Case Studies: Hazari Technology Consulting Services

Case Studies

Examples of observations, suggestions, "what works, what doesn't" will be presented to clients' when their e-commerce sites are analyzed. The following text and graphics are intended to give an idea of research based analysis that clients can expect from HTCS.

Case Study #1: Navigation

Amazon.com uses the folder metaphor as an information container (see below)

This techniques is an effective medium for providing one click access to other sections of Amazon's site e.g., Music, Video, Gifts, E-cards, Auctions. Amazon.com would like to maintain a sticky site where users would come back if these options are presented to them on every screen.

Case Study #2: Shopping cart analysis

wpeA.jpg (55093 bytes)

Saturn's web site (http://www.saturnstuff.com) has a shopping cart that is always visible to the user. It provides a list of items ordered and the price of each. Also included are options to change quantity and delete the item. This is an excellent feature and is highly recommended.

However, it was found that after the first item was added, customers cannot easily determine how to get back to the page to continue shopping for additional items. Clicking on the back button of the browser would undo the item placed in the shopping cart.

Suggestion here would be to place a button called 'Continue Shopping' on the right hand side frame that shows the shopping cart. This would encourage clients to make additional purchases before checking out.

	Did you know?
	Writing for the web is different from writing for a print periodical. Users do not read web material, they SCAN it. As a result web site content should generally be concise, scannable, and written in objective (rather than promotional) style.

Case Study #3: Screen Design

In the example above, a customer is not sure about what 'Category' is being referred to since there is only one listed (Micro Perf). Why is the Microperf text the same as graphics? What is MicroPerf? A brief definition would have helped. Are the links at the bottom called 'Categories'?

This type of information only confuses the reader since it does not provide meaning to phrases that may be jargon or technically oriented.

Case Study #4: Competitor Analysis

wpe2.jpg (58119 bytes) wpe3.jpg (65513 bytes)

Images shown above are two competitor web sites selling similar products and possibly attracting audience with same demographics. An analysis of competitor site can provide information on layout, function, navigation. Quantitative analysis such as load time that would affect buying habits are important to consider. As an example, the following are details about images and load times for each of the site.

Unique images: 23
Total images: 23
Total bytes: 30407

Image loading will take about:
21.91 seconds @ 14.4
10.95 seconds @ 28.8
5.64 seconds @ 56K

Unique images: 38
Total images: 107
Total bytes: 156664

Image loading will take about:
100.7 seconds @ 14.4
50.35 seconds @ 28.8
25.92 seconds @ 56K

As can be seen from the Image loading data, the site on the right is much slower to load. Techniques such as image compression will be recommended in the site analysis report.

Additional information available on request