required. Widely used standards such as Home, Main page, Search, Find, Browse, FAQ, Help and About Us are preferable. But for other labels it’s useful to have ‘scope notes’ – an additional explanation. These authors also argue against the use of iconic labels or pictures without corresponding text since they’re open to misinterpretation and take longer to process. Since using the navigation system may not enable the user to find the info they want rapidly, alternatives have to be provided by the site designers. There alternatives include search, advanced search, browse and site map facilities.

Question 33

• Site design and structure

Answer 33

The structures created for website will vary according to audience and site’s purpose, but we can make some general observations about design and structure.
Site style. An effective website design will have a style communicated through use of colour images, typography, and layout.
Site personality. The style elements can be combined to develop a personality for a site. A consumer site is usually more graphically intensive. Designers need to consider the constraints on the user experience. Rosen and Purinton (2004): assessed the relative importance of design factors that influence a consumer. Basic factors that determine the effectiveness of an e-commerce site:
i. Coherence.
ii. Complexity.
iii. Legibility.
Site organisation. Rosenfeld and Morville (2002): different information organisation schemes. These can be applied for different aspects of e-commerce sites, from the whole site through to different parts of it.
Rosenfeld and Morville (2002): identify info organisation schemes:
1. Exact.
2. Ambiguous.
3. Hybrid.
Site navigation schemes. Devising a site easy to use is dependent on the design of site navigation scheme. Hoffman and Novak (1997): importance of the concept of flow, which describes how easy is to find info they need as they move from one page to the next, but also includes other interactions such as filling in on-screen forms. Retie (2001): summarises the meaning of flow and gives guidelines on how it can be used to enhance the visitor experience. These statements describing flow were used originally by Csikszentmihalyi (1990) and more recently by Rettie’s research to test for a flow experience on a website:
1. My mind isn’t wandering. I’m not thinking of something else. I’m totally involved in what I’m doing. My body feels good. I don’t seem to hear anything. The world seems to be cut off from me. I’m less aware of myself and my problems.
2. My concentration is like breathing. I never think of it. I’m oblivious to my surrounding after I really get going. I think that the phone could ring, and the doorbell could ring, or the house burn down or something like that. When I start, I really do shut out the whole world. Once I stop, I can let it back in again.
3. I’m so involved in what I’m doing, I don’t see myself as separate from what I’m doing.
Rettie (2001): factors that limit flow: long download times, delays to download plug-ins, long registration forms, limited stimulation, boring sites, slow responses, sites that aren’t intuitive, navigation links that fail, challenge greater than skill, irrelevant adv. Conversely, reversing these factors can improve flow. When creating the structure, designers have to compromise between two approaches:
1. Narrow and deep approach.
2. Broad and shallow approach.
Site designers should ensure it only takes 3 clicks to reach any piece of info on a site; this implies the use of a broad and shallow approach on most large sites.
Lynch and Horton (1999): recommend a broad and shallow approach; designers should conceive of different home pages according to different audience types. Nielsen (2000): many users won’t arrive on the home but may be referred from another site or advert to a particular page  deep linking, and site designers should ensure that navigation and content are appropriate for users arriving on these pages. It’s also necessary to compromise on the amount of space devoted to menus. Nielsen (2000): some sites devote so much space to navigation bars that the space available for content is limited. The designer of navigation systems should consider the following info that a site user wants to know:
• Where am I?
• Where have I been?
• Where do I want to go?
Clear succinct labelling is required. Widely used standards such as Home, Main page, Search, Find, Browse, FAQ, Help and About Us are preferable. But for other labels it’s useful to have ‘scope notes’ – an additional explanation. These authors also argue against the use of iconic labels or pictures without corresponding text since they’re open to misinterpretation and take longer to process. Since using the navigation system may not enable the user to find the info they want rapidly, alternatives have to be provided by the site designers. There alternatives include search, advanced search, browse and site map facilities.

