Chao-Wei WuYu-Lan H. LokenDecember 3, 2008Com 597 – Theories & Practice of InteractivityUniversity of Washington

Subject: A website plan for a chocolate specific cake store in Seattle – “Just Chocolate”.

Introduction:

Seattle is a city with a great diversity of restaurants and food stores, but being a major American city, it is interesting to note that there isn’t a chocolate specific cake bakery in Seattle. We can find cake bakeries, chocolatier’s, smoke salmon specialty stores, Russian bakeries, Chinese, or Greek restaurants, but there is no such a place where chocolate fanatics can find all kinds of chocolate cakes. Usually they go to regular bakeries to buy chocolate cakes, but for serious chocolate goers where they want a heavy-chocolate-pudding-cake, or a chocolate cappuccino cake, they can either bake it themselves or just forget about it.

Seattle could be a good location to open a bakery that is only focused on chocolate cakes. For a business entrepreneur, starting an online store would be a budget-saving solution. The stores website could have pictures and descriptions of every cake where customers can select from a standard combination of features or customize a combination of features and order their cakes immediately online.

Special promotions might be shown on an interactive website in an easy to understand fashion. Also, customers could be allowed to request special custom designs for their own cakes by using easy steps to describe a desired feature or special message they wish to convey with their cake.

Abstract:

This project will focus on creating a functional and easy-to-use interactive website for a chocolate cake store - “Just Chocolate”. For building up a website structure, we will analyze online business design rules, principles, and a similar business organization to support our plans. Further, the challenges and the possible future for the store will also be explored.

1

Situation:

We can easily find a lot of bakeries that allow customers to order certain products online, but it’s impossible to order a cake from a distant location and expect it to be delivered in perfect condition. Currently, there is no chocolate cake bakery in the greater Seattle area that offers an online order service, nor is there one that customizes cakes online, either. Although there is one cheesecake specific store in Seattle that allows customers to order cakes online, there is still an empty spot for a chocolate specific cake store in this area.

Online business design rules and principles -

The online web site design is not all about the art. Without careful consideration, it may fail to reach and interact with the audience. To stand out in the highly competitive Internet environment, the online business should think strategically and make a thorough plan before implementation. The web site needs to be designed to accomplish these objectives and every details matters. The following are the rules of the online business design process:

1. Goal establishment.

One of the first things an online business starter needs to do before starting work on a Web design project is to figure out the client or organization’s goals. What is the business trying to achieve with the website? What is the website’s main purpose? Online business starters can find answers from their clients by applying research methods. After understanding the clients’ needs, a clear direction is outlined, and it is essential to decide the Web design purpose, function, and aesthetics.

While designing the Web site, the aesthetics are important, but the function and the user interface can’t be sacrificed. Some websites may include great art design and dazzling animation, but the functions such as selling, information, and service providing, may not be clear enough and annoy the users. Neglecting the function will not achieve goals.

2

2. Audience identification.

The audience will influence how the website should look and function. There are many demographics that can influence the design, such as age, gender, profession, and technical competency. Our chocolate cake website may attract young women, so the website should look elegant, girlish, and fancy. The function and the appearance of the website should not be too plain, or savvy audiences may get bored easily. There are other details to be decided based on the features of the audiences, such as fonts, colors, etc.

3. Brand image determination.

While designing a website, the brand image should be considered as a top priority. The color, emotion, and entire feeling of the website are crucial to the brand image. In other words, the overall design may invisibly shape the brand image. What should the brand image be to correspond to the product and the organizational goal?

The concept that the more brilliant the website, the better the website, is not necessarily always true. Some great designs just don’t fit to certain websites. In our case, the chocolate cake bakery website does not have to be complicated. The website should be easy and relaxed, so that the consumer may be in good mood and willing to purchase the product. In that way, we present the brand personality and character by the design.

4. Goal-driven implementation.

Implementation should keep the above in mind. Things like goals, audience, and brand image. Thus, the online business starters must shape and focus all the design elements to meet these factors.

We have to design the aesthetics that best suit the expectation of the chocolate cake lovers. We might need some entertainment elements inside the website, to provide an “experience” to the customers. Or, on the other hand, we cannot ignore that we are designing a website that provides information, like recipes

3

and prices. Also, the usability and readability is another focus. We have to create an interface that doesn’t distract the user from accessing and reading the content.

To succeed, the website must make the best use of the very limited amount of attention visitors will be giving it by not only informing and educating them about what our products are, but also the benefits of the product, and of course, selling.

5. Results measurement.

Once the online business has designed and deployed the website, it’s time to measure if the website has succeeded or not. This is important because until the business tests how well the website performs, the manager of the site won’t know whether or not it is effective in fulfilling the business goals.

The average pages viewed, the average stick time and the number of registered members may help to exam whether the website is working well. Some other research methodologies may also help, such as online surveys, or focus groups. The methods of measurement may vary by the goals.

6. Continuous improvement.

The website is never done, once and for all. The manager has to pay attention to the maintenance of the website, prevent any errors from happening, and watch the comments.

