To succeed on the web, companies must understand their customers' needs and goals more thoroughly than ever before-and use that information to build sites that deliver an outstanding shopping experience. Customer-Centered Design offers a systematic blueprint for doing just that. Leading marketing experts and usability professionals Kreta Chandler and Karen Hyatt bring together state-of-the-art techniques that address your goals for short- and long-term profitability and your customers' demands for convenience, simplicity, and satisfaction. This book reveals:

• What you must know about your customers—and how to get and use that information more efficiently
• Five views of the online store: as software system, catalog, communications vehicle, sales rep, and retail shopping experience
• Measuring your customers' experience with your site to stay on the leading edge
• Blending successful techniques from catalogs, retail and e-tail stores to create a new shopping environment
• Facilitating sales by helping your customers make buying decisions
• Understanding how the products you sell influence your site's information architecture and design

I. CUSTOMER-CENTERED DESIGN.

1. New Rules of Engagement.
The Trouble with Websites. Costs of Poor Usability. Customer-Centric Vision. So What's New? A New Kind of “Shelf” . A New Kind of Shopper. The Role of Product. The Morphing Marketplace. A New Kind of Business. Competing in the New Marketplace. Integrating into Global Markets. Finding the Niche. The New Rules of the Online Renaissance.
2. Walking a Mile in the Customer's Shoes.
Understanding Customers. Five Common Customer Myths. Customer Profiling. Consumer Demographics. Psychographics. Types of Research. Misusing Research. Shoppers vs. Customers. Lifetime Customer Value. Building Customer Relationships. The Customer Lifecycle. Business-to-Business Relationships. Usage Behavior. Predicting the Success of the Customer Relationship. Shrinking the World.

II. RETAIL, CATALOG, AND ONLINE STORES.

3. Retailing Secrets: Tips from the Pros.
Shopping at Retail. Ten Essential Retailing Techniques. Understanding How the Consumer Shops. Business Planning and Retail Differentiation. Identifying Key Target Customer Segments. How to Determine Market Structures. Merchandising and Product Placement. Planograms and SKU Rationalization. Category Management. Merchandising. Selectability. Refreshing the Shelf. Retail Advertising and Promotion. UsingRetail Tips To Increase E-tail Profits. Globalization. Retail Excellence at the Virtual Shelf.
4. Catalog Marketing: Taking the Best and Leaving the Rest.
The Catalog Shopping Experience. The Direct Market. The Character of the Catalog. Persistence = Increased Sales. How to Measure a Good Catalog. Catalog Lessons for E-commerce Sales. A Case Study—Quill.
5. Anatomy of the e-Shelf.
The Cost of Convenience. Shopping Online. Types of Online Stores. Six Functional Parts. Ten Essential E-merchandising Techniques. E-tools of the Trade. Operational Excellence. Integrating “Shelf” Merchandising Techniques.

III. TOOLS AND RULES FOR WINNING WEBSITES.

6. Designing Intuitive Online Customer Shopping Models.
More on Navigation. Designing and Improving Customer Shopping Experiences. Needs Assessment Process. Measuring for Success. Usability Measurement Process. Three Methods for Evaluating Usability. Developing Usable Online Shopping Models. Example 1: HP Printing Supplies Vending Machine. Example 2: Designing a Customer Shopping Model for HP Printing Supplies. Online Store Benchmarking. Customer Online Shopping Task Analysis. A New Method: Retail Task Analysis. Sales Data and Other Relevant Measures. Integrating Research Results. Knowing When You're Done.
7. Winning Webstores.
Inalienable Expectations of Customers. Thirteen Rules of Winning Websites by Jakob Nielsen. Page Design Tips and Considerations. How Does Your Webstore Stack Up? The Envelope Please.

IV. CASE STUDIES AND THE FUTURE.

8. Case Studies.
Case Study 1: HP Printing Supplies Configurator. Case Study 2: hpshopping.com—Improving Customer Convenience. Case Study 3: Designing a Website for a Wine Shop. Case Study 4—Back to Business Basics—Designing for Internal Information “Customers” .
9. The Future: The Not-So-Final Frontier.
The Re-emergence of E-commerce. Seize the Future. The Connected Consumer—Pradeep Jotwani. Bullish on the Future of E-commerce—Dr. Jakob Nielsen. The Urbanization of the Internet—Paco Underhill. Keeping Step with the Customer—Susan Boyce. The Duality of the Online Merchant—Bruce Martin. Research of the Future—Judith Herman. The Dynamic Retail Future—Phil Lauria. Measuring the Future—Ron Wilbur. Getting from Here to There. Top Ten Internet Shopping Predictions. Looking Forward.