eCommerce Application Development

Aleksandra Klašnja-Milićević
Business School, Novi Sad, Serbia and Montenegro

Abstract
Despite the evolution of technology, the basic success of IT projects is still dependent on
the overall project approach and the development life cycle. This paper examines some
frameworks, methodologies, and aproaches for building Internet and business solution.

Key words: e-commerce, application, development, technology

Internet technology is changing the way people live, the way they compute, and the way
they conduct business. Nothing has changed more than the way applications are designed,
built, and distributed. Web technology has brought us to a new world of software
engineering, with new techniques, new tools, and a new design and deployment
enviroment.
The technology brings challenges, including competing architectures, platforms, and
tools, most of which are still evolving. Developers are being challenged to explore new
methodologies and best practices to address World Wide Web-specific development
issues, such as maintance of content-rich Web applications, security, application
scalability, and an ever-increasing demand for fast system deployment by customers.
Web application are an essential element in E-commerce. They offer system developers
many challenges and opportunities. Design and implementaion of successful Web
application require a disciplined approach that takes the organization's long-term
development into consideration. Instead of viewing an application as having a start and
finish, developers should treat Web applications as living entities, constantly adjusting to
the changing business enviroment.

1. Basic System Analysis and Design

The basic system analysis and design involves general user requierments, as well as the
underlaying data model, the user interface, and the architecture requierement.
The objective of analysis is to work within the user enviroment rather than trying to force
it to change. Here is a more realistic way of handling the requierements:

1. Create an enviroment that takes uncertainty into account. This involves an

iterative process of analysis to development. In this case, the initial plan may not be
the final one, and some issues may not get resolved until later in the development
life cycle.
2. Do not attempt to identify hardware requierements until the application
specifications are complete.
3. Use various types of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools and
prototypes that can assist the users in making joint decisions.
4. Organize various pilot programs to allow users to see certain parts of the system
in limited operation. This will provide much-needed confidence in the overall
project.
 5. Specify a plan for going into production with the new applications that includes a
realistic shedule, taking into consideration the realities of the politics and cultural
values of the organization.

The data model is one of the most important part of an appliaction, so getting right is
crucial. Although there is no way to determine all of the data needs right at beginning,
doing a good analysis and design on the data that is known will go a long way toward
application success. The data model should be flexible enough to adapt to changing
needs.
Basic interface and architectural decisions must be made, based on the organization's
exisiting technology infrastructure and user needs. Designers should determine if they
will do server-side processing, where the data will reside, and if they use Java or Active
X. They must also determine if they need to allow salespeople access to the data while
they are away, if customers need to acccess to the application, and wich part of the
application will reside on the application server. Choosing a proper architecture has a
long-lasting impact on the organization. It will determine how flexible the organization
will be, technology-wise, in adapting to constantly changing business needs.

2. Architecture Decision
After the system requierements and use cases have been carefully analyzed, the decision
on system architecture must be made. The decision must be made on both the current
needs and future development. For a simple static Web site, the clients and Web server
are the only two components needed. For Web application that are dynamic, at least three
signicant architectural components are needed: clients, a Web server, and an application
server. It is also very common for most Web application to have database server. There
are three major models to lay out a Web application architecturally:

1. Thin client. A thin client has minimal computing power because all of the business
logic and rules are processed at the server. The client is a standard Web browser. The
model gives developers greater freedom in system deployment and maintance.
2. Fat client. In a fat client, a fair amount of business logic and rules is exected on the
client machine. Fat clients tipically use dynamic HTML, Java applets, or ActiveX
controls. System performance speed is expected to be faster because some business
logic is done locally.
3.Distributed and component based. Distributed and component-based architectures
are used to support distributed object-oriented systems. A distributed object system
allows parts of the system to be located on separate computers, possibly in many
different locations.

A major benefit of a distributed object system is its adaptability to a changing

enviroment. As a business' products, processes, and objectives evolve over time, new
business software solutions can be easily assembled using reusable business components.
There are three major competing distributed and component-based architectures for Web
applications: the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), the
Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB).
CORBA is a set of distributed system standards promoted by the Object Managment
Group, an industry standards organization. CORBA defines the ORB, a standard
mechanism through which distributed sotware and their clients may interact. It specifies
an extensive set of bus-related services for creating and deleting objects, accessing them
by name, storing them in a persistent store, and defining ad hoc relationships between
them.
DCOM is a Microsoft networking standard that permits different software components to
interact with one another as integrated Web applications.
ActiveX is based on COM technology, wich formally separates interfaces and
implementation. ActiveX and Java both use digitally signed certificates to protect
malicious attacks. In addition, Java Beans is available for a large number of machines and
has cross-platform capability. ActiveX is most widely available on the Windows desktop.
The Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) model, defined by Sun Microsystems, is an application
programming interface - (API) specification for building scalable, distributed,
component-based, multi-tier applications. EJB is different from the original JavaBeans
model, wich provides a standard specification for developing reusable, prefabricated Java
components that are mainly used on the client side of business application. EJB, however,
is defined as a server-side model for component-based, transaction-oriented, distributed
enterpise computing.
Irrespective of the technology standard, bridges, available from different vendors, can
translate between standards. Hence, organizations should choose a standard in which they
have the greatest expertise for analysis, design, and development.

