Website Development for E-CommercePesewa

Presentat ions

Management Issues

• Two most important management challenges in building a successful e-commerce site are: Developing a clear understanding of business objectives Knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve those objectives

NEED FOR A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH NOTE: The Business Objectives and Strategy dominate the IT issues. One reason for the “dot.bomb” phenomenon was that the process were

technology-led rather than business-led

Process Components

• Main areas where you will need to make decisions in building a site include: Human resources and organizational capabilities

– creating a team that has the skill set to build and manage a successful site Site design Software Hardware Telecommunications

Information Management & e-biz

• Some issues in Web Design and e-businessSTAGES OF WEBSITE COMPLEXITYInitial Question: What is the purpose of the Website?

Communication: Advertising; marketing communication; notification1-way: To provide information to potential customers: Very Simple Often called “Brochureware” (a term of abuse!)2-way: Simple interactivity: Data capture - build Customer databasee-commerce transactions: take orders online and fulfil these(either online or offline) - requires a dynamic website / web pagese-business transformation: full integration of suppliers’ and customers databases, supply-chains and processes (the objective of much B2B)

[Can be extremely complex]

Initial Considerations• Turnkey Systems vs.. Component Solutions

similar to purchase of hi-fi system• Key Issue: Interoperability: Will all the bits of a component Website solution

work together ; • turnkey systems ought to operate smoothly (in theory)

• Component solutions: offer best in class for individual components

• Selective Upgrade: can change one component at a time to take advantage of technical progress

• Accountability Issues: If something goes wrong, who is responsible?

Second Consideration• Outsourcing vs. In-house Development

(similar to any make-buy decision)• Outsourcing: • Advantages

– Time-saving (maybe)– No fixed costs – No continuing Labour Costs (hopefully)– No maintenance costs (again, hopefully)

• Disadvantages:– Loss of control– Expense - usually more expensive to pay someone else to do work

rather than do it yourself, but ... opportunity cost arguments apply

In-House Development

• In-House:• Disadvantages:

– High Fixed Costs (up-front investment in equipment, software, training)

– Maintenance (not to be under-estimated - often the largest cost factor)

– Time Loss: – (1) Learning Curve effects; – (2) may be a better use of time for employees than doing

Website development (Opportunity Costs argument again)

– Might be preferable to use ASP (Application Service Provider)

Systems Development Life Cycle

• Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a methodology for understanding the business objectives of a system and designing an appropriate solution

• Five major steps in the SDLC are: Systems analysis/planning Systems design Building the system Testing Implementation

Website SDLC

Systems Planning, etc.

• System Analysis/Planning: Identifying Business Objectives, System Functionality, and Information Requirements

• Business objectives: a list of capabilities you want your site to have• System functionalities: a list of the types of information system

capabilities you will need to achieve your business objectives• Information requirements: the information elements that the system

must produce in order to achieve the business objectives

Typical Requirements

Systems Design

• Hardware and Software Platforms System Design

• System design specification: a description of the main components of a system and their relationship to one another.

• System design can be broken down into two parts:

Logical design includes: Dataflow diagram (DFD) that describes the flow of information at the

site, processing functions that must be performed, and databases that will be used

Description of the security and emergency backup systems, and controls that will be used

Physical design: translate the logical design into physical components

Logical Design: Simple Web

Physical Design

Choices in Building and Hosting

Range of Tools for Site Building

Testing, Implementation and Maintenance

• Testing: Includes unit testing, system testing and acceptance testing

• Implementation and maintenance:

Maintenance is ongoing, with 20% of time devoted to debugging code and responding to emergency situations, 20% with changing reports, data files and links to backend databases; and 60% to general administration and making changes and enhancements to system

Benchmarking: process by which site is compared to those of competitors in terms of response speed, quality of layout and design

Typical Cost Components

Software Tools for Websites

• Issues: • Organisational Standards: Significant determinant of choice of tool• Websites need constant maintenance - staff turnover means regular

training and updating; costs contained by adopting “standard”• Changing Standard means new learning curve (“lock-in” effect)• Nature of Task: determines choice of software tool(s)• Available Bandwidth:

