IA for Shopping & Shopping Baskets
Li Cao
School of Information
The University of Texas at Austin
Outline







Introduction
History of E-commerce
Why do people like shopping online?
The techniques which make online shopping
possible
The IA principles for the design of the shopping
website
The principles for the design of the shopping basket
Conclusion
Introduction


Over recent years, the Web has been developed from a simple
browser to a multi-functional network place.
When it comes to building a successful website for shopping.
History of E-commerce






1984: EDI (electronic data interchange), was
standardized through ASC X12.
1992: Mosaic web-browser was introduced.
1994: Netscape was introduced with Secure Sockets
Layer technology.
1995: two biggest names in e-commerce Amazon.com and eBay.com.
1998: DSL allows quicker access and a persistent
connection to the Internet.
2000: the moratorium on Internet taxes was
extended.
Why do People like Online Shopping
Convenience
 Saves time
 Avoids crowds
 Allows more time to research
 Lower prices
 no salespeople involved

84%
72%
64%
61%
60%
55%
The Techniques which make online
shopping possible



The web developer has no built-in method for
tracking a user or remembering data from one page
to the next.
Two main methods for tracking data: cookies and
sessions.
The difference between a session and a cookie;
A cookie --- stores data on the client’s side
(user’s machine)
A session --- stores data on the server
The IA Principles for the Design of the
shopping website






Differentiate your site from the others. (Duyne, Landay, & Hong,
2002)
Give customers effective browsing and searching tools.
Ease the purchase process.
Ease the customers’ security concern.
Provide a link to your “easy return policy” at an easy-to-find
place on every page of you site.
Several methods to promote sales in your site.
–
–
–
Cross-selling
Up-selling
Personalized recommendations
Cross-selling
promoting accessories related to the current choice.
Up-selling
promoting a better or more expensive version of the current choice
Recommendation Community
The IA Principles for the design of the
Shopping Basket






Make the shopping basket easy to find
Provide the shopping basket with necessary features
Save items for further purchasing.
Number the pages during the checkout process
Order forms should be as simple as possible to help
users to complete them quickly and without
confusion.
Security is always customers’ big concern.
Conclusion

Information architecture is the art and science of
structuring and classifying web sites and intranets to
help people find and manage information (Rosenfeld
& Morville, 2002).

Information architecture can also be applied to help
users to accomplish several commercial tasks.