Question 34

Site organisation

Answer 34

Rosenfeld and Morville (2002): different information organisation schemes. These can be applied for different aspects of e-commerce sites, from the whole site through to different parts of it.
Rosenfeld and Morville (2002): identify info organisation schemes:
1. Exact.
2. Ambiguous.
3. Hybrid.

Question 35

Site navigation schemes

Answer 35

Devising a site easy to use is dependent on the design of site navigation scheme. Hoffman and Novak (1997): importance of the concept of flow, which describes how easy is to find info they need as they move from one page to the next, but also includes other interactions such as filling in on-screen forms. Retie (2001): summarises the meaning of flow and gives guidelines on how it can be used to enhance the visitor experience. These statements describing flow were used originally by Csikszentmihalyi (1990) and more recently by Rettie’s research to test for a flow experience on a website:
1. My mind isn’t wandering. I’m not thinking of something else. I’m totally involved in what I’m doing. My body feels good. I don’t seem to hear anything. The world seems to be cut off from me. I’m less aware of myself and my problems.
2. My concentration is like breathing. I never think of it. I’m oblivious to my surrounding after I really get going. I think that the phone could ring, and the doorbell could ring, or the house burn down or something like that. When I start, I really do shut out the whole world. Once I stop, I can let it back in again.
3. I’m so involved in what I’m doing, I don’t see myself as separate from what I’m doing.
Rettie (2001): factors that limit flow: long download times, delays to download plug-ins, long registration forms, limited stimulation, boring sites, slow responses, sites that aren’t intuitive, navigation links that fail, challenge greater than skill, irrelevant adv. Conversely, reversing these factors can improve flow. When creating the structure, designers have to compromise between two approaches:
1. Narrow and deep approach.
2. Broad and shallow approach.
Site designers should ensure it only takes 3 clicks to reach any piece of info on a site; this implies the use of a broad and shallow approach on most large sites.
Lynch and Horton (1999): recommend a broad and shallow approach; designers should conceive of different home pages according to different audience types. Nielsen (2000): many users won’t arrive on the home but may be referred from another site or advert to a particular page  deep linking, and site designers should ensure that navigation and content are appropriate for users arriving on these pages. It’s also necessary to compromise on the amount of space devoted to menus. Nielsen (2000): some sites devote so much space to navigation bars that the space available for content is limited. The designer of navigation systems should consider the following info that a site user wants to know:
* Where am I?
* Where have I been?
* Where do I want to go?
Clear succinct labelling is required. Widely used standards such as Home, Main page, Search, Find, Browse, FAQ, Help and About Us are preferable. But for other labels it’s useful to have ‘scope notes’ – an additional explanation. These authors also argue against the use of iconic labels or pictures without corresponding text since they’re open to misinterpretation and take longer to process. Since using the navigation system may not enable the user to find the info they want rapidly, alternatives have to be provided by the site designers. There alternatives include search, advanced search, browse and site map facilities.
- Page design
The page design involves creating an appropriate layout for each page. The main elements of a particular page layout are: title, navigation, content. Standard content such as copyright may be added to every page as a footer. Issues in page design include:
* Page elements.
* The use of frames.
* Resizing.
* Consistency.
* Printing.
- Content design
Copywriting is an evolving art form. Common errors we see on websites are:
* Too much knowledge assumed of the visitor about the company, its products and services;
* Using internal jargon about products, services or departments.
Web copywriters also need to take account of the user reading the content on-screen. Approaches to deal with the limitations imposed by the customer using a monitor include:
* Writing more concisely than in brochures;
* Chunking or breaking text into units of 5-6 lines at most  scan rather than read info;
* Using lists with headline text in larger font;
* Never including too much on a single page;
* Hyperlinks to decrease page sizes or helps achieve flow within copy.
Hofacker (2001): 5 stages of human information processing when a website is being used: -exposure, -attention, -comprehension and perception, -yielding and acceptance, -retention. Each of the 5 stages acts as a hurdle, since if the site design or content is too difficult to process, the customer can’t progress to the next stage.
Using these layers we can map content across different access levels to produce a site integrated across the needs of its audience. This also relates to the section on security, since different access levels may be given for different info.

