1. Design Elements to the Customer Interface (The 7Cs Framework)
Context – the beautiful and functional look-and-feel part of the website
Content – all digital subject matter on the site:
Form of the digital subject matter (text, video, audio, and graphics)
Domains of the digital subject matter (product, service, and information offerings)
Community – the interaction that occurs between site users
Customization – the site’s ability to tailor itself or to be tailored by each user
Communication – the dialogue that unfolds between the site and its users
Connection – the extent of the formal linkages between the site and other sites
Commerce – the sale of goods, products, or services on the site

2. Dimensions to Context Beauty Function
The beauty of the site is created by visual characteristics such as colors, graphics, photographs, font choices, and other visually oriented features
Function
Most sites contain much more information than can be usefully presented on a single computer screen, or “page.”
A well-designed site organizes all resident information into sets of pages and provides customers with a means to navigate from page to page.
Three factors are critical in the layout of the site:
Section breakdown – the way the site is organized into subcomponents
Linking structure – the site’s approach to linking its alternative sections
Navigation tools – the site tools that facilitate how the user moves throughout the site

3. Dimensions to Context (Cont.)
Function (Cont.)
Five dimensions of performance:
Speed – the time required to display a site page on the user’s screen
Reliability
how often the website experiences periods of “downtime”
the percent of times that the site correctly downloads to the users’ screens
Platform independence – how well the site can run on multiple platforms
Media accessibility – the ability of a site to download to various media platforms
Usability – the ease with which a site can be used and navigated by users

4. Context Examples Beautifully dominant
Being high form, or beauty, but low function
Emphasizing the look-and-feel of the website
Making heavy use of multimedia or visual elements, even though this use may lead to poor performance
Functionally dominant – low form but high function
Assuming that users care little about visual elements or themes on the site, but they care much about information
Integrated – balance of form and function that creates an attractive and easy-to-use interface
Providing navigational tools as visual cues to allow users one-click access to any part of the site

5. Dimensions to Content
Offering mix – a mix of product, information, and/or services
Appeal mix – the promotional and communications messaging projected by the company
Multimedia mix – the choices of media, including text, audio, image, video, and graphics
Content type
Current content – highly time-sensitive information with a very short shelf life
Reference content – less time-sensitive information with a longer shelf life

6. Content Examples Offering-dominant
Superstore – representing one-stop shop where the customer can find a wide range of goods in multiple product categories
Category killer – providing products and services by specific product or by a customer-needs category
Specialty store – focusing on exceptional quality and exclusivity while selling single or multiple categories of products
Information-dominant – focusing heavily on information rather than entertainment
Market-dominant – not directly offering goods or services for sale but creating a market where buyers and sellers gathering together to conclude transactions

7. Elements of a Community
The degree of community formation can be assessed along six criteria:
Cohesion – sense of group identity and individual sense of belonging to the group
Effectiveness – impact of the group on members’ lives
Help – perceived ability to ask for and receive help
Relationships – likelihood of individual interaction and friendship formation
Language – possession of specialized language
Self-regulation – ability of the group to police itself

8. Types of Communities
Just friends – people who want to meet and socialize
Enthusiasts – people who share a special interest
Friends in need – support groups
Players – people who participate in game playing
Traders – people who trade possessions with one another

9. Members of Communities
Degree of member participation
Passives – individuals who do not actively engage in but attend virtual communities
Actives – those who participate in activities and topics created by others
Motivators – those who create topics and plan activities of interest to other community members
Caretakers – those who serve as intermediaries between community members
Member benefits
Need fulfillment – the degree to which a participant’s needs are satisfied
Inclusion – the extent to which participants are open and encouraged to participate in each other’s plans and activities
Mutual influence – the extent to which participants openly discuss issues and affect one another
Shared emotional experiences – the extent to which participants include each other in sharing events that specifically arouse feeling and are typically memorable

10. Dimensions of Community
Interactive communication
Asynchronous chat – allowing users to consider their response and formulate a response in nonreal time
Instant messaging or instant chat – allowing messages to happen quickly
Message boards – allowing a user to communicate with another by posting messages on a specific location on the website
Member-to-member – acting as a virtual post office for digitized messages
Noninteractive communication
Public member webpages – generated by either members or the website
Member content – generated by members

11. Community Examples
Bazaar – a community that allows users to move through a vast number of interest areas but does not provide any means for users to interact with each other in any meaningful way
Theme park – a community that focuses on a limited number of interest areas that are organized by categories and subcategories
Club – a community that is highly focused on only one area of interest and promotes a considerable amount of interaction among members
Shrine – a highly focused community with minimal interaction between members
Theatre – a community that is focused in a particular area but allows for moderate interaction among members
Café – a community that focuses on a common area of interest but also provides for considerable interaction among members

