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Hakman A. Wan: Department of Computer Studies, Lingnan College, Hong Kong. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Chi-wai Chung: Department of Computer Studies, Lingnan College, Hong Kong. E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors sincerely thank Professor Ming-te Lu for his kind support of our research.
Introduction
When researchers are exploring business opportunities related to the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW) checks in thousands of new users everyday. Many of them are individuals intrigued by the fun of reaching to an abundance of information in the Web, but others may be institutions who wish to gain competitive advantage. The Web is now filled with electronic shops, cybermalls, and many Web sites which are designed and maintained by business organizations. In view of the relatively small investment in Web site development and the many less-than-successful stories of Internet business, organizations may find the Internet unattractive and refrain from taking the Internet marketplace seriously. To promote electronic commerce and to make the WWW a better place for business, researchers might need to expand their study fields to look into the problems arising with the Internet from a variety of perspectives.
Electronic marketplace was a new concept when Bakos analyzed the rationale of developing these markets (Bakos, 1991). Their business opportunities are publicized by researchers in many areas; but the success factors of electronic markets have not been fully identified. Maroney remarks that hypertext is the basis of the success of WWW, in a special issue on WWW of Journal of Advertising Research (Maroney, 1997). Alba et al. (1997) compare retailing Web sites with three traditional retail formats: convenience-goods store (supermarket), specialty-goods store (department store) and shopping-goods store (category specialist) in dimensions such as consideration set, transaction costs, and other benefits. These researchers find the content and design of commercial Web sites are among the success factors of electronic commerce. They analyze the context of these Web sites.
This paper takes a different approach. Realizing most business Web sites are organized in a network structure, the authors study Web page design from a geometric angle. By using techniques of network analysis, Web sites can be classified according to the complexity of their designs, which are believed to be strongly related to the effectiveness and efficiency of the Web sites. The main...