Seven Design Elements of Customer Interface
- Context
- Community
- Customization
- Communication
- Connection
- Commerce
Context: the look and feel of a screen to face customer interface.
- Dimensions of context: functions and aesthetics
- Function: Factors critical in site layout- section breakdown, linking structure and navigational tools. Performance of site: speed, reliability , platform independence, media accessibility and usability.
- Aesthetics: color scheme and visual themes
Content refers to any digital information included on a website, e.g. audio, video, images and text. Dimensions of context: offering mix, appeal mix, multimedia mix, and content type.
Sense of community can encourage customers to return to a website primarily because- community can create attractive content, community can make certain activities possible or easier, thus satisfying needs not attainable individually.
Customization: to better address individual needs, a site can be altered by the user or by the organization. Dimensions of customization: Personalization and Tailoring. Personalization login registration, cookies, personalized email account, content and layout configurations, storage and agents. Tailoring based on past behavior or behavior of other users with similar preferences.
Communication refers to the dialogue that is initated by the firm. Dimensions of communication :
- Broadcast: mass mailings, FAQ’s, email newsletters, content update notifications, broadcast events
- Interactive: e-commerce dialogue, customer service, user input
- Hybrid: combination of broadcast and interactive
Connection is the degree to which a given site is able to “link” to other sites through a hypertext jump, or hyperlink, from one webpage to another.
Dimensions of connection:
- Links to sites
- homesite background
- outsourced content
- percentage of homesite content
- pathway of connection
Commerce capabilities are those features of the customer interface that support the various aspects of trading transactions.
Dimensions of commerce:
- registration
- shopping cart
- security
- credit card approval
- one-click shopping
- orders through affiliates
- configuration technology
- order tracking
- delivery options