[ Sponsored Links ]

Advertise here »

E-Commerce Design Patterns

reply to message » post a new message » e-mail to a friend »
Subject:  E-Commerce Design Patterns Mike Baxter
Author:   MikeBaxter:   view profile | all posts by this author | add to favourites
Date:   22:43:21 9 May 2006
 
Okay you may think I over-stated things slightly when I predicted that "in 5 years' time the major online retailers will have defined what best practice means to them using design patterns!" (see yesterday's newsletter).

But I do believe that design patterns are going to be big and I'd like to learn other peoples' views before I go any further out on a limb!

Firstly, what are they? A design pattern is a way of describing the principles underlying a problem that occurs frequently in a specific context. Sorry if this is a bit abstract but the keywords here are important. Christopher Alexander, the inventor of design patterns, was frustrated that architects seemed to keep on re-inventing the wheel - the same problems kept cropping up in almost identical contexts, yet the solutions to these problems often repeated the same mistakes. 

Now, how familiar is this in e-commerce, e-marketing, and e-everything-else?

So, Alexander set out to find ways of capturing good practice in a way that identified when it was good practice (context), what it was good for (problem) yet without inhibiting the creativity of architects to develop innovative solutions (principles - 'cos architects are big on this creativity stuff!). The result was design patterns.

Secondly, how can design patterns be used?  They're still used in architecture, they're used lots in software design and, recently, they've just hit the big time in user interface design. In February this year Yahoo! started to publish the design patterns they use in the design of all their web properties. The design patterns themselves can be found here.
  
In their design pattern for breadcrumbs, for example, they describe principles for labelling and hyperlinking, and then explain the rationale behind these principles and explore accessibility considerations. They also show an example of it in practice, and have a blog article expanding slightly on the pattern itself with 11 comments.

This then, is a distillation of what Yahoo! has learned about using breadcrumbs on a web site. It won't please all of the people all of the time but for someone wanting a quick checklist of things to think about when designing a breadcrumb, I couldn't point to a better, more concise resource.

What about this design-patterns-set-set-to-take-over-the-world stuff? I think they are a great way of capturing and communicating knowledge about good practice in e-business without specifying the exact solution. I think they are a great way of building communities of practice - someone proposes a design pattern and the rest of the world adds their knowledge and experience so the pattern can be improved. I think they are an excellent way for companies to descibe how they do things differently - by taking generic good practice principles and adding their own distinctive flavour to it (how much more informative would that be than the corporate style guide?). Anyone agree?  More importantly, if you disagree, why?

From my personal point of view, I've written 2 Online Retail reports containing dozens of case studies and recommendations. But how many e-commerce managers, on the cusp of a site re-design,  are going to take the time to read all 140+ pages for inspiration and guidance? Wouldn't it be better if they had topic or issue-based design patterns containing a distillation of the knowledge contained in these reports (and, even better, the collective wisdom of a community like this) about good practice in e-commerce design. I've already started to write some design patterns (incorporating relevant bits of existing design pattern libraries on web design in general and e-commerce specifically). But these design patterns would be a lot stronger and more authorititive if they were a community endeavour.

Anyone want to play?

Mike Baxter
www.saleslogiq.com
Specialists in the online customer experience
 
« Back to Internet Marketing Forum Previous Thread »  |  Next Thread »
  • E-Commerce Design Patterns, MikeBaxter, 9 May 22:43
    Okay you may think I over-stated things slightly when I predicted that "in 5 years' time the major online retailers will have defined what best practice means to them using design ...
    • E-Commerce Design Patterns, TimLeighton-Boyce, 10 May 14:18
      I've just spent this very morning running through the mock ups for a proposed new checkout process for a client of one of the companies specialising in ecommerce sites. Several ...
    • E-Commerce Design Patterns, DeriJones, 12 May 19:20
      I wish you were right saying 'they're used lots in software design'. Unfortunately, in the course of the work I do testing web sites, it seems to me that the ecommerce sector is ...
      • E-Commerce Design Patterns, MikeBaxter, 13 May 12:11
        Deri reckons that e-commerce is a sector that isn't ready for the idea of design patterns yet ... On the one hand I'm very tempted to agree - some of my discussions so far have ...
        • E-Commerce Design Patterns, DeriJones, 15 May 13:28
          Mike - your last sentence was interesting: "So often, it is the things that make particular sites distinctive (either visually or functionally) that breach good practice princip ...
      • E-Commerce Design Patterns, textor, 13 May 12:45
        I think what Mike has in mind is that software people are big on reusable code, so that they don't re-invent the wheel every time they sit down to create a piece of software.   ...
        • E-Commerce Design Patterns, JonBov, 15 May 12:03
          Mike, your document focused heavily on FMCG/Low margin-high volume business, with a couple of exceptions in the form of John Lewis which is 'middle of the road' in terms of brandin ...
          • E-Commerce Design Patterns, MikeBaxter, 15 May 15:05
            Hi Jon - the difference between mainstream and hi-end luxury e-commerce is an interesting one. First, I'd say that, at a certain level of analysis, the differences don't matter and ...
        • E-Commerce Design Patterns, DeriJones, 15 May 13:08
          You're right Bob, software people like to reuse code.  But that often means that they want to reuse their own code; whereas can be nervous about 'reuse' of using someone elses code ...
        • E-Commerce Design Patterns, TimLeighton-Boyce, 15 May 14:41
          On 12:45:48 13 May 2006 textor wrote: I can give you one design pattern that i see over and over again (including our sites.).  You hit checkout and you get a form that asks if ...
          • E-Commerce Design Patterns, textor, 15 May 17:16
            I have made that exact mistake (nearly that anyway) myself.  It wasn't until I hit the wrong button I realised the problem.  Is anyone up for forming some sort of special inter ...
    • E-Commerce Design Patterns, ianjindal, 16 May 20:49
      Mike - you know I'm a fan of patterns, so rather than just agree with you (temptiing!) I thought I give a complementary perspective.... There are three main types of 'thinkers' ...
    • RE: E-Commerce Design Patterns, JamesSaunders, 26 May 10:54
      A very interesting discussion and one in which I'm sure there'll be much more debate. Having developed software applications for a number of platforms and also a number of doma ...
    • Re: E-Commerce Design Patterns, Ashley , 31 May 13:35
      Hi Mike As you know, I'm a big fan of Design Patterns and we're going to be pushing them over the coming months to try and drum up further interest.  Having worked for a big ...
      • Re: E-Commerce Design Patterns, JamesSaunders, 31 May 13:41
        Hi Ashley, Sounds great. With regard the design pattern(s) to start with, I agree that the checkout process and site search are the most important for any ecommerce site (and th ...
« Back to Internet Marketing Forum Post a new message »
Subscribe for only €299