Question 36

• Page design

Answer 36

The page design involves creating an appropriate layout for each page. The main elements of a particular page layout are: title, navigation, content. Standard content such as copyright may be added to every page as a footer. Issues in page design include:
* Page elements.
* The use of frames.
* Resizing.
* Consistency.
* Printing.

Question 37

• Content design

Answer 37

Copywriting is an evolving art form. Common errors we see on websites are:
* Too much knowledge assumed of the visitor about the company, its products and services;
* Using internal jargon about products, services or departments.
Web copywriters also need to take account of the user reading the content on-screen. Approaches to deal with the limitations imposed by the customer using a monitor include:
* Writing more concisely than in brochures;
* Chunking or breaking text into units of 5-6 lines at most  scan rather than read info;
* Using lists with headline text in larger font;
* Never including too much on a single page;
* Hyperlinks to decrease page sizes or helps achieve flow within copy.
Hofacker (2001): 5 stages of human information processing when a website is being used. Each of the 5 stages acts as a hurdle, since if the site design or content is too difficult to process, the customer can’t progress to the next stage.
Using these layers we can map content across different access levels to produce a site integrated across the needs of its audience. This also relates to the section on security, since different access levels may be given for different info.

Question 38

Mobile design

Answer 38

Wroblewski (2011): ‘we’re seeing more ways to tackle the challenge of creating great web experiences across multiple devices. But which approach is right for any project? For us site performance and speed of development were crucial. So many of the decisions we made were designed to make both as fast as possible. We also had a philosophy of just what’s necessary. With a dual template system we felt we had more optimization of: source order, media, URL structure, and application design’.
4 common options for mobile site development identified by Thurner (2016):
A. Mobile site design option A. Responsive design
Multiple-device-using consumers expect to find content dynamically optimised for the screen they use. RWD is a popular method for creating mobile-optimised sites that work across smartphone, tablet, and desktop. It enables a single version of the site and content. RWD has emerged as the default option for organisations to optimise sites for mobile and tablet. Many web front-end developers champion RWD as it removes the need for separate sites. This alone doesn’t mean it’s the best option for all companies. Larger organisations may find adaptive web design more suited.
RWD uses Cascading Style Sheets and a styling feature available from CSS3 known as media queries, which specifies how the page is laid out.
It has limitations. Critics: it forces to compromise to deliver user designs that render across all devices, rather than design sites that maximise the functionality of different operating systems. The ongoing trade-off remains the same: any site should be as responsive as possible without sacrificing UX for desktop, tablet and mobile screens. UX must be based on the browsers’ intent and context.
B. Mobile site design option B. Adaptive design
AWD can overcome the limitations of RWD by defining rules that minimise the need for styling and refine device-specific design. Responsive and adaptive design are used interchangeably by those not ‘in-the-known’, but there are significant differences.
Adaptive design can be accomplished in 2 ways:
1. Server-based.
2. Client-based.
Using AWD, the client/server can choose the layout to render pages. Distinction from responsive: can also enhance/remove functionality based on the capabilities detected. Potentially, a differentiated experience can be built for the specific intent of the mobile customer. The primary goal must be deliver content optimised for the context and intent of each customer’s experience.
C. Mobile site design option C. HTML5
HTML5 is the browser technology pre-installed on every smartphone. Leading companies in the sectors that have led the way in adopting mobile have turned to HTML5 ‘web apps’ to build once and target all mobile platforms in a single hit. This is more cost-effective and less labour-intensive than building different native apps.
HTML5 browsers provide clear benefits for brands and users alike, including better provision on rich media, the ability to access and use data submitted in previous browsing sessions, and accessibility regardless of signal strength.
HTML5 web apps allow developers and publishers to circumnavigate the 30% commission charged by Apple and Google on app download costs and a further 30% on products and subscriptions sold ‘in-app’. Both costs can be eliminated with HTML5-based sites.
Mini case study 9.2: FT.com adopts HTML5 for its iOS web app
D. Mobile site design option D. Separate mobile domain (screen scrape)
A number of high-profile brands previously opted for a temporary screen-scrape approach. Advantage of it: quick route to market. Disadvantages: worse long-term solution, additional time and cost to manage the site, as changes to the back-end content management system need to be updated manually on the mobile site. Scree-scrape sites have large degree of standardisation.
Consider personalisation options. Q: Have mobile personalisation options been considered? Mobile sites featuring personalisation are still unusual.
We can develop highly personalised and customised sites. Back-end integration, with application programming interfaces exposing individual customer records, to build bespoke sites that match the profile of each user. Benefit of personalised mobile-optimised site: specific features can be developed for mobile users. This isn’t the case with basic responsive design approach. To make site relevant to users, you can apply behavioural targeting, with and location-sensitive messaging.

