E-commerce and Community Together: Design Issues
Jennifer Wolfgang posted an interesting question to ixda about communities that are started by companies who sell products. Should companies differentiate their community site from their primary site? In terms of e-commerce floorspace, should the community space be tightly linked to the retail section?
I think the question is the degree to which you want the community to appear to be a separate entity from the primary offering. The examples below illustrate a range of options from completely integrated to almost completely differentiated.
Amazon completely integrates community into into its product catalog.
HP keeps the header on the landing page of communities…
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/welcome.html#Connect
…but then uses a streamlined header once you’ve selected a community
http://www.communities.hp.com/online/
Dell uses a market segment approach to global navigation, similar to TrendMicro’s global nav. Once you go to the community piece, you see a streamlined header that makes it seem like you are on slightly more neutral territory.
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/
Best Buy has a community site that is clearly distinct from its primary e-retail site, but which does not sub-branded to the extent that Sears is.
http://www.forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Computers/bd-p/Computers_New
Pampers does the inverse of Amazon, integrating its product offering into the community piece.
http://www.pampers.com/en_US/Shop
Sears uses a completely different visual treatment for its community, giving you the impression that you are closer to the other customers and a bit removed from the commercial entity Sears.
See original post:
http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=45003
Written by Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (www.usography.com)
Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts