TyroCity

Discussion on: Website evaluation on 7C’s of design

Collapse
 
ujjwalpoudel profile image
ujjwal_poudel

According to Rayport and Jaworski’s 7C’s (2001), the seven design elements of a customer interface are context, content, community, customization, communication, connection, and commerce. Here, they have described the elements as context, sites’ layout and design; content, text, pictures, sound and video, that WebPages contain; community, the ways sites enable user to user communication; customization, site’s ability to self -tailor to different users or to allow users to personalize the site; communication, the ways sites enable site to user commendation or two way communication; connection, degree site is linked to other sites; and commerce, site’s capabilities to enable commercial transaction. To ensure that the website is being visited with consistency, the companies should also focus on constant change of the site. They need to add new features, new products, and new pages, which keeps the customers up-to-date about the company’s latest products and news.

7Cs analysis of the RALPH LAUREN website

For the purpose of this discussion on the 7Cs of a brand website, I have selected one of the most popular clothing brands in the world, Ralph Lauren. The brand is named after the founder himself. Clothing, shoes, and accessories for men, women, children, and babies are the main products of Ralph Lauren (Bjørn-Andersen & Hansen, 2011). The brand has also got fragrances (Cologne) for men and women. Now, let’s analyze the website of the brand on the basis of 7Cs.

Figure 1: Home page of Ralph Lauren

1. Context

As we can see in the above picture of the home page, the website is very simple in design, which I think is how it should be. The simplicity of the website makes it easy-to-use for the users or say customers. The color-codes and the theme of the site are also very simple. The images used and the slider makes the site more attractive in design. The best feature about the design is that the users can find everything on the first page they see likes men, women, kids, baby and so on.

2. Content

The home page basically includes a slider of images each of which represents the categories of products for men, women, boys, girls, and babies. By clicking on the images, it navigates the users to the specific category. The menu bar contains items like men, women, boys, girls, baby, home, gifts, customize, brands and sale. These items also enable users to go directly to a specific product from the category. The items below consist of other extra information like shipping & returns, company information, company policies, contact information, etc.

Figure 2: Customize column of Ralph Lauren

3. Community

Currently, the website contains user-to-user communication system. It includes the communication with the brand or the company. They can have live chat for their queries. The users would also find product reviews and ratings in this section.

4. Customization

One of the best features of the website is the product customizability. There is an item in the top menu section of the website called ‘Customize’. This section allows users to select and customize the clothing items. Users can modify things like color, size, logos, designs and play around with different features available in this section. After the users are satisfied, they can order the selected product from the website itself.

5. Communication

A brand should be able to communicate effectively with its customers through different channels. A website is one of the best and easiest ways to do so. The information about products sale, company policies, direct contact via email, phone number, company history, etc. are all forms of communication available on the website. If customers require assistance, there is a separate list of FAQs, service information, etc. Overall, the communication medium is very easy and I believe that the company provides proper responses to the customer queries.

6. Connection

It is simply related to the products and the brand. The social media has emerging and creating closeness to customers so far. The social media pages of the brand to Facebook, and Instagram has created closeness to the brand.

Figure 3: Facebook page of Ralph Lauren

7. Commerce

The customers can directly order the products through the website. The product prices are available on the site.

To sum up, the Ralph Lauren website is one of the best examples of an excellent website for a clothing brand, which covers all the 7Cs in an appropriate way.

References

Bjørn-Andersen, N., & Hansen, R. (2011). The adoption of Web 2.0 by luxury fashion brands. Proceedings of CONFIRM, Paper, 34.

Rayport, J.F. & Jaworski, B.J. (2001). Introduction to E-commerce . New York: McGraw-Hill.