saki wrote:

I've noticed that with online merchants there's a widely varying
difference in the real-time reliability of order interfaces. My approach
(as a programmer myself) is to assume that they're first and foremost
plantsmen, not programmers. Some certainly don't have the resources to
support a full-time web designer who can assure that online systems
communicate with inventory or shipping databases, much less calculate the
appropriate shipping time for your USDA zone.

I think this is why I blame the web designers more than I do the
company. Companies who have no idea what they are getting into should
be encouraged to keep it simple and add functionality slowly as they
realize the work involved. One must provide guidance to the "new to the
web" customer in addition to site design.

Also such things as real time inventory data online can get expensive
and/or time intensive if done right. This should be presented to the
customer before the feature is incorporated into the site.

Like I said before, my background is eighteen years as a programmer and
programming consultant and then a shift into web design aout five years
ago. Though I work for a unviersity, we face these issues on a daily
basis with departments who come up with whiz bang ideas for their
websites not knowing the technical expertise and time involved to
implement it. It's our job to explain this and all it entails on our
side and theirs since it really isn't part of their job to know this
type of stuff.

To be honest, as you may surmise from my comments, I honestly think
there are too many hacks out there who set themselves up as "profeshanol
web designers" simply because they own a computer that has a copy of
Front Page on it. (And no, this isn't sour grapes as these people don't
really effect me unless a department hires an outside consultant whom we
have to "clean up" after.)

Susan
s h simko at duke dot edu