I notice that many web-design products start with, at most, a high-level functional view of the project, and some shiny mockups of workflow. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with these assets. Many times, it’s an easy way to resolve ambiguity in specifications and help to elicit what you need.

However, before you get too involved in development from these documents, it makes sense to design and approve the database schema. In particular, it should be walked through the client or their representative to ensure it matches their expectations.

(more…)

Well, it’s winter again. In case you’ve spent your entire life isolated on tiny island off the coast of the DPRK, this means it’s time for incessant holiday promotions. In the internet age, however, that doesn’t have to mean blasting Jingle Bells at 180 decibels and shrieking “Happy Holidays” on every flyer. It means being attuned to the actual reasons customers are shopping online.

The key motivators for online holiday shopping are selection, shipping and convenience, and price. Each of these factors can be exploited on your website.
(more…)

In China, there are several social networks very similar to the ones found here. The most popular are:

Facebook-like Social Networks:

• www.Renren.com (Registered Users: 170 Million – Active Users: 95 Million)
• www.Kaixin001.com (Registered Users: 95 Million – Active Users: 40 Million)
• www.pengyou.com (Tencent) (Registered Users: 131 Million – Active Users: 80 Million)
• qzone.qq.com (Tencent) (Registered Users: 481 Million – Active Users: 190 Million)

Twitter-like Micro Blogging Platforms:

• weibo.com –Sina (Registered Users: 200 Million)
• t.qq.com –Tencent (Registered Users: 110 Million)

www.Renren.com started off targeting college students, but they are currently transitioning to cover all age groups. Still, the majority of users are young people. Renren is very similar to Facebook and they continue to copy most successful features from Facebook. The site now boasts more than 300 applications.

www.Kaixin001.com is another social network trying to play catch up with renren.com. Kaixin001 builds high quality applications, but the quantity is limited (~25 applications total). The SEO has a technical background, so they want to do something special, rather than copy others’ work. The site mainly appeals to white-collar workers.

www.pengyou.com and qzone.qq.com are owned by Tencent, a large player in China. Tencent also developed QQ – a messaging platform similar to MSN or AIM. QQ is a powerhouse- boasting 647,000,000 users in China. Tencent has leveraged this user base to grow both pengyou.com and qzone.qq.com. Qzone.com is a social network that works with the QQ platform. Since many Chinese use QQ when they are in middle school or elementary school, Qzone has the youngest user group. Pengyou.com is Tencent’s attempt to create a network for adults, separate from their core QQ userbase.

Sina weibo.com has grown from 100 Million as of January 2011, to over over 200 Million now (11/9). Sina Weibo is conceptually similar to Twitter, but provides more features like upload video, images to share with other people. They also have certified features for all members- much like twitter’s verified users. Sina Weibo has many celebrities members using their real names much the same way twitter uses celebrities to grow their userbase.

t.qq.com came after Sina weibo.com and are trying to play catch up with it. Again, Tencent’s 647 Million registered users makes it easy for them to crowd out smaller websites.

We often have customers coming into us asking for a shopping cart. Admittedly, this is often a complex process. There are few brand names the average consumer will recognize. Many times, a list of 300 features consists of ten you care about, 30 which you assumed were in every cart, and 260 which are only of use if you do drop-shipping to customers in Outer Mongolia and accepting payments in Vanuatuan Vatu. Now, we don’t expect you to come to us saying “CS-Cart please”, or “We want Zen-Cart”. We’ll do the research, but you have to meet us halfway– there’s a lot you can plan in advance to make the process easier and much smarter.
(more…)

The tablet metaphor has finally taken off in 2010 and 2011, on the success of the iPad series and its initators. In spite of my skepticism, people did buy them and seem to be sticking to them, in ways not seen by the five or six previous generations of tablet-PC launches (remember the 386-era Pen Computing premise? Or the Pentium III “slates” and “Convertibles?” Thought not.)

Although the shiny Apple ad may focus on a billion App Store products, the pervasiveness of the web was a key factor in the success of tablets. Much as in the Netbook craze a few years previous– the form factor all but demands easy access to a broad range electronic content. You going to carry around a stack of discs for your paper-thin tablet?
(more…)

I’m blogging today at home, as the Web-Op HQ blew a breaker today. That segues nicely into today’s concern– how to maintain customer trust when things go south.

High-visibility outages aren’t new. Sony, in particular, averages one per week. However, only some firms can emerge from them with their dignity– and customer base– intact. Here’s how:

(more…)

I know you want the entire site to roll out on launch day. The huge cart with 5,000 products. A blog with articles stretching back to when Al Gore first breathed life into the Internet. A customer-relationship management package so sophisticated it has seperate responses for every obscenity an angry customer uses with your call centre staff. But is this the best choice for your company? Probably not.

A staged deployment offers you several benefits at no significant extra costs.
(more…)

If you follow Web-Op, you obviously have way too much free time. But you’ll also notice our global ambitions. We’ve started rolling out sites for Brazillian and Chinese audiences. We recognize that going overseas is far more than just slapping some extra stamps on your shipping envelopes and trying to schlep payment to the foreign-exchange counter at the bank.

One thing we can’t stress enough is not to simply take your existing site and run it through a translator, whether Google Translate or a college intern hired for sub-minimum wage.
(more…)

In this blog, I tend to be inspired frequently by the interactions I have with clients. Over time, you see the same requests again and again.

A real doozy is the “can’t we edit…?” line of discussion. Whenever you build a database-driven system, like a CRM system, or even a sophisticated order-tracking or shopping cart system, people decide they want to be able to edit the enterred data.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with allowing you to edit PARTS of your data. The trick is to abstract it– rather than editing data with no constraints, you provide the functions to perform legitimate business operations. For example, it makes sense to have an “update customer address” tool, or a “delete product from order and adjust price tool.” The dangerous aspect comes when you want to start editing any field on a record free-form.
(more…)

Brick-and-mortar retailers often have a hard time transitioning to the web, because they’re still trying to provide an information service which keeps their stores running. After all, they’re paying the rent and electric still, so they don’t want all their business to come from the website.

However, designing a site to be too much in service of the brick-and-mortar customer experience can be a web nightmare. Here are some issues you might want to avoid.
(more…)