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E-Commerce Design Patterns

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Subject:  E-Commerce Design Patterns
Author:   ianjindal:   view profile | all posts by this author | add to favourites
Date:   20:49:16 16 May 2006
 
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' in an organisation:
  • Procedural: "I did it this way for x years so I'll do everything this way. Or a variation thereof"
  • No thinking: "ok, whatever. I outa here at 5.28pm"
  • pattern-based: "this task is analagous to another tasks which I perform well, so I'll use similar approaches".
My experience is that patter-based thinking can allow for leaps in business practice and rapid adoption on new activities. This needs, however, to be supplemented with process-based thinking - optimisation, improvements, packaging and dissemination to colleagues.

The whole eCommerce sector is at an immature stage in terms of established skills. If you train as an architect, accountant, doctor, lawyer, truck driver, whatever, then there are documented, standard operating procedures (SOPs). These are largely absent in eCom, although increasingly in some of the arcane and details areas of SEO, acquisition, site usability etc then there are embryonic SOPs emerging.

This isn't a criticism - rather a reflection of our industry's youth and the recency of the 'big bang' of eCommerce.

"Pattern" approaches, therefore, can play a disproportionately important part in innovation and development. We (ie eCommerce professionals) bring a varied 'kit bag' of tools: I'm an accountant, technologist, accidental marketer etc and I bring techniques and patterns from each of these disciplines to eCom work.

There's an opportunity now to aggregate, refine and share patterns that work in the new environment of professionalised eCom practice. I relish the things I've learned from the 'mashup' of colleagues with whom I've worked and I look forward to contributing to 'encoding' some of this.

Sure - I want to play!

:)

ikj

On 22:43:21 9 May 2006 MikeBaxter wrote:

 

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!

 

 
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  • 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 ...
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