Week 4 - Digital Design

Questions
 
1. In two paragraphs explain why a customer centric Web site design is so important, yet so difficult to accomplish
 
Customer Centric - A strategy in which store designs and layouts, merchandising activity, product selection and/or marketing initiatives are developed to meet the needs of specific consumer groups.
http://www.popdesign.com/glossary?letter=c

A customer centric website design is very important, as this is what creates appeal for certain customer groups. If a customer doesn't like what they see on a particular website or does not find the site easy to use then they are unlikely to keep using that site. This means that the site has to address the needs of the consumer, by using appropriate design.
 
Achieving a customer centric website design is very difficult, mainly because every customer is different. The design of a website may seem fantastic to one customer, but may seem terrible to the next. Website designers need to decide whether the want to target a niche client group or whether they want to focus on a broad range of customers, so that they can decide on their website design.

2. Define the term ‘presence’. Write an additional paragraph that describes why firms that do business on the Web should be more concerned about presence than firms that operate in the physical world.

Presence - The state or the fact of being present, as with others or in a place. 
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/presence?s=t

Firms that do business on the web should be more concerned about presence then firms that operate in the physical world because on the web people have access to an endless supply of resources. In the physical world of business people are limited to proximity and availability, whereas on the web if people don't like what they see they will just keep searching. Therefore online business need to obtain a strong presence so that they can be found and not overlooked.



 3. *Usable Doesn’t Have To Mean Ugly ‘for a web design to be truly beautiful, it has to be functional, have purpose and contribute in some way to the website’s intuitiveness, usefulness and branding. All of these things contribute to the overall effect of a design’. This is a quote from one of the articles on web design linked on Web pages that suck. Find a web page that ‘does not suck’ and discuss the features that make it work.

boohoo.com is a site that I use regularly, it is an online clothing and accessory store based in the UK. I think it's a good website as it is easy to navigate and use and the design is appealing to the target audience, which I believe to be men and women aged between 16 and 25. The site advertises on TV in Australia and also offers free postage and student discounts. The free postage is great as lots of people wont buy a product online if the postage is too expensive, and the student discount is another appeal factor to there target consumers.

 

http://www.boohoo.com/aus/page/home/