Question 39

A. Mobile site design option A. Responsive design

Answer 39

Multiple-device-using consumers expect to find content dynamically optimised for the screen they use. RWD is a popular method for creating mobile-optimised sites that work across smartphone, tablet, and desktop. It enables a single version of the site and content. RWD has emerged as the default option for organisations to optimise sites for mobile and tablet. Many web front-end developers champion RWD as it removes the need for separate sites. This alone doesn’t mean it’s the best option for all companies. Larger organisations may find adaptive web design more suited.
RWD uses Cascading Style Sheets and a styling feature available from CSS3 known as media queries, which specifies how the page is laid out.
It has limitations. Critics: it forces to compromise to deliver user designs that render across all devices, rather than design sites that maximise the functionality of different operating systems. The ongoing trade-off remains the same: any site should be as responsive as possible without sacrificing UX for desktop, tablet and mobile screens. UX must be based on the browsers’ intent and context.

Question 40

B. Mobile site design option B. Adaptive design

Answer 40

AWD can overcome the limitations of RWD by defining rules that minimise the need for styling and refine device-specific design. Responsive and adaptive design are used interchangeably by those not ‘in-the-known’, but there are significant differences.
Adaptive design can be accomplished in 2 ways:
1. Server-based.
2. Client-based.
Using AWD, the client/server can choose the layout to render pages. Distinction from responsive: can also enhance/remove functionality based on the capabilities detected. Potentially, a differentiated experience can be built for the specific intent of the mobile customer. The primary goal must be deliver content optimised for the context and intent of each customer’s experience.

Question 41

C. Mobile site design option C. HTML5

Answer 41

HTML5 is the browser technology pre-installed on every smartphone. Leading companies in the sectors that have led the way in adopting mobile have turned to HTML5 ‘web apps’ to build once and target all mobile platforms in a single hit. This is more cost-effective and less labour-intensive than building different native apps.
HTML5 browsers provide clear benefits for brands and users alike, including better provision on rich media, the ability to access and use data submitted in previous browsing sessions, and accessibility regardless of signal strength.
HTML5 web apps allow developers and publishers to circumnavigate the 30% commission charged by Apple and Google on app download costs and a further 30% on products and subscriptions sold ‘in-app’. Both costs can be eliminated with HTML5-based sites.
Mini case study 9.2: FT.com adopts HTML5 for its iOS web app

Question 42

D. Mobile site design option D. Separate mobile domain (screen scrape)

Answer 42

A number of high-profile brands previously opted for a temporary screen-scrape approach. Advantage of it: quick route to market. Disadvantages: worse long-term solution, additional time and cost to manage the site, as changes to the back-end content management system need to be updated manually on the mobile site. Scree-scrape sites have large degree of standardisation.
Consider personalisation options. Q: Have mobile personalisation options been considered? Mobile sites featuring personalisation are still unusual.
We can develop highly personalised and customised sites. Back-end integration, with application programming interfaces exposing individual customer records, to build bespoke sites that match the profile of each user. Benefit of personalised mobile-optimised site: specific features can be developed for mobile users. This isn’t the case with basic responsive design approach. To make site relevant to users, you can apply behavioural targeting, with and location-sensitive messaging.

