The problem of establishing successful e-commerce is clearly evident in all areas of the fashion industry, including apparel, accessories, shoes, home furnishing, and fabrics. The demise of boo.com, a British-based Website, provides a good example. Boo.com was a British Internet company founded by Swedes Ernst Malmsten, Kajsa Leander and Patrik Hedelin that famously went bust following the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. Boo.com launched in the Autumn of 1999 selling branded fashion apparel with blazing technology designs over the Internet; however, after spending $135 million of venture capital in just 18 months, it was placed into receivership on 18 May 2000 and liquidated.
The reason why the Boo.com failed because got problems with the user experience. The boo.com website was widely criticized as poorly designed for its target audience, going against many usability conventions. The site relied heavily on JavaScript and Flash technology to display pseudo-3D views of wares as well as Miss Boo, a sales-assistant-style avatar.
The first publicly released version of the site was fairly hefty—the home page alone was several hundred kilobytes which meant that the vast majority of users had to wait minutes for the site to load (as broadband technologies were still not widely available at that time). The site's front page did contain the warning, "this site is designed for 56K modems and above". It created an expensive online magazine only faintly linked to the shopping experience. It committed itself to "entertaining" users, on the oft-followed premise (no doubt compelling to ageing baby-boomers) that people under 30 would delight at receiving pale online imitations of TV.
The complicated design required the site to be displayed in a fixed size window, which limited the space available to display product information to the customer. Navigation techniques changed as the customer moved around the site, which appealed to those who were visiting to see the website but frustrated those who simply wanted to buy clothes.
Its interface was also complex with a hierarchical system that required the user to answer four or five different questions before revealing that there were no products in stock in a particular sub-section. The same basic questions then had to be answered again until results were found.
Important product information was given about 1 inch square to describe the product (about 15 words) and users had to use non-standard scrolling mechanisms to view the next 15 words. Unless users knew exactly how to use the menus, the site was not forgiving for novices. Boo also made great use of tiny icons and horizontal scrolling, both disastrous on the web. Boo also used unfamiliar words such as the boobag rather than shopping cart. Boo committed the sort of rolled-gold usability screw-ups that every half-sentient student of Web usability could identify
The reason why the Boo.com failed because got problems with the user experience. The boo.com website was widely criticized as poorly designed for its target audience, going against many usability conventions. The site relied heavily on JavaScript and Flash technology to display pseudo-3D views of wares as well as Miss Boo, a sales-assistant-style avatar.
The first publicly released version of the site was fairly hefty—the home page alone was several hundred kilobytes which meant that the vast majority of users had to wait minutes for the site to load (as broadband technologies were still not widely available at that time). The site's front page did contain the warning, "this site is designed for 56K modems and above". It created an expensive online magazine only faintly linked to the shopping experience. It committed itself to "entertaining" users, on the oft-followed premise (no doubt compelling to ageing baby-boomers) that people under 30 would delight at receiving pale online imitations of TV.The complicated design required the site to be displayed in a fixed size window, which limited the space available to display product information to the customer. Navigation techniques changed as the customer moved around the site, which appealed to those who were visiting to see the website but frustrated those who simply wanted to buy clothes.
Its interface was also complex with a hierarchical system that required the user to answer four or five different questions before revealing that there were no products in stock in a particular sub-section. The same basic questions then had to be answered again until results were found.
Important product information was given about 1 inch square to describe the product (about 15 words) and users had to use non-standard scrolling mechanisms to view the next 15 words. Unless users knew exactly how to use the menus, the site was not forgiving for novices. Boo also made great use of tiny icons and horizontal scrolling, both disastrous on the web. Boo also used unfamiliar words such as the boobag rather than shopping cart. Boo committed the sort of rolled-gold usability screw-ups that every half-sentient student of Web usability could identify
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