3. Considerations For Web Interface Design

Planning for the interface design is one of the most important aspects of the overall site
design process. The following sections describe the basic elements of good Web site
design:

• Web Page Security: Make sure update access to the Web pages is properly
secured from unauthorized access. Review where source code for Web pages is
stored, and check who has update access to this area.
• Ease of Navigation Between Web Site Pages. It should be easy to go back and
forth between different areas on the Web site. Logical layouts with common
elements should be grouped together. The use of multiple pages that are linked is
preferable to one long page that requieres a lot of scrolling. Having a common
menu bar in the same location on each screen is helpful.
• Visually Pleasing Layout. A Web site should have visual appeal. Incorporating
the right balance of colors, pictures, text, animations, and white space is difficult
task. This takes the talents of an artist and a magazine editor roller into one.
• Graphical Animations. The use of eye-catching graphics in the forms of banners,
movie clips, cartoons, etc. can put the final touches on a Web site. Overuse, by the
same token, can make a Web site look messy and cluttered. Many times,
animations are used for advertising for sponsors of a Web page.
• Timely, Accurate, and Interesting Information. Information that is not all of
these does not belong on a Web page. Outdated, misspelled, boring content is the
quickest way to ensure that visitors will not return a second time to a Web site.
Proofreading end editing are essential to any successful Web site.
• Statistical Information Tracking. This is the use of software to track how many
visitors visit a Web site. Guest books fall in this category to solicit what people
think of the site and to get new ideas for improving a site.
4. Transaction Security
This aspect of E-Commerce is one of the most contentious of technical issues concerning
business on the Internet. The guaranteed security of business transactions is a vital
component in the acceptance and success of conducting electronic business, whether it is
an individual consumer buying a product or a company conducting a range of
confidential business transactions.
Information that is transmitted via the Internet must be kept confidential, whether it is
credit card information, bank account numbers, or other sensitive data that an
organization wishes to protect in the conduct of its business operations.
To accomplish the requiered level of security, software developers use encryption
software and authentication. Encryption programs apply cryptographic algorithms to
break down ordinary communication messages into unique codes that can be unlocked
only by individuals who possess the unencryption key.
There are two basic types of encryption systems: public key and private key. The basic
premise of public key encryption is that each user creates two unique keys, one that the
user keeps and a public key that the user gives to others. The user then obtains the public
keys of the desired recipients of a message and uses them to encrypt a file that the
receivers can unencrypt. Most users also sign their files with a unique signature that
receivers can verify by applying the sender's public key to the message.
Private key encryption is less popular but considered to be robust. The main advantage
of this form of encryption is that it let's users exchange their keys more securely than
public key techniques.
Public key encryption takes much longer than private key encryption – ten times longer
to provide similar security. Because of this public key characteristic, major Internet
browsers, such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, use a hybrid of
public key encryption. Navigator uses secure sockets layer (SSL) cryptography, while
Explorer uses both SSL and private communications technology (PCT) cryptography.
Authentication becomes increasingly important for ensuring that individuals ordering
products over the Web are who they claim to be. Authentication methods include:
• Stipulating that a sender sign a message by citing something only the receiver
and the sender would know. Obviously, this method works only when the sender
and the receiver know one another.
• Using a threee-way hand shake (i.e., sending a first message, having the receiver
send a reply, and finally sending the actual communication).
• Using a program that creates a unique digital signature for the user. Many
encryption techniques have the capability to create such signatures.
• Embedding a time stamp into an e-mail document. This method is primarly used
to verify when a document was mailed for legal suits and contract issues.

Other security initiatives are being developed by financial institutions, including major
credit card organizations such as Visa and Mastercard. The most popular is a standard
called secure electronic transaction (SET), a technique that provides higher levels of
confidentiality and authentication than either public or private key, and is being adopted
by these organizations and financial institutions for consumer purchases.
5. Advertising and Marketing
At first glance, this is hardly the realm of information technology, but through the
extended project team it is critical function of any E-commerce site. Web traffic analysis
by slicing Web server log usage data is a common adjunct to any commercial site and
many tools exist to extract and examine such data. Standard analysis ranks popular pages,
shows the entry and exit points of the site by user, and where that user came from.
A newer form of analysis, microconversion, has been proposed by IBM researchers and is
gaining credence in the marketplace. While the conversion rate of an online store is the
percentage of visitors who purchase from a store, it does not indicate the possible factors
affecting sales performance. The notion of microconversion extends the traditional
measures by considering the four general shopping steps in an online store, product
impression, click-through, basket insertion, and purchase. Microconversion rates are
computed for each adjacent pair of measures resulting in threee additional functional
rates.

1. Look-to-Click rate: product impressions converted to clisk throughs

2. Click-to-Basket rate: click-throughs converted to basket placement
3. Basket-to-Buy rate: basket placements converted to purchases

The end result for IT is that measurement, both inbound to one's site and outbound needs
to be included in the initial project scope in order to generate marketing programs.

6. Conclusions
Internet application development and deployment has gained the reputation of being fast
and not tied to prior systems and methodologies. Unfortunately, as the tools and
requierements imposed on such E-systems have become more complex, the project scope,
reach, and budget have risen dramatically. The needs of an E-commerce site cross
multiple departmental boundaries – from sales and marketing to legal to shipping to
product management and finance – and all of these groups need to be stakeholders in the
E-commerce project and be part of the E-team constructing the site.

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