scholarly journals An Inclusive Guide To Assessing Web Site Effectiveness

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janna B. Arney ◽  
Paul J. Lazarony
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Classroom Setting ◽  
Educational Tool ◽  
Site Testing ◽  
Web Documents ◽  
Course Content

This study presents the results of a literature review of the well-established literatures on readability, usability, and Web design.  The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature on readability, usability, and Web design and to propose a three-step evaluation process to assess Web sites in each of these three areas.  We recommend that this process be used to evaluate existing Web documents and those still in the design phase.  This evaluation process can be utilized as an educational tool in a classroom setting.  Using this process in a classroom provides students with much needed training in a real-world approach to Web site testing without monopolizing the course content.  The research is presented in four sections:  (i) Readability, (ii) Usability, (iii) Web Design Guidelines, and (iv) Three-Step Evaluation Process. 

Web Site Mobilization Techniques

2019 ◽  
pp. 1837-1845
Author(s):  
John Christopher Sandvig
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Laptop Computers ◽  
Digital Devices ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Desktop Computers ◽  
Physical Limitations ◽  
User Friendly

Mobile-friendly websites are designed to render well on all digital devices, including smartphones, desktop computers, laptop computers, and tablets. Creating a user-friendly experience on mobile devices requires specific web design techniques. These techniques are designed to accommodate the small screens and other physical limitations of mobile devices. This chapter describes the three primary techniques for creating mobile-friendly web sites: responsive, separate URL, and server adaptive. It explains how each technique is implemented, the advantages and disadvantages of each, and their relative popularity. It also describes an emerging mobile technique called accelerated mobile pages.

Web Design Based on User Browsing Patterns

2011 ◽  
pp. 2074-2079
Author(s):  
Yinghui Yang
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Navigation Data ◽  
Information Scent ◽  
Site Search ◽  
User Expectations ◽  
Corporate Web Sites ◽  
Search For Information

It is hard to organize a website such that pages are located where users expect to find them. Consider a visitor to an e-Commerce website in searching for a scanner. There are two ways he could find information he is looking for. One is to use the search function provided by the website. The other one is to follow the links on the website. This chapter focuses on the second case. Will he click on the link “Electronics” or “Computers” to find the scanner? For the website designer, should the scanner page be put under Electronics, Computers or both? This problem occurs across all kinds of websites, including B2C shops, B2B marketplaces, corporate web-sites and content websites. Through web usages mining, we can automatically discover pages in a website whose location is different from where users expect to find them. This problem of matching website organization with user expectations is pervasive across most websites. Since web users are heterogeneous, the question is essentially how to design a website so that majority of the users find it easy to navigate. Here, we focus on the problem of browsing within a single domain/web site (search engines are not involved since it’s a totally different way of finding information on a web site.) There are numerous reasons why users fail to find the information they are looking for when browse on a web site. Here in this chapter, we focus on the following reason. Users follow links when browsing online. Information scent guides them to select certain links to follow in search for information. If the content is not located where the users expect it to be, the users will fail to find it. How we analyze web navigation data to identify such user browsing patterns and use them to improve web design is an important task.

The Ethics of Web Design

2008 ◽  
pp. 3410-3429
Author(s):  
Jack S. Cook ◽  
Laura Cook
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Web Accessibility ◽  
The World ◽  
Technological Issue ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
Web Designers ◽  
Complete Access

Web accessibility is really not a technological issue but rather a cultural problem. A Web site is said to be Web accessible if anyone, regardless of capabilities or disabilities, using any kind of Web browsing technology to visit the site has full and complete access to the site’s content and has the ability to interact with the site if required. If properly planned from the start, a Web site can be functional, accessible and aesthetically pleasing. This chapter focuses on ensuring access to information available on the Internet. The overall objective is to increase awareness of Web accessibility issues by providing rationale for why Web designers should be interested in creating accessible sites. Specifically, this chapter identifies some of the emerging digital barriers to accessibility encountered by those with disabilities. Current efforts to address these barriers legally are identified and their effectiveness for breaking down barriers is discussed. The World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C’s) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is discussed, followed by a study of the 50 most visited Web sites. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the importance of this topic and future developments.

A Service Oriented Ontological Framework for the Semantic Validation of Web Accessibility

2011 ◽  
pp. 522-540
Author(s):  
Rui Lopes ◽  
Konstantinos Votis ◽  
Luís Carriço ◽  
Spiridon Likothanassis ◽  
Dimitrios Tzovaras
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Web Accessibility ◽  
Scale Free ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Development Processes ◽  
Accessibility Guidelines ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Ontological Framework

The Web serves as the principal mediator for information sharing and communication on a worldwide scale. Its highly decentralized nature affords a scale free growth, where each endpoint (i.e., Web site) is created and maintained independently. Web designers and developers have the onus of making sure that users can interact without accessibility problems. However, coping with users with disabilities poses challenges on how to ensure that a Web site is accessible for any kind of user. When (and if) this is done, designers and developers do it in a post-hoc way, (i.e., verify and tweak Web sites according to guidelines such as WCAG). In this Chapter the authors present SWAF, the Semantic Web Accessibility Framework, a base framework for supporting the integration of accessibility services into Web design and development processes. SWAF affords both tailoring accessibility to user needs and specifying the semantic validation of accessibility guidelines in different application situations.