Question 43

Web accessibility

Answer 43

Web accessibility is another core requirement for websites: allowing all users to interact with a site regardless of disabilities they may have or the web browser or platform they’re using.
Many countries now have specific accessibility legislation to which website owners are subject. This is often contained within disability and discriminations Acts.
Although there’s a moral imperative for accessibility, there’s also a business imperative. The main arguments in favour of accessibility are:
1. Number of visually impaired people.
2. Number of users of less popular browsers or variation in screen display resolution.
3. More visitors from natural listings of search engines.
4. Legal requirements.
Internet standards organisations such as the WWW Consortium have been active in promoting guidelines for web accessibility. 3 different priority levels:
* Priority 1 (Level A). A web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access info in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use web documents.
* Priority 2 (Level AA). A web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it difficult to access info. Satisfying this checkpoint will remove significant barriers to accessing web documents.
* Priority 3 (Level AAA). A web content developer may address this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat difficult to access info. Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access to web documents.
For many companies the standard is to meet Priority 1, and Priority 2 or 3 where practical. Some of the most important Priority 1 elements are indicate by these ‘Quick Tips’ from the WAI:
* Images and animations.
* Image maps.
* Multimedia.
* Hypertext links.
* Page organisation.
* Graphs and charts.
* Scripts, applet and plug-ins.
* Frames.
* Tables.
* Check your work.
Case study 9.1: Providing a better online user experience in a b2b market

Question 44

The main arguments in favour of accessibility are:

Answer 44

1. Number of visually impaired people.
2. Number of users of less popular browsers or variation in screen display resolution.
3. More visitors from natural listings of search engines.
4. Legal requirements.

