Usability Study On Purchase Process Of B2C E-commerce Sites

Driven by internet users in large scale, online shopping develops rapidly in China. Up to the end of June 2010, the number of Chinese noncitizens had reached 420 million and the number of people using online shopping had reached 142 million. E-commerce sites appear in the overwhelming view of people, the number and type of e-commerce sites are increasing and the function of the e-commerce sites become more powerful, followed by these the usability issues are also increasingly prominent.Website usability is one of the most important factors in successful e-commerce sites and also in e-commerce's quality evolution. In recent years, it has got a lot of attention, and large sites and medium-sized sites have been improving, but small sites are yet very poor in usability. So improving the usability of e-commerce sites can not only increase sales but also enhance competitive advantage.At present, the research of usability of e-commerce sites is still at an early stage, and empirical studies are relatively lacking.In this study, we select three major B2C e-commerce sites today (Dangdang, Joyo, and Jingdong Mall), and we do usability analysis and experimental study on these sites, attempt to establish the usability model and provide process of settlement related design principles and usability evaluation process.This study includes three parts:The first part: The survey research of process of settlement of three B2C e-commerce sites provides usability evaluation respectively from five dimensions of layout process, jump mode, content features, operating experience and overall satisfaction.The second part: We studied content modules, jump modes and layout of content modules of process of settlement of three B2C e-commerce sites.ExperimentⅠ: The usability testing of process of settlement of three B2C e-commerce sites evaluates content modules (consignee information, delivery, payment, invoice and inventory), accesses usability issues and proposes solutions. ExperimentⅡ: The research of jump modes of process of settlement of three B2C e-commerce sites is a performance evaluation experiment. We draft a typical mission and work out a testing process prototype to do this experiment.ExperimentⅢ: We use eye tracking technology and visual search paradigm to study the layout of content module of the page of order information of settlement process to determine the showing location where the content modules have best performance..The third part: Based the experimental results of experiment one, two and three, we obtain usability model and related design principles.The main results of this study are:(1) 3 B2C e-commerce sites gain better evaluation on subjective satisfaction, and Dangdang is better than Joyo and Jingdong Mall on five dimensions of usability evaluation.(2) In usability testing, Joyo gains worse subjective evaluation and more errors than Dangdang and Jingdong Mall in the consignee information module. In the Delivery module, Dangdang is best on completion time. In the payment module, Dangdang is best on the completion time and subjective evaluation among 3 B2C e-commerce sites. In the invoice module, Jingdong is the best on the subjective evaluation. In the list module Joyo is the worst on on the subjective evaluation.(3) In different tasks, the subjects prefer different jump modes, namely, a single-page and multiple-pages progressive ways. In Continuous Task, subjects like the single-page progressive way. While in Salutatory Task, subjects like multiple-pages progressive way.(4) In the non-target browsing tasks, there are more time distribution and fixations on middle part of page both in the linear and nonlinear layout, and the linear layout is better than the non-linear in search time of the behavioral index.(5) Based on the experimental results and taking into account relevant references, this study established usability research model of process of settlement of B2C e-commerce site, and proposed the principles of how to design process of settlement of B2C e-commerce site, include the repeating principle, the consistent principle, the responsiveness principle, the highlight principle and the classification principle.In this study, we do experimental study on settlement process of B2C e-commerce sites by the empirical method, and based on the study we have built usability model and obtained proposed design principles and usability evaluation of process of settlement of B2C e-commerce site. It is of great practical and theoretical importance.