smartbuddy

World ’ s Trend is building a web site in which to sell clearance merchandise usually sold through the web and through its catalogue operation . As a newly hired web consultant, Lincoln Cerf finds himself in a very cold, wintry city, fighting its way through several inches of snow to meet with one of the systems team members, Mary Maye, at World ’ s Trend headquarters. Mary welcomes Lincoln, saying “at least the weather doesn’t’ t seem to affect our web sales! They’re brisk no matter what. ” Lincoln groans appreciatively at her weak attempt of humor, smiles, and says, “I gather from your email last week that you are trying to determine the type of information on that needs to be displayed on our clearance web site. ” Mary replies, “Yes, I am trying to get it organized in the best possible way. Our customers are all so busy. I know photos of all our merchandise can take a long time to appear on the page if a customer is accessing the web via a slower modem from home. ” Mary continues by saying, “ Linc I ’ m not even that concerned about how to design our clearance site at the is time am worried though, about how much information we need to include de on a page. For example, when items are on clearance, not all colors and sizes are available. Which do you think is better, to include some bas ic information and let the customer click a button to ask for more information, or to be as complete as possible on one page? If I use the linki ng method, then I could fit more items in the screen ... but it might be too orderly. Customers like the look and feel of a sale in which merchandise is kind of jumbled together. ” Linc continues his line of thought, saying “Yeah I wonder how customers want the information organised. Have you actually watched them u sing the web? I mean, do they look for shoes when they buy a suit? If so, should shoes appear on the suit page or be linked in some way? Mary comments, “Those are my questions, too. Then I wonder if we should just try this approach for men’ s clothes first, before we implement it for women ’ s clothing. What if men’ s and women ’ s approaches to shopping in the web are different As a third member of the World ’ s Trend web site development group, respond in a brief written report to Lincoln and Mary about whether you should use a prototype to elicit recommendations from potential customers about the proposed web site. What type of prototype is appropriate? Consider each form of prototype and explain why each type would apply (or would not apply) to this problem