Why Do(n’t) You Trust Us? Highlighting the Importance of Trust and Transparency for Designing B2B Platforms in Electronics Manufacturing

Abstract

As online platforms have become increasingly important in the last decade, it also makes sense to conduct B2B (Business to Business) operations on online platforms. This paper deals with the aspects of trust and transparency in a B2B context, specifically in the development (and operation) of a platform where microelectronics manufacturers are connected with customers who want to produce a certain (part of a) product and find the best company to do so. The methods used were workshops with different stakeholder groups and expert reviews of the user interfaces of the platform under development. Our findings include that transparency and the power/freedom to do and undo actions within such a platform are essential for potential users as well as the care for their intellectual property. Additionally, we identified pitfalls in the current design which could reduce trust, e.g., as in our context, inconsistency regarding error messages.