e _business

could you please do the assignment below, but could you please do week one separate from week two . and theres no need for referencing.

week 1

Objective

To determine some of the factors that affect the efficiency of an e-Business site, by comparing a number of hotel booking sites.

Method

Choose a city in the north of England.
Go to each of the following sites in turn:
www.bestwestern.co.uk
www.hilton.co.uk
www.ibishotel.com
www.ichotels.com
www.premierinn.com
www.travelodge.co.uk
and at each site select and book the cheapest double room for next Saturday night at the cheapest hotel each company has in that city. (Note: do not be daft enough to pay for it).

For each booking, record

how many clicks it takes from the home page to completing the booking;
how many times you have to look at and select from a drop-down menu;
how many times you have to complete a line in a form (ie how many times you have to type something into the page);
how long it takes from opening the homepage to completing the booking.
then construct a spreadsheet (.xls, or do it as a table), to show the data.

Next, study the spreadsheet and decide which of the hotel companies has the most efficient booking system from the user’s point of view. Define what you mean by efficient and describe how you have decided which was the most efficient. Write all this on the spreadsheet.

The next stage is to consider subjective issues, which might slow down or speed up the booking process. Look at each site in turn and think about:

is the home page clear and uncluttered? Is it obvious how to book a room? Does the page design recognise that is its purpose, or does it try to divert your attention to something else?
how does the colour scheme, the size and type of font, the simplicity or complication of the questions, affect your use of the home page?
do they ask for information they don’t actually need, use words that need a dictionary to understand, use long or confusing sentences?
do they keep pushing you along to complete the booking, or not?
Consider all of these, and summarise on the spreadsheet what you have found. Then look again at your most efficient site and consider whether or not it could be made better. Again, summarise this on the spreadsheet.

Finally, put your SID number on the spreadsheet, upload it onto your blog.

Reading for next week:

http://www.cio.com/article/40298/E_Commerce_Definition_and_Solutions

Tutorial
Week 2
Recap from last week:

Maximum number of clicks to make a booking: minimum number:

Maximum number of drop-down menus: minimum number:

Any conclusions?

This week’s tutorial

The purpose of this tutorial is to try to determine whether or not the design of e-Business sites of a particular type is consistent between countries, and if it is, to establish some guidelines for design.

Method

Look at the following sites:

Electrical stores; http://direct.tesco.com, http://www.darty.com, http://www.walmart.com

Price comparison; http://www.shopzilla.co.uk, http://www.acheter-moins-cher.com,

http://www.pricegrabber.com (stay on US site)

Holiday booking; http://www.expedia.co.uk, http://www.karavel.com, http://www.travelocity.com

(stay on US site)

In each case, look at: site and page layout, colour scheme, devices used to attract the attention of customers, how many clicks before you can buy something, what seem to be the site priorities and so on. Summarise what you found, in note form, and show it to me before we finish. In week three’s tutorial we will discuss what we found and make an overall summary.

Homework

Read the following and consider how the concept of the long tail can be exploited by e-Business:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

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