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I consider this to be a perfect example of ecommerce.
As web designers, we need to recognize that many ecommerce systems can be interfaced as needed to other tech, and that ecommerce as narrowly defined will only ever apply, with maximum saturation, to a segment of
market.
The high tech companies contribute to these bad metrics. Both in sales and in hiring, companies talk in terms of ASP, CGI, VBScript. To average business person, these terms are not helpful. Quite opposite. They create a "cognitive barrier". Jargon is useful within a specialized group, but actually impairs communication between groups.
By talking jargon to non-technical people, we actually make what we as web designers and IT architects do, harder for them to understand.
We can use a narrow definition of ecommerce, and we therefore have a situation in which ecommerce modules can typically be rented for $50 a month and plugged into existing websites.
Or we can take a wider definition, one which includes customer service, product support, complaints and returns-handling, and, of course, online sales as indicated. This is not a $50 solution, not something that can be cooked up in a day or a week.
Instead, design of an effective ecommerce solution requires care, expertise, and experience of client. The flow and arhitecture of site, content and emphasis, must be designed with
The industry as a whole is best served if we try to be less technically and more "user" oriented. That is, to talk not in terms of CGI, Java or JavaScript or ASP, but rather in terms of catalogues, shopping baskets, and currency converters. If we submerge technology and instead focus on functionality, then indeed terms such as ecommerce become far more meaningful.
But more than this, each website can then be geared to individual needs, without expectation that a "good" website must have ecommerce, or streaming video, or feature A, or B, or C.
William Suboski suboski@adan.kingston.net www.anja.demon.co.uk/web