Question 45

Security design for digital business

Answer 45

Security is a prime concern. The principal concern is the security of info: both about customers and internal company data about finance, logistics, marketing and employees. Securing customer info is a legal requirement under data protection laws. Larger companies tend to be more at risk from targeted attacks.
Box 9.6: Common security threats and solutions for the digital business
National Cyber Security Centre (2016): 9 steps to help companies of all sizes improve security in business:
1. Protect your network (network security)
* Find out if your device that connects the organisation to the Internet has a firewall built in.
* Take note of any warning message and follow the guidance offered.
* Consult an exert if you think your network has been compromised.
2. Teach good practice (user education and awareness)
* Make knowledge of your security policy part of your induction process for new staff and make compliance with the policy part of staff contracts.
* Remind staff regularly about good security practices, especially when the risk or the policy changes. Make sure they know not to click on links in emails from unknown sources.
* If you use social media for business purposes, you should ensure that all staff know that no sensitive material, intellectual property or similar material should be disclosed and that users behave responsibly while using social media for business or personal use, bearing in mind that they directly or indirectly represent the business.
3. Manage IT access (managing user privileges)
* Employ usernames and good passwords to control log-in.
* Good passwords contain upper- and lower-case characters, numbers and symbols.
* Don’t write passwords or share them. Limit admin privileges to those who need them.
* Ensure staff have access only to the folders they need to see. Keep sensitive data separate.
4. Keep your own IT up to date (secure configuration)
* Document your IT assets (hardware, software, key IT staff) so you know what you’ve got.
* Install current software and operating system parches, firmware updates, …, immediately they’re issued. You usually get this option when you install the software, or you should find it in the configuration menu. Ensure all software is licensed.
* Check technical weaknesses regularly. Regularly means when you update risk assessment.
5. Removable media (removable media controls)
If you transfer data using CD, DVD, USB, SD or any type of flash memory drive:
* Only permit devices issued and controlled by your business in your business systems.
* Issue, retrieve and track the devices.
* Ensure they’re encrypted and scanned for malware on each use.
6. Mobile working (home and mobile working)
* Use of mobile devices for business purposes should require board-level approval:
o Anti-malware software installed and updated daily;
o PIN, password or other authentication installed;
o Be encrypted wherever possible;
o Be capable of being remotely tracked and wiped.
* All of the above can be done at little or no cost, without technical expertise. Many of the mobile devices can do this and you can set it up through the options or set-up screens.
* Staff should inform the board-level risk owner immediately if the device is lost or stolen, and it must be wiped.
7. Use anti-malware defences (malware protection)
* Use a proprietary anti-malware or security package. Use this across the whole business.
* Use all the facilities or the anti-malware package, even if you have to modify your business practices. Ensure ‘sweeping’ is done automatically.
* Update the protection as often as possible. Providers usually offer automatic free updates – ensure updates occur at least daily.
8. Monitoring
* Monitoring can detect potential hardware faults and unusual activity on your network or Internet-connected devices. Modern laptops often come with hardware monitoring installed and some anti-malware packages also include monitoring of devices.
* If your business has a large network, you should use network management tools to detect unusual activity. This includes monitoring traffic flow, IP usage, ….
* Ensure your staff report unusual activity to a central point and that you have sufficient plans and expertise on hand to react quickly.
9. Incident management and business continuity (incident management)
* Spotting an incident – an attack should be flagged by the firewall or security package. Anything that interferes with the business is an incident.
* Decide what to do if you have an incident such as a malware attack, loss or corruption of data, laptop theft, … and document it with the approval of the board.
* Get in-house or outsourced expertise ready to deal with your incidents. Just knowing of a company with the relevant skills so you can call them quickly is important.
* Document any incident and decide what caused it, how much it cost to fix and whether there’s anything you could do better in future.
* You should ensure that you know what to do on the catastrophic failure of anything critical to your business, such as info, applications, systems or networks.
Many organisations now implement a formal information security management system.
The info management strategy will mandate that there’s an information security policy. This may be a policy developed in-house, or adoption of a security standard such as British Standard BS 7799, which has now been upgraded and ratified as international standard ISO/IEC 17799.
ISO 17799 has coverage of different risks and approaches to management of security. It recommends:
1. Plan – perform business risk analysis,
2. Do – internal controls to manage the applicable risks;
3. Check – a management review to verify effectiveness;
4. Act – action changes required as part of the review as necessary.
ISO 17799/BS 7799 help give a framework by which to manage the risk to information. These standards require the following areas of information security management to be defined:
* Section 1: Security policy.
* Section 2: Organisational security.
* Section 3: Asset classification and control. An information asset register (IAR) be created, detailing every info asset within the organisations such as databases, personnel records, contracts, …. For each asset, responsibility is defined.
* Section 4: Personnel security.
* Section 5: Physical and environmental security.
* Section 6: Communications and operations management.
* Section 7: Access control.
* Section 8: System development and maintenance.
* Section 9: Business continuity management. Business continuity management or disaster recovery specifies how the organisation will be able to continue to function in the event of a major event. Use of off-site back-ups and alternative systems is key.
* Section 10: Compliance.
Box 9.7: Massive security breaches at TalkTalk and Uber

Question 46

ISO 17799 has coverage of different risks and approaches to management of security. It recommends:

Answer 46

1. Plan – perform business risk analysis,
2. Do – internal controls to manage the applicable risks;
3. Check – a management review to verify effectiveness;
4. Act – action changes required as part of the review as necessary.

Question 47

Secure e-commerce transactions

Answer 47

For digital businesses offering online sales, there’re also additional security risks from the customer or merchant perspective:
a. Transaction or credit-card details stolen in transit;
b. Customer’s credit-card details stolen from merchant’s server;
c. Merchant or customer isn’t who they claim to be.
E. Principles of secure systems
Standard terminology for the different parties involves in the transaction:
* Purchasers.
* Merchants.
* Certification authority (CA).
* Banks.
* Electronic token issuer.
The basic requirements for security systems from these different parties to the transaction are:
1. Authentication
2. Privacy and confidentiality.
3. Integrity.
4. Non-repudiability.
5. Availability.

