STANDARD FEATURES OF E-COMMERCE USER INTERFACE FOR THE WEB

The web interface becomes a major success factor since customers interface with sellers in cyberspace through the seller’s website. There were many of consumer reports frustrations with the lack of interface standard features within e-commerce websites. This phenomenon makes e-commerce sites lose up to 50% of potential online sales because users cannot find what they want. In order to explore issue of user interface, this study identifies and analyzes features of user interfaces and common location of e-commerce function on e-commerce web sites. Design elements that are being researched are site navigation, home link, search, view cart, get help, manage account, catalogue, and personalization functions. The content analysis was performed toward 120 companies’ furniture web sites in U.S, China, German, and Indonesia, aiming to identify the most common features used on e-commerce websites. The results show that none of design practices among those examined in this study met Nielsen’s criteria for de-facto standard. This study also aims to explore web design practices across-national border. Hypothesis was formulated to empirically test the use of web features and functions across countries. The chi-square analysis revealed that there was a difference in the use of e-commerce features and functions of four countries.

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