Management Issues in e-Business Issue Analysis Report Interface Usability for e-Commerce Websites

Executive Summary Web interface usability is the measure of ease with which the users can perform desired tasks on a website. Usability is an important consideration for any website since it determines the usefulness of a website. However, the web interface usability for e-commerce websites is absolutely crucial due to the nature of these websites. Since the e-commerce websites are designed to sell products and services, it is very important for them to have a professional appearance and to provide the users easy access to required information in order to transform these users into customers. During the last few years, e-commerce has been widely adopted by many businesses from all around the globe. Many of these businesses offer similar products and services which has created a fierce competition amongst them. This competition has further emphasized the importance of web usability for e-commerce websites since users continue to look for the easiest way to conduct their business online. As a result, the online businesses are compelled to make their websites more usable in order to retain their existing customers and to attract more users. This paper investigates some of the common usability issues faced by many websites and then recommends a user centered design approach for developing a usable web site. The design approach focuses on satisfying the needs and expectations of its target audience by studying their preferences, determining the usability goals and detailed planning before the actual development of the website. This paper also discusses the technology acceptance model (TAM) theory that describes the behaviour of users towards the use of a new information system and makes recommendation to extend the theory for evaluation of the users' acceptance behaviour towards a new website. Finally, the paper discusses various usability testing techniques to regularly evaluate the website after deployment to identify any new usability issues.