Question 48

E. Principles of secure systems

Answer 48

Standard terminology for the different parties involves in the transaction:
* Purchasers.
* Merchants.
* Certification authority (CA).
* Banks.
* Electronic token issuer.

Question 49

Approaches to developing secure systems.

Answer 49

F. Digital certificates
2 main methods of encryption using digital certificates.
1. Secret-key (symmetric) encryption. Symmetric encryption: parties having an identical key known only to them. Only this key can be used to encrypt and decrypt messages. The secret key has to be passed from one party to the other before use in much the same way as a copy of a secure case key would have to be sent to a receiver of info. This approach has traditionally been used to achieve security between two separate parties. The private key is sent out electronically or by courier to ensure it’s not copied.
This method isn’t practical for general e-commerce, as it would not be safe for a purchaser to give a secret key to a merchant since control of it would be lost and it could not then be used for other purposes. A merchant would also have to manage many customer keys.
2. Public-key (asymmetric) encryption. Asymmetric encryption: the keys used are different. The two keys are related by a numerical code, so only the pair of keys can be used to encrypt and decrypt info.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a public-key encryption system used to encrypt email messages.
G. Digital signatures
Digital signatures can be used to create commercial systems by using public-key encryption to achieve authentication: the merchant and purchaser can prove they’re genuine. The purchaser’s digital signature is encrypted before sending a message using their private key and the public key of the purchaser is used to decrypt the digital signature. Digital signatures aren’t widely used currently due to the difficulty of setting up transactions, but they’ll become more widespread as the public-key infrastructure stabilises and use of certificate authorities increases.
H. The public-key infrastructure (PKI) and certificate authorities (CAs)
For digital signatures and public-key encryption to be effective it’s necessary to be sure that public key intended for decryption of a document belongs to the person you believe is sending the document. Solution: issuance by a trusted third party of a message containing owner identification info and a copy of the public key of that person. The TTPs are referred to as certificate authorities (CAs). That message is called a certificate. As asymmetric encryption is slow, it’s often a sample of the message that’s encrypted and used as the representative digital signature.
I. Virtual private networks
A virtual private network (VPN) is a private wide-area network that runs over the public network, rather than a more expensive private network. The technique by which VPN operates is referred to as ‘tunnelling’ and involves encrypting packet headers and content using a secure form of the Internet Protocol known as IPSec. VPNs enable the global organisation to conduct its business securely but using the public Internet rather than more expensive proprietary systems.

Question 50

F. Digital certificates

Answer 50

2 main methods of encryption using digital certificates.
1. Secret-key (symmetric) encryption. Symmetric encryption: parties having an identical key known only to them. Only this key can be used to encrypt and decrypt messages. The secret key has to be passed from one party to the other before use in much the same way as a copy of a secure case key would have to be sent to a receiver of info. This approach has traditionally been used to achieve security between two separate parties. The private key is sent out electronically or by courier to ensure it’s not copied.
This method isn’t practical for general e-commerce, as it would not be safe for a purchaser to give a secret key to a merchant since control of it would be lost and it could not then be used for other purposes. A merchant would also have to manage many customer keys.
2. Public-key (asymmetric) encryption. Asymmetric encryption: the keys used are different. The two keys are related by a numerical code, so only the pair of keys can be used to encrypt and decrypt info.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a public-key encryption system used to encrypt email messages

Question 51

G. Digital signatures

Answer 51

Digital signatures can be used to create commercial systems by using public-key encryption to achieve authentication: the merchant and purchaser can prove they’re genuine. The purchaser’s digital signature is encrypted before sending a message using their private key and the public key of the purchaser is used to decrypt the digital signature. Digital signatures aren’t widely used currently due to the difficulty of setting up transactions, but they’ll become more widespread as the public-key infrastructure stabilises and use of certificate authorities increases.

Question 52

H. The public-key infrastructure (PKI) and certificate authorities (CAs)

Answer 52

For digital signatures and public-key encryption to be effective it’s necessary to be sure that public key intended for decryption of a document belongs to the person you believe is sending the document. Solution: issuance by a trusted third party of a message containing owner identification info and a copy of the public key of that person. The TTPs are referred to as certificate authorities (CAs). That message is called a certificate. As asymmetric encryption is slow, it’s often a sample of the message that’s encrypted and used as the representative digital signature.

