Direct manipulation of pictorial items within web sites: a drag & drop approach to on-line interaction

We present here a working prototypal Web site where a new approach for on-line interaction has been implemented and tested. Our intention is to improve the usability of Web sites (particularly e-commerce ones) by letting users directly interact with pictorial representations of objects (e.g. items on sale) in a way that resembles their behavior in real-world stores. Our discussion focuses both on the manifold usability benefits of the approach and on practical implementation issues.