– dial-up tools (low connection speed; low bandwidth)– DSL and Cable modems: high-speed connection and more bandwidth

• Installed Base of media players: Flash; RealPlayer; QuickTime (some browsers bundle media players or provide them as plug-ins)

• Ease of Use: Some software tools make content development easier than others.– Example: Java vs. JavaScript - most developers use JavaScript for special effects

HTML Forms• Forms:

– Text Boxes– Check Boxes– Drop-down lists– Scrolling Boxes– etc

• Creating Forms is easy: • Processing the Information gathered on Website is more difficult - usually

performed by a separate program, commonly running CGI (common gateway interface) scripts or Active Server Pages (ASP)

• CGI and ASP both quite difficult to master - need programmers• CGI: Unix based (mainly)• ASP: Windows NT or Windows 2000 based

Java

• General-purpose programming language developed by Sun Microsystems

• Used for developing interactive Websites• Java is bundled with Netscape and Internet

Explorer• FAST (compiled code)• Flexible: supports animation, streaming media,

3D visualisation, etc• SAFE (runs in protected memory space, so

cannot infect any other part of the computer system)

• Difficult to learn (although JDK (Java Development Kit) helps) - intended as a professional programmers’ language

• Because of its perceived difficulty, alternative development environments created: Dynamic HTML (DHTML)

DHTML

• Enhanced version of HTML• Intended to be highly interactive• Better Multimedia Support• Better (more professional) page layout tools– CSS (Cascading Style Sheets– JavaScript– ActiveX• an ad hoc collection of tools supported to varying

degrees by different browsers

JavaScript

• THIS HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH Java

• JavaScript was developed by Netscape and seems to have become an industry “standard” [an ad hoc standard]

• Mainly used to create fancy effects on screen (buttons and rollover effects)

• Modern Web Development Tools (e.g. DreamWeaver) create these effects directly and automatically

• Scripts for special effects can be downloaded from www.javascript.internet.com

• Popular use: Checking user input for errors or omissions:

“Please ensure that all fields are completed.”

• Marketers use JavaScript to identify browser version and monitor size to ensure optimised Web page is sent to client machine

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)• CSS allow precise text and graphics formatting on Web page• CSS allow relatively easy site-wide updating

(before CSS every page had to be separately formatted - led to major problems in editing and correcting pages

• How? Select names for each page component– E.g. Heading 1; Heading 2; Body Text; Table, etc– Define a Style for each. – Any subsequent change in Style is automatically updated in EACH component

• CSS Separates Document CONTENT from its PRESENTATION– Only need to be updated in ONE place : change is GLOBAL– Easy to impose “house style” (uniform graphic standards)– Many advantages for Web Owner (problem: earlier browser versions)

Architecture Issues

• System architecture: refers to the arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an information system needed to achieve a specific functionality

• Two-tier architecture: Web server responds to requests for Web pages and a database server provides backend data storage

• Multi-tier architecture: Web server is linked to a middle-tier layer that typically includes a series of application servers that perform specific tasks, as well as to a backend layer of existing corporate systems

2-Tier e-commerce Architecture

Laudon & Traver, Chapter 4

Multi-Tier Architecture

Web Server Software

• All e-commerce sites require basic Web server software to answer HTTP requests from customers

• Apache the leading Web server software; works only with UNIX operating systems

• Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS) the second major Web server software

What do Web Servers Do?

Site Management Tools: Server Logs

WebTrends (2)

WebTrends (3)

WebTrends (4)

Dynamic Page Generation Tools• Dynamic page generation: contents of Web page are stored as objects

in a database rather than being hard-coded in HTML, and are fetched when needed from database

• Tools include CGI (Common Gateway Interface), ASP (Active Server Pages), JSP (Java Server Pages), etc.

