Extending your CMS: Integrate Your Content into Other Web Applications

With robust Content Management systems, you can more easily integrate your web content with other internet applications such as your ecommerce or community software packages. This allows you to maintain consistency in your messaging across all venues your users access.

Types of websites: E-Commerce

An e-commerce site (also known as an online store) allows visitors to purchase your products or services directly over the web, without the need to contact a sales representative. Web stores resemble catalogs with categories of products and pages upon pages of product details that are generated using an ecommerce web application.

User Acceptance Test: Scenario Testing

Scenario testing can, and should, be done multiple times during a website creation process. You can do scenario testing with simple line drawings on paper, with printed examples of your design, or on your actual website. Define tasks that will emulate how users will most likely use your site. For example, if you're launching an ecommerce site, ask your subject to start at your home page and go through the purchasing process for a certain product. Ask the user to 'think out loud' while they perform the task so you can understand their process. Be quiet, take notes and DON'T HELP. Whatever medium you choose to use, your goal is to watch users perform tasks you define to analyze the effectiveness and ease of use for your website design. If a user gets frustrated with a task, don't try to explain your logic, listen to theirs and consider revisiting the design if you get similar feedback from additional test subjects.