Making improvements and updates are crucial to keep customers returning to the website and attracting new ones. The website manager has to know what customers expected to get through the website. The online forum or customer-generated contents may influence the website’s reputation and sales volume of the product. Thus, the manager should be concerned about the comments and reply properly. The promotional events or activities may also need to be updated or improved continuously, so that the novelty won’t wear off.

Online business starters should follow the above six rules to have an easy and complete plan to start the business. Most important of all, thinking strategically is the key to success.

4

Effective Web design principles:

First of all, the designers have to consider how users think and then execute the web site that meets the users’ needs. Content is important and the design must support the content. The users appreciate content with quality and credibility. However, users tend to scan web pages rather than read them. Users are impatient and they want to get instant gratification and a clear message in a short while. They want web sites to be intuitive, because they don’t want to be annoyed by a lousy design. If the web site fails to convey interesting messages immediately, it will lose its users. According to these user habits and thoughts some basic rules of user interface design are usability, and functionality to meet the users’ needs.

1. Users don’t like to think.

Users expect web pages to be self-explanatory and obvious. Designers should try to keep the web site intuitive to the users while they navigate it. Users don’t want to encounter any barrier or the feeling of frustration because of they cannot figure out how the system works. People won’t use maze-like web sites. On the contrary, they are willing to use intuitive web sites, which they can easily used to find out the information they want.

2. Users are not willing to reveal private data.

Designers should not ask for excessive private data from users because some users may not feel comfortable with it. Additionally, too many questions may cause users to run out of patience while trying to register as members. The situation generates certain barrier to the users, and they may feel unfriendliness from the web site. Designers can improve it by reducing the questions asked and also allow users to surf the site without registration.

5

3. Focus users’ attention.

Appropriate images and animations are eye-catching to most users. Some crucial text can be marked as bold to attract a user’s attention. However, the web page design cannot include too many highlighted messages because users may be confused and annoyed by such excessive information flow. The web page should focus users’ attention in a few areas in an effective way to convey the information. Users must also find it easy to get links and figure out how the system works, which will increase usability at the same time.

4. Users need clear guidelines.

Guidelines are effective as users try to navigate the web site. A clear guideline may generate user-friendly feelings toward the visitors because following the guideline will never make them get lost. Additionally, guidelines can lead users to see the services and functions of the web site clearly. It is important to have a guideline in web site designs just like editors of newspapers consider the visual motion of the readers.

5. Make use of effective writing.

Precise and short words are more effective than long and detailed sentences. Online users don’t read the whole texts, but they scan web sites. Thus, designers must compose brief and catching captions on web pages. Marking keywords as bold or italics is also effective to attract users’ attention, making them more easily noticed while users’ are scanning the web pages.

6

6. Keep it simple.

Sometimes designers forget design is to support the information, they may make the web site too complicated for users to get the information efficiently. People want to get what they want as soon as possible, otherwise, they will rather search for information or products from other web sites. The “keep it simple” concept may frustrate designers, but that is just what users want.

7. Don’t be afraid of the white space.

This principle works the same as the “keep it simple” principle. It is to reduce the cognitive load of the visitors. While designing a web site, designers should not over load information provided to the visitors. Visitors may get tired easily and won’t remember anything because they are overwhelmed. Leaving some white space in the web pages gives the users chances to take a rest. They will appreciate it, and may absorb information more efficiently.

8. Follow the conventions.

It’s great to have an innovative design in a web site, but it must be clear and user-friendly to visitors. Therefore, if designers cannot guarantee the usability in the innovative design, it is better to follow the conventions of web site design. Although following the conventions of web design may make it harder to distinguish the web site from the competitors, it corresponds to users’ expectations. Users have navigated countless web sites and they have gotten used to certain standard designs of web sites. Thus, designers should be careful when designing something that is far different from other sights, which may cause uncertainty and unfriendliness.

7

9. Test early, test often.

This is the TETO principle. Every web design project should test the usability early and often to see if there is any problem with the web site. Designers have to carefully monitor the users’ experiences of navigating the web site and solve the problems as soon as possible. If designers modify the web site infrequently, than many users have already gotten a bad impressions and the web site may not attract a large amount of visitors again. Therefore, it is really important to follow the principle of TETO.

The above principles of web design are useful and essential for website starters. By applying these concepts, the web site will better function at an acceptable level and be productive for the provider and users alike.

8

Case Study:

The Confectional

Located in Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market, the “Confectional” is a specialty bakery that only sells cheesecakes and cheesecake truffles. The owner/ baker, Paul Verano opened his first cheesecake store in New Zealand in 2004, as a delivery only store. After the Seattle store was opened in 2006, Verano also set up a website where customers can see different ingredients in different flavors and order cakes online. The website helped spread the business while the store gives customers the opportunity to taste the cakes in person before making the order on the Internet.