A Proposed Template for the Evaluation of Web Design Strategies

2009 ◽  
pp. 293-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Xanthidis ◽  
David Nicholas ◽  
Paris Argyrides
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Design ◽  
International Literature ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Work Done ◽  
The Web

This chapter is the result of a two years effort to design a template aiming at standardizing, as much as such a task is feasible, the evaluation of Web sites. It is the product of a few publications in international conferences and journals. A thorough review of the international literature on the subject led the authors to conclude there is a very large number of opinions, thoughts and criteria from different professionals involved, directly or indirectly, with the process of designing a good Web site. To make matters even more complicated there are a number of different terms used by various scholars, scientists and professionals around the world that often refer to similar, if not the same, attributes of a Web site. However, it seems that all these differences could boil down to a systematic approach, here called evaluation template, of 53 points that the design strategies of the Web sites should be checked against. This template was tested on a significant number (232) of Web sites of Greek companies and proved it can be used to evaluate the quality of Web sites not only by technology experts but by non-experts alike. The evaluation template, suggested here, is by no means the solution to the problem of standardizing the process of evaluating a Web site but looking at other work done on the subject worldwide it is a step ahead.

scholarly journals What really makes students like a web site? What are the implications for designing web-based language learning sites?

ReCALL ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
JANE HUGHES ◽  
CLAIRE MCAVINIA ◽  
TERRY KING
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Student Interest ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Web Content ◽  
School Students ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Selection Of

Faced with reduced numbers choosing to study foreign languages (as in England and Wales), strategies to create and maintain student interest need to be explored. One such strategy is to create ‘taster’ courses in languages, for potential university applicants. The findings presented arise from exploratory research, undertaken to inform the design of a selection of web-based taster courses for less widely taught languages. 687 school students, aged 14-18, were asked to identify a web site that they liked and to state their main reason for liking it. They were invited to include recreational sites and told that their answers could help with web design for the taster courses. To explore the reasons, two focus groups were conducted and student feedback on the developing taster course site was collected. Students nominated search engines and academic sites, sites dedicated to hobbies, enthusiasms, youth culture and shopping. They liked them for their visual attributes, usability, interactivity, support for schoolwork and for their cultural and heritage associations, as well as their content and functionality. They emerged as sensitive readers of web content, visually aware and with clear views on how text should be presented. These findings informed design of the taster course site. They are broadly in line with existing design guidelines but add to our knowledge about school students’ use of the web and about designing web-based learning materials. They may also be relevant to web design at other levels, for example for undergraduates.

A Service Oriented Ontological Framework for the Semantic Validation of Web Accessibility

2010 ◽  
pp. 49-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Lopes ◽  
Konstantinos Votis ◽  
Luís Carriço ◽  
Spiridon Likothanassis
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Scale Free ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Development Processes ◽  
Accessibility Guidelines ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Ontological Framework ◽  
Web Designers

The Web serves as the principal mediator for information sharing and communication on a worldwide scale. Its highly decentralized nature affords a scale free growth, where each endpoint (i.e., Web site) is created and maintained independently. Web designers and developers have the onus of making sure that users can interact without accessibility problems. However, coping with users with disabilities poses challenges on how to ensure that a Web site is accessible for any kind of user. When (and if) this is done, designers and developers do it in a post-hoc way, (i.e., verify and tweak Web sites according to guidelines such as WCAG). In this Chapter the authors present SWAF, the Semantic Web AccessibilityFramework, a base framework for supporting the integration of accessibility services into Web design and development processes. SWAF affords both tailoring accessibility to user needs and specifying the semantic validation of accessibility guidelines in different application situations.

Aviation-Related Expertise and Usability

2011 ◽  
pp. 1312-1327
Author(s):  
Ferne Friedman-Berg ◽  
Kenneth Allendoerfer ◽  
Shantanu Pai
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
User Satisfaction ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Federal Aviation Administration ◽  
Aviation Industry ◽  
Usability Assessment ◽  
Government Web Sites ◽  
Quantitative Metrics

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Human Factors Team - Atlantic City conducted a usability assessment of the www.fly.faa.gov Web site to examine user satisfaction and identify site usability issues. The FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center uses this Web site to provide information about airport conditions, such as arrival and departure delays, to the public and the aviation industry. The most important aspect of this assessment was its use of quantitative metrics to evaluate how successfully users with different levels of aviation-related expertise could complete common tasks, such as determining the amount of delay at an airport. The researchers used the findings from this assessment to make design recommendations for future system enhancements that would benefit all users. They discuss why usability assessments are an important part of the process of evaluating e-government Web sites and why their usability evaluation process should be applied to the development of other e-government Web sites.

Toward a purposeful design strategy for visually impaired Web users

First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Barpanda ◽  
Jared Reyes ◽  
Rakesh Babu
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Web Applications ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Design Strategy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Perceived Complexity ◽  
The Web

The central premise of this research is the belief that using the Web non-visually is cognitively burdensome and tedious due to its complex, sight-centered design. There exists a literature gap on visually impaired (VI) users’ perceptions and experiences regarding Web site complexity. This paper reports the findings from a survey of 50 visually impaired individuals regarding perceived complexity and usability of a popular shopping Web site and its less complex version. Results show that significant gains in usability could be achieved by reducing complexity in Web design. A theoretical model of perceived complexity and associated propositions are presented to guide future research on improving the VI user experience of Web sites and Web applications.

The Impact of Organizational Structure and Labels on Web Usability for Older Adults

2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-205
Author(s):  
Julian Sanchez ◽  
Sara J. Czaja
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Information Organization ◽  
User Performance ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
The Impact

One of the key aspects of the success of an e-commerce web site is the consistency between the design of the site and the expectations and knowledge of the user population. The objective of this study was to examine the impact of information organization and label quality on user performance and satisfaction. The study employed a two (information organization: goal-centered organization versus a product-centered organization) by three (label quality: high, medium, low) factorial design. Study participants included 60 persons aged 60+ years. Participants were required to find six products while shopping in a simulated health store web site. Results revealed that higher quality labels and goal-centered organization resulted in higher levels of performance and satisfaction. Data of this type can be used to help develop web design guidelines for older adults.

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