Question 53

I. Virtual private networks

Answer 53

A virtual private network (VPN) is a private wide-area network that runs over the public network, rather than a more expensive private network. The technique by which VPN operates is referred to as ‘tunnelling’ and involves encrypting packet headers and content using a secure form of the Internet Protocol known as IPSec. VPNs enable the global organisation to conduct its business securely but using the public Internet rather than more expensive proprietary systems

Question 54

Current approaches to e-commerce security.

Answer 54

J. Secure Sockets Layer protocol (SSL)
SSL is a security protocol used in the majority of b2c e-commerce transactions since it’s easy for the customer to use without the need to download additional software or a certificate.
When a customer enters a secure checkout area of an e-commerce site, SSL is used and the customer is prompted that ‘you’re about to view info over a secure connection’ and a key symbol is used to denote this security. When encryption is occurring, the web address prefix in the browser changes from http:// to https:// and a padlock appears at the bottom of the browser window.
Main facilities: security and confidentiality. SSL enables a private link to be set up between customer and merchant. Encryption: to scramble details of an e-commerce transaction as it is passes between sender and receiver and when the details are held on the computers at each end. It would require a determine attempt to intercept such a message and decrypt it. SSL is more widely used than S-HTTP. Effort is into finding secure method of encryption such as SET. Problem: authentication of customer isn’t possible without resorting to other methods such as credit checks.
K. Certificate authorities (CAs)
For secure e-commerce, there’s a requirement for management of the vast number of public keys. This management involves procedures and protocols necessary throughout the lifetime of a key together with the administrative functions of time/date stamping and archiving. The successful establishment of a CA is an immense challenge of trust-building and complex management. 2 opposing views on how that challenge should be met:
* Decentralised.
* Centralised.
The best-known commercial CA is Symantec SSL.

Question 55

J. Secure Sockets Layer protocol (SSL)

Answer 55

SSL is a security protocol used in the majority of b2c e-commerce transactions since it’s easy for the customer to use without the need to download additional software or a certificate.
When a customer enters a secure checkout area of an e-commerce site, SSL is used and the customer is prompted that ‘you’re about to view info over a secure connection’ and a key symbol is used to denote this security. When encryption is occurring, the web address prefix in the browser changes from http:// to https:// and a padlock appears at the bottom of the browser window.
Main facilities: security and confidentiality. SSL enables a private link to be set up between customer and merchant. Encryption: to scramble details of an e-commerce transaction as it is passes between sender and receiver and when the details are held on the computers at each end. It would require a determine attempt to intercept such a message and decrypt it. SSL is more widely used than S-HTTP. Effort is into finding secure method of encryption such as SET. Problem: authentication of customer isn’t possible without resorting to other methods such as credit checks

Question 56

K. Certificate authorities (CAs)

Answer 56

For secure e-commerce, there’s a requirement for management of the vast number of public keys. This management involves procedures and protocols necessary throughout the lifetime of a key together with the administrative functions of time/date stamping and archiving. The successful establishment of a CA is an immense challenge of trust-building and complex management. 2 opposing views on how that challenge should be met:
* Decentralised.
* Centralised.
The best-known commercial CA is Symantec SSL

Question 57

Reassuring the customer

Answer 57

Once the security measures are in place, content on merchant’s site can be used to reassure the customer. Approaches that indicate good practice in allaying customers’ fears include:
* Use of customer guarantee to safeguard purchase;
* Clear explanation of SSL security measures used;
* Highlighting the rarity of fraud;
* The use of alternative ordering mechanisms such as phone or fax;
* The prominence of info to allay fears – the guarantee is one of the main menu options.
Companies can also use independent third parties that set guidelines for online privacy and security. The best-known international bodies are TrustArc and Symantec SSL for payment authentication.