12. Dimensions of Customization
Personalization
Log-in registration – having previously registered on a site
Cookies – attempting to track and gather data about the returning users’ behavior by quietly saving identifying and tracking information on the users’ local disk storage in temporary files called “cookies”
Personalized accounts – providing accounts free of charge to the user
Content and layout configuration – users being able to select site screen layout and content sources based on their interests
Storage – providing virtual hard-disk storage space
Agents – notifying users via when a product is in stock
Tailoring by site
Tailoring based on past user behavior and preferences
Tailoring based on behavior of other users with similar preferences or usage profiles

13. Dimensions of Communication
Broadcast communication – a one-way information exchange from organization to user (one-to-many)
Mass mailings – the broadcast transmissions of large volumes of targeted at relatively large audiences
FAQ – webpages posting with clear answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the site, goods, or services
newsletters – regular newsletters sent by to inform site subscribers of new features or changes to a site, special offers, letters from other subscribers, corporate news, etc.
Content-update reminders – messages further tailored to reflect each subscriber’s interests and serving as a content-update reminder of relevant new content now available
Broadcast events – events broadcast from a website that allows limited user control over variables such as camera view

14. Dimensions of Communication (Cont.)
Interactive communication – two-way communication between the organization and a user
E-commerce dialogue – trading messages regarding order placement, tracking, and fulfillment
Customer service – trading or live online dialogue
User input – occurring when user input is an integral part of the content of a site (e.g., user-generated articles on topics of interest, user ratings of suppliers, and user feedback to the site)
Hybrid communication – a combination of broadcast and interactive communications
Offering software tools as “freeware” that users can download and use at no charge for their work or entertainment
Providing free marketing to the originating site that hopes for rapid, broad distribution and immediate creation of brand recognition

15. Communication Examples
One-to-many, nonresponding user – through mass mailings targeted at defined audiences in the form of newsletters or broadcast events
One-to-many, responding user – to users who have logged-on as registered users or to specific users through ings
One-to-many, live interaction – allowing users to interact with the site live in the form of live chat, with information exchanged back-and-forth in real time
One-to-one, nonresponding user – sending personalized messages to users to address specific user interests or needs, with no means for customer response, and users receive site messages without any need to respond
One-to-one, responding user – sending users personalized messages that address specific user interests or needs and receiving user response back
One-to-one, live interaction – sending and receiving personalized user messages or carries on chat sessions that address specific user interests or needs

16. Dimensions of Connection
Links to sites – links that take the user completely outside the home site and into a third-party site
Home site background – a situation where the link takes the user to a third-party site, but the home site is noticeable in the background
Outsourced content – when the site content is derived from third parties, with the source of that content labeled clearly
Percent of home site content – the percentage of content that originates from the home site
Pathway of connection – the connection that can lead a user outside the environment of the site as a “pathway-out” or “pathway-in”

17. Connection Examples
Destination site – almost exclusively providing site-generated content with very few links to other sites
Hub site – providing a combination of site-generated content and selective links to sites of related interests
Portal site – consisting almost exclusively of absolute links to a large number of other sites
Affiliate programs – directing users to connected or controlled websites through links or through links embedded in site banners or other advertising materials
Outsourced content – content that has been generated by third parties with higher quality, greater appeal, or at a lower cost than the website operation can
Meta-software – consisting of utility and plug-in software applications created to assist users in specific tasks

18. Dimensions of Commerce
Registration – allowing a site to store credit-card information, shipping addresses, and preferences
Shopping cart – users placing items into their personal, virtual shopping cart
Security – attempting to guarantee the security of transactions and related data through encryption and authentication technologies
Credit-card approval – having the ability to receive instant credit approval for credit-card purchases through electronic links to credit-card clearance houses

19. Dimensions of Commerce (Cont.)
One-click shopping – allowing users to place and order products with a single click
Orders through affiliates – tracking orders that originate from affiliate sites as well as determine affiliate fees for business generation
Configuration technology – putting products and services together in a variety of orders with the aid of configurator software
Order tracking – offering the ability to check the delivery status of products that they have ordered
Delivery options – presenting a choice of options to specify their desired speed and cost of delivery

20. Commerce Examples
Catalog pricing – the seller presetting the price of goods and services
Auction pricing – buyers bidding against each other, and the highest bid wins the supplier’s products or services
Reverse auction pricing – sellers bidding against each other, and the lowest bid wins the buyer the business
Demand aggregations pricing – aggregating buyer demand for specific products in order to achieve economies of scale
Haggle pricing – users and the site negotiating over price