Re: UCD and Innovation

At 10:12 23/09/2003 +0100, William Hudson wrote:
>To answer Gilbert's question:
>
> > Also, given that mail order worked well for 1.5 centuries
> > with some thing called an order form, one wonders where all
> > this shopping cart nonsense came from in the first place.
>
>It came along about 0.5 centuries later when Clarence Saunders opened
>the first self-service store in 1916.
>
>There are times when innovation is suitable and times when incremental
>change is more appropriate. Bringing internet shopping to the masses was
>a time for incremental change. In this respect, the shopping basket
>metaphor has at least three advantages over mail order:
>
>- In the later part of the 20th century mail order was not nearly as
>popular as "physical" shopping
>- The shopping basket metaphor allows more visual clues than the mail
>order domain (the shopping basket and checkout/cash register)
>- A "virtual store" (with shopping basket) offers a more immediate
>experience. Many mail order customers would be accustomed to posting an
>order and then waiting weeks for delivery. Sites like Amazon were trying
>to sell the idea of almost-instantaneous gratification.

<snip>

That said, mail order - old style or new style - is not and never had been
in any sense popular in great swathes of the world.
For example, in many Spanish-speaking countries:
- there is no cheque guarantee system (and cheques are often not accepted,
even in person)
- the mail is very unreliable, slow, no home delivery in many areas,
subject to theft etc.
- the market for many types of goods is very local and fragmented (few
household names, even now)
- there was no Sale of Goods Act or similar guarantee regarding fit for
purpose (so you want to inspect things personally)
- insurance has until recently been underdeveloped
Consequently, mail order has never been a feature of the economy.
When we talk about mail order, we're really only talking Anglo-Saxon
countries and a few others.
The point of this is that there was never any basis for remote shopping
trust, deriving from existing practices.

Louise Ferguson

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