Abstract:
Recent advances in information and communication technology have contributed to
maximizing the role of e-commerce, becoming an independent science in world’s
trade and economy sciences. However, the current e-commerce initiatives in Sudan
still face challenges and shortcomings that prevent the adoption of these initiatives
by the citizens. Hence, there is a need to evaluate e-commerce sites, identify the user
needs and requirements, and measure its experience. User experience is measured
by functional specifications, security, content, information architecture, navigation,
interaction factors, interface design, and qualities of aesthetics. The main objective
of this research is to investigate retail e-commerce sites to discover criteria and
factors affecting the user experience design UXD of these sites in Sudan as a case
study. A questionnaire was designed to collect data from e-commerce users that
are related to information technology field in government institutions, universities,
and banks that fund e-commerce projects. The data was analyzed using SPSS.
The study found that e-commerce sites have negative aspects such as having nonguessable
and non-meaningful domain names and non-efficient navigation. Besides
the lack of aesthetics, functional specifications, and interaction characteristics. The
research findings contributed to the definition of critical factors towards designing a
better user experience, and highlighting the problems which serve as a guide to the
development and re-engineering of e-commerce sites.
