“Virgin Atlantic’s Web site greets customers with error messages, a seven-step buying process and distracting graphics that blink and shimmy across the screen. Wal-Mart, the world’s most powerful retailer, takes its online shoppers on a confusing tour through unmarked aisles and a slow check-out process. These companies are far from alone in their online woes. In the last two years, consumers and investors have rebuked companies sharply for lumbering online with poorly conceived e-commerce sites. But a new report says the designers and builders of Web sites — the Internet services and consulting firms that have sprouted around the country — share much of the blame.”

“Bill Reichert doesn’t have anything against MBAs. Heck, he has an MBA from Stanford. But the president of Garage.com has some pointed advice for his peers: get your noses out of the textbooks. In the second installment of his top ten myths of venture capitalists, he shoots holes in the ‘gap analysis’ taught by business schools and deflates four common misconceptions. ‘I piss off just about everybody,’ he says with a hearty, unmistakable laugh.” The previous link is Part 1; here’s Top ten VC myths, Part 2.

“This white paper explores the principles of design for process-oriented information architectures by illustrating the best practices in the design of e-commerce ordering systems commonly referred to as ’shopping carts.’”

“Archives and Galleries… a cavalcade of images and ideas (1950s-1970s)” including old food packaging, store displays, premiums, fast food giveaways, cartooon characters, games, Disneyland and more.

“As featured in the New York Times (June 12, 2000), this report shows how e-commerce sites can increase revenues by improving their customer experience. Includes strategies, tactics, and thirty-one e-commerce case studies on merchandising, e-mail, navigation, search, checkout, fulfillment and more. Free download.” Ack! .pdf!

“Branding, Trust and User Experience in 1-to-1 E-commerce” … ‘Virtual Reality Stores for 1-to-1 E-commerce,’ ‘Designing for trustworthiness,’ ‘Towards a Model of Trust for E-Commerce System Design,’ ‘Trusting the Online Banking Interface,’ Social Factors in E-commerce Personalization’ and more…

“…the theme that emerges from our special report on the ‘State of the Startup,’ and especially from The Standard’s first survey of the startup world, is not that things have gotten much harder recently. It’s that things were never easy in the first place.”