A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Advanced Technologies

Research Studies Project Report (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2005

This research studied the general design principles to launch a new e-commerce website. The usability of two e-commerce websites were tested in order to analyze the key design principles affecting the effective use of the website. The usability test was done by nine AIT students. These students were familiar with the internet and website design. A sample student was used for the evaluation of test script before the real test. Other eight students conducted the real test. These students or users did the tasks asked by the facilitator. The tasks asked by the facilitator were created based on the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) methodology. The tasks script was separated into two parts, the first part focused on the effectiveness and the efficiency the second part on the utilities and functions of the websites. The analyzed results of this usability test show that the menu design, the product categorization and the search engine are significant elements in the design of user friendly e-commerce website. To demonstrate these research results, redesign of existing e-commerce website is suggested. This redesign shows more usable user interfaces following the key HCI design principles. Future research needs to be conducted to test the redesigned website and compare the results with the original design.