ECWD Course Content
This course is not to teach a student how to build a website. I am not going to teach students about web programming, such as Java and dotnet.
Certain technologies for website development will be introduced but will not be taught in detail.
The main purpose of the course is to guide the students to answer the following questions about website development.
- Why a website has to be designed in such and such way? Here lists a few examples.
- The first page of the Google search engine is so plain. Why?
- Why on-line ordering is not provided in the BMW website?
- In the YouTube platform, why does it provide membership login?
- Many firms provide both PC version interface and smartphone version interface. Normally, their designs have slightly different. Why?
- What technologies have been applied to develop a website? Why these technologies are applied? Here lists a few examples.
- What technologies have been applied for membership login?
- Which operating system, web server and DB server are possibly installed in the machine for a website to be accessible via Internet?
- Which programming language(s) is(are) used for the development of Internet banking system?
- Is the business supported by the website is profitable? If yes, how could we replica this business?
- Not all business operations could be benefited from a website or an information system. Give examples?
- Apart from building a website to support online selling, sellers could sell products/services online via the social networks.
- LINE group.
- Facebook fan page, messenger and live.
Simply register an account and start your business.
Students should also understand that, from the holistic point of view, developing a website is no difference from developing a business.
Related Courses
The course 'EC websites development' has many contents overlapping with the following courses.
- Information system development.
- Service system engineering.
- Software development process.
- Software engineering.
- System analysis and design.
- System engineering.
One objective of the above courses, as well as the course 'EC website development', is to introduce the steps in the development of a system.
In other words, it is about how to make a workable system. It is about making a 'good' website to support a business.
Click here for the course outline and click here for the coursework project outline.
- Types of websites - Various websites and the businesses being supported by the websites will be introduced.
Thus, it should be noted that the functionalities of a website is entirely determined by the operations being supported.
Moreover, the design (including the functional requirement and the content displayed) of a website could be elegant or sophisticated.
The following list of websites is only a partial list of websites that the instructor has placed a visit.
From the types of users point of view, the interface design of the groups of websites with arterisk (*) is more complicated than others.
- Service sector: Four Seasons Hotel, DHL, CitiBank, Cathy Pacific, Forbes, British Airways.
- Social networks: Facebook, LINE, QQ, WeChat, WeiBo, WhatsApp.
- Services providers (*): Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Tecent Cloud, Ali Cloud, Saleforce, SAP Ariba.
- Search engines: Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft Bin.
- Customer/Developer support: Amazon, Apple, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, SAP.
- Fashion industry: GAP, Zara, H&M, G2000, Lativ, Versace.
- Computer, pad and cell phone: Acer, Apple, Asus, Dell, Huawei, Lenovo.
- Automobile: Bentley, BMW,
Mercedes-Benz, Tesla,
Toyota, Volkswagen.
- Market syndicates: 7-11, Amazon Bookstore, Groupon, HKTVMall, PayEasy, PC Home, Travelocity.
- Market makers (APP): Apple iTune Store, Apple APP Store, Google Play.
- Market makers (Goods): Alibaba, AirBNB, eBay, Foodpanda, Uber Eat.
- Market makers (HR): Amazon Mechanical Turk, Topcoder, uTest, 1111.com.tw, cpjobs.com, Uber.
- Education: MIT, UCLA, NCHU, CUHK.
- Resources sharing: arXiv, BitTorrent, flickr,
Spotify, YouTube.
- Web hosting (*): GoDaddy, WiX, WordPress.
- Obsolete websites: Commerce One, DEC, i2.com, lycos.com, Netscape, paysafe.com.tw, Sun Microsystems, Vertical Net.
There are a few points to be noted.
- A website could support multiple functions, like marketing and customer support, for a firm. A website, like Google, could be a system of multiple websites.
- Department stores and shopping centers are two types of (physical) markets, or market places. The firms running (resp. making) these markets are market makers.
- Market makers provide infrastructures* for the sellers (equivalently, the merchants) to sell products to their buyers.
- Each market maker needs to run marketing campaigns to attract people to visit the market and enventually buy things from the sellers.
- Some statistics on web hosting could be found in here.
-
Fundamental concpets of websites, management principles and system development.
- A website is a part of the information system of a firm. That is to say, it is a part of a firm (resp. business).
- Differentiating owner, user, member, buyer, seller, customer and supplier. Who is the customer of Apple in the Apple Store? Buyer or seller?
- Management principles - operations & quality management, human resource management, financial management,
information management, technology management and strategic management.
- Information and communication technologies - it is a huge area.
- System analysis and design; system development; website developers.
- B2C business and market makers.
- CRM, SCM, ERP
-
Critical factors for a website development.
- Operations design (for a B2C business).
- What do the customers need and what are the goods/services to be delivered to the customers?
- How do the goods/services to be designed, developed and produced?
- How do the customers place orders to purchase the goods/services?
- How the goods/services are delivered to the customers?
- How do the customers realize the availability of the goods/services in the market?
- How to attract the potential customers to purchase the goods/services?
- (*) Understand your customers and the customers of your customers.
- Cash flow and logistic - the factors always overlooked.
- Acquisition of technologies and professionals.
- System development process.
- Profitability - revenue and operational cost.
- Project plan and/or business development plan.
-
Customer-oriented (resp. service-oriented) thinking on operations design.
- System thinking (resp. computational thinking).
- Order placement and payment.
- Order fulfillment.
- Customer support.
- Marketing.
- Associated management processes.
-
Advanced topics.
- Cloud platform: Amazon WS, Google Cloud, etc.
- Amazon GO - Technology-enabled retailing.
- Rich media - New form of CG-enabled marketing.
- AI and machine learning: chatbot and voice assistant, job replacement.
- Industry 4.0.: Light-off factory
Lecture Outline from John Sum
Additional Sources of Learning Materials
Apart from the PowerPoint slides, learning materials could also be extracted from or with reference to the following sources.