• Lowers menu costs, permits easy online market segmentation, and enables cost-free price discrimination

Application Servers

e-commerce Merchant Server S/W

• Provides the basic functionality needed for online sales, including:• Online catalogues (shop front)• Shopping cart• Credit card processing (secure communication with

Banks and credit card companies, using Data Encryption over SSL (Secure Socket Layer), or SET (Secure Electronic Transaction)

Software: e-commerce Suites

• Offer integrated environment that provides functionality and capabilities needed to develop sophisticated, customer-centric site

• Key factors to consider in choosing include: Functionality Support for different business models Business process modeling tools Visual site management tools and reporting Performance and scalability Connectivity to existing business systems Compliance with standards set by different countries worldwide Global and multicultural capability Local sales tax and shipping rules

How Much Can it Cost?

Laudon and Traver , Chapter 4

How do We Make Sure we can do it?

Use Simulation Software: e.g IBM WebSphere -

Right-sizing an e-commerce Effort

Right-sizing: Hardware Issues

• Scalability: refers to the ability of a site to increase in size as demand warrants

• Ways to scale hardware: Vertically: increase the processing power of individual

components Horizontally: employ multiple computers to share the workload Improve processing architecture

Common Techniques

Website Design Issues

• Basic Business Considerations

• To achieve basic business functionality of a Web site,one needs to be aware of design guidelines and software tools that can build active content and functionality

• Poorly designed Web sites drive customers away• Avoid garish colours• Avoid processor-intensive graphics• Allow people to by-pass start-up graphics / video clips• See: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com• Do a Google Search for Good Practice in Website Design

Annoying Website Features

Most Important Design Aspects

Interactivity Tools• CGI (Common Gateway Interface): Set of standards for communication between a browser

and a program running on a server that allows for interaction between the user and the server

• ASP (Active Server Pages): Enables programmers using Microsoft’s IIS package to build dynamic pages

• Java: Allows programmers to create interactivity and active content on the client computer• JSP (Java Server Pages): Similar to CGI and ASP; allows developers to use

a combination of HTML, JSP scripts and Java to dynamically generate Web pages in response to user requests

• JavaScript: Programming language invented by Netscape that is used to control objects on a Web page and handle interactions with browser

• ActiveX: Programming language invented by Microsoft to compete with Java• VBScript: Programming language invented by Microsoft to compete with JavaScript• ColdFusion: An integrated server-side environment for developing interactive Web

applications

Plug-ins

• Small applications designed to add additional functionality to browsers and other communications software

• Often used to allow multimedia content to be played on the client machine

• Common plug-ins:– Flash: Macromedia, Inc (plays animations) [vector

graphics]– QuickTime (and QuickTime for Windows): Apple

Computer (audio and video player; Virtual Reality browser, image manipulation)

– RealPlayer: Real Networks (streaming audio and video)

– Acrobat (Adobe Systems): allows users to read documents created in .pdf format, without the need of the application which created them, nor to have the necessary fonts installed - brilliant piece of work)

Website Creation• Needs to be a GROUP Activity• Need some or all of the following:

– Graphic Designer (ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL)– Content Expert / Content Editor– Communications Specialist (i.e. someone who can write accurately)– Information Architect (someone with web tools expertise)– Marketing Expertise / Marketing Manager– Technology Manager (NOT the Team Leader!)

• May also need:– Legal Input– Finance Manager

… PROJECT MANAGER [ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!!]

Development Process Summary

• Plan Site:– Objectives– Target Stakeholders– Design Issues– Content– Budget …

• Gather Materials (Only RELEVANT materials to be included)

• Create the Site (with Care)• Check Content (Legal, Decent, Honest,

Truthful, etc)• Publish the Site (upload to ISP or on in-house

server)• Promote the Site (Search Engine Submission)• MAINTAIN THE SITE !!! (don’t let it become a

Cobweb Site)

Website Marketing Plan• Situation Analysis: (marketing audit)

– Macro environmental factors– Competitive Analysis– SWOT– Market Analysis

• Target Stakeholders– Customers (by Target segment) - Customer Profiles– Suppliers - Supplier Profiles– Potential New Customers and Suppliers– Strategic Partners and Allies

• Website Objectives• Strategies• Action Plan• Budget• Evaluation Plan … to be developed during Course