The Confectional’s website looks warm, colorful, and delicious. Every flavor is listed on the page with full descriptions. By moving one’s cursor to select different flavors, a cake’s ingredients and description will appear at the left side with the picture of that cake. (Picture 1)

Picture1

9

The Confectional’s website homepage design is simple and direct. Every category is clearly listed on an orange bar that is easy for customers to click in. It has good quality pictures of its cheesecakes that rotate on the page, including the monthly promotion and featured cakes. (Picture 2)

Picture2

User interactivity is also applied to The Confectional’s website. At the beginning of online cake purchase process, customers will see a square that has nine circles in it (a square means a box and a circle means a cake), customers fill the box by inputting quantities of the cakes they want, when the box is full, they can add it to the shopping cart. (Picture 3, Picture 4)

10

Picture3

Picture4

A simple product just needs a simple and neat website like The Confectional’s. It does not need to try and impress customers with cluttered graphics and texts. By carefully arranging information on the site, customers can find what they want without digging through the entire site. Overall speaking, the Confectional has a simple, useful, and easy-to-use website to go with its simple yet unique products.

11

What makes “Just Chocolate” special?

Customization Cakes

In the Information Age, "customization" is the new buzz phrase. (Anderson D., 2004) From a Forrester based study, among people who are willing to buy customized products, only 19 percent are unwilling to pay more. One of the online retailers’ advantages is the possibility to offer customized products. With the help of technology, online shoppers are enabled to choose what they precisely want. They can even assemble a product tailor-made to their tastes. Customized cakes is a suitable item to put into the online customization product category. Customers get the ability to design the perfect cake, from flavors to decorations, so the cake will fit a special occasion. By designing their own cakes, customers can feel that it’s unique, and it belongs to them, because it is a cake developed from their own imagination to reality.

Online community

Inclusion of using an online community is worthy of investment because:

1. Community users remain customers 50% longer than non-community users. (AT&T, 2002)

2. Community users spend 54% more than non-community users (EBay, 2006)

3. Community users visit nine times more often than non-community users (McKinsey, 2000)

4. Customers report good experiences in forums more than twice as often as they do via calls or mail. (Jupiter, 2006)

5. Community users have four times as many page views as non-community users (McKinsey, 2000)

Setting up an interactive environment allows a company to collect customer’s feedbacks and opinions. It also offers a place where customers sharing similar interests (like chocolate cakes) can discuss and exchange their ideas.

12

Possible Challenges and the Future:

It is not easy to design a simple, functional and good-looking website. The design and usability of an E-commerce website forms the total interaction the user has with the business. This includes everything from the page elements and layout, along with the navigation models.

When we go to a brick-and-mortar department store, if we get lost or cannot find help or the item we want, we tend to move on to the next store or another store we feel more comfortable with. These are the same feelings that users will experience with websites. A retailer’s website might lose business simply because of the dysfunction of its website. Yankee Group reports that 77% of US Internet users abandon their online shopping carts before executing their transactions. How to make a website vivid, attractive and also easy for customers to complete their missions is something crucial for any online business.

To take the advantage of the community online, “Just Chocolate” will develop events that relate to its online customers. Online voting for topics of interest would include “Favorite Cake”, “Cake of the Month”, or “Favorite Employee”…etc. This helps to keep the stone rolling and attract more customers. The website will also look for partnership with local restaurants and organizations. The store could be the supplier for community events and charities, not only to build up the brand, but also as a way to give back.

Conclusion:

The Internet offers more than a new way to sell directly to customers. Online retailers should build their websites with customer’s demands in mind as their first priority. Internet also makes mass customization easier for both customers and retailers. Our goal for a Seattle based specific chocolate cake store, “Just Chocolate”, is to offer high quality, specialty, and custom chocolate cakes to customers by the help of a simple, clear, useful, and friendly store website.

13

References:

Anderson D, (2004), Mass customization, the proactive management of variety, Mass customization and build to order. Retrieved December 27, 2007 from http://build-to-order-consulting.com/mc.htm

Cakespy. (2007, November 13). Batter Chatter: Interview with Paul Verano of the Confectional. Message posted to http://www.cakespy.com/2007/11/batter-chatter-interview-with-paul.html

Design matters. (2001, January). Fortune: Technology Guide, 142(12), 183-188. Retrieved December 23, 2007, from ABI/INFORM Global database.

Haugtvedt, C.P., Machleit, K.A., Yalch, R.F., (2005). Online Consumer Psychology, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Howard. T, (2003, February 13). Mattel counts on innovation for '03 success: [FINAL Edition]. USA TODAY,p. B.02.  Retrieved December 27, 2007, from National Newspapers (27) database.

Johnson B., (2007, May 8). Online community strategy: Online community ROI. Message posted to http://redplasticmonkey.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/online-community-roi/

Nielsen, J., (2000). Designing Web Usability, IN: New Riders Publishing

Norman, D.A., (2004). Emotional Design, NY: Basic Books.

Wade, M., Johnston, D., & McClean, R. (Nov 8, 2004). Exploring the net impact of internet business solution adoption on SME performance. International Journal of Electronic Business, 2, 4. p.336. Retrieved October 22, 2008, from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale:http://find.galegroup.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/itx/start.do?prodId=EAIM

14