B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

378 B2B Integration — A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce
juncture, questions are not about high-level strategic choices among
vendors or platforms, but rather of user-level concerns: interface design,
site structure and layout. In the world of the mobile Internet, small
displays, clunky input mechanisms and slow network speeds can all
conspire to detract from the user experience and derail the mobile
initiative.
Navigation considerations are important. The more the levels of an
application's hierarchy a user must navigate, the greater the opportunity
for erroneous input, which will often result in slowing down the process
further. 'Flattened' application hierarchies attempt to keep vital data as
few 'clicks', or levels away from the user task completion, as possible,
at all times. Employment of context-sensitive 'soft' keys can aid this
process by putting the most likely choices at the user's fingertips.
Personalization will be important in the mobile realm. For example,
when only one or a few employees will be using a particular device,
their individual preferences and user information can be stored either
locally or on a central server, to speed up the navigation process and,
ultimately, their access to data. As an example, a sales agent's phone
can store his user ID and password, so that upon accessing his company's
WAP site, he is automatically logged in, with contact information for
his key client leads and sales figures for the product lines he covers
readily available.
A more creative and practical use of personalization may involve
having a user configure the wireless application preferences on a PC.
The preferences would then be accurately reflected when the user
activates his mobile device. For example, a banker could configure a
'synchable' application via their PC so that upon accessing their
company's back-end server over the Internet, he or she downloads data
on acquisitions only in a particular industry or sector.
In the world of the mobile Internet, the minimization of what is
transmitted is important. This is because slow network speeds will
translate into longer latency, which will frustrate the end user. It is
important to remember that, for example, in the case of WAP phones,
exceedingly small displays mean that the amount of data displayed at a
single time should also be minimized.
A company can reap the rewards of the mobile Internet more quickly
when it is used frequently by many employees to share information.