Evaluating Web Site Support Capabilities in Sell-Side B2B Transaction Processes

Author(s):  
Wei-Hsi J. Hung ◽  
Chia-An Tsai ◽  
Shin-Yuan Hung ◽  
Robert McQueen ◽  
Jau-Jeng Jou

Business-to-business (B2B) transactions supported by the World Wide Web (Web) have become a major portion of e-commerce transactions. Despite growth, knowledge of the degree of Web site support capabilities in the B2B transaction process is limited. This paper longitudinally compares how Web sites supported the B2B transaction process in New Zealand and Taiwan between 2001 and 2007. The results indicate that, on average, New Zealand Web sites scored higher than those in Taiwan in both years. Yet, the rate of improvement of Taiwanese Web site scores is significant. Specifically, the support capability of several Web functions, including privacy, company information, financial information and product catalog has improved over the study period. The authors found that the sampled Web sites in New Zealand and Taiwan provide different support capabilities to the activities in the B2B transaction process. Taiwanese Web sites are more concerned with providing after-sale services via the Internet whereas New Zealand Web sites are more concerned with sharing information. These two countries’ Web sites share a similar focus on supporting B2B transactions, which provides strong support for users to conduct product promotion and information provision related activities over the Web. Based on these findings, this study suggests several implications for associated academics and practitioners.

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei-Hsi J. Hung ◽  
Chia-An Tsai ◽  
Shin-Yuan Hung ◽  
Robert McQueen ◽  
Jau-Jeng Jou

Business-to-business (B2B) transactions supported by the World Wide Web (Web) have become a major portion of e-commerce transactions. Despite growth, knowledge of the degree of Web site support capabilities in the B2B transaction process is limited. This paper longitudinally compares how Web sites supported the B2B transaction process in New Zealand and Taiwan between 2001 and 2007. The results indicate that, on average, New Zealand Web sites scored higher than those in Taiwan in both years. Yet, the rate of improvement of Taiwanese Web site scores is significant. Specifically, the support capability of several Web functions, including privacy, company information, financial information and product catalog has improved over the study period. The authors found that the sampled Web sites in New Zealand and Taiwan provide different support capabilities to the activities in the B2B transaction process. Taiwanese Web sites are more concerned with providing after-sale services via the Internet whereas New Zealand Web sites are more concerned with sharing information. These two countries’ Web sites share a similar focus on supporting B2B transactions, which provides strong support for users to conduct product promotion and information provision related activities over the Web. Based on these findings, this study suggests several implications for associated academics and practitioners.


2008 ◽  
pp. 3410-3429
Author(s):  
Jack S. Cook ◽  
Laura Cook

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.


1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth E. Barnes

While students at major universities may have access to the World Wide Web via campus computer labs, many have yet to take advantage of the Web's offerings. Regular demonstrations of Web sites were incorporated into an introductory advertising course to pique students’ interest in the Web. This paper discusses how Web site visits were incorporated into lectures and the students’ evaluation of the Web site component of the course.


Author(s):  
Ross A. Malaga

This chapter examines the role of the World Wide Web in traditional lecture based courses. It details a student oriented approach to the development and maintenance of course Web sites. An experiment was conducted in order to determine if use of a course Web site improves student performance. The surprising results, that students in certain sections did not use the site at all, are analyzed. It was concluded that using the Web in class and making Web assignments part of student’s graded work may impact use of a course Web site.


Author(s):  
Thomas A. Slivinski ◽  
Francis D. Tuggle

The World Wide Web (web) grows apace, yet many web sites possess a confusing design, frustrating would-be users. We offer a structured approach, called SPUD (Site - Purpose Users Design) to the task of designing, not implementing, web sites. Our methodology focuses upon a structured walkthrough of a web site and consists of three phases (and 15 substeps), with possible iteration between the stages. (1) Define the audience characteristics of users of the web site, including their motives for visiting, their demographics, and their likely technological capabilities. (2) Plan accordingly the structure of the web site, the page layouts, and the navigation procedures between pages. (3) Develop and test functions useful to the users of the web site, such as a search function (for a complex web site) or an order function (for a retail web site).


2009 ◽  
pp. 2389-2412
Author(s):  
Ying Liang

Web-based information systems (WBIS) aim to support e-business using IT, the World Wide Web, and the Internet. This chapter focuses on the Web site part of WBIS and argues why an easy-to-use and interactive Web site is critical to the success of WBIS. A dialogue act modeling approach is presented for capturing and specifying user needs for easy-to-use Web site of WBIS by WBIS analysis; for example, what users want to see on the computer screen and in which way they want to work with the system interactively. It calls such needs communicational requirements, in addition to functional and nonfunctional requirements, and builds a dialogue act model to specify them. The author hopes that development of the Web site of WBIS will be considered not only an issue in WBIS design but also an issue in WBIS analysis in WBIS development.


2008 ◽  
pp. 3805-3823
Author(s):  
Jack S. Cook ◽  
Laura Cook

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.


Author(s):  
Ying Liang

Web-based information systems (WBIS) aim to support e-business using IT, the World Wide Web, and the Internet. This chapter focuses on the Web site part of WBIS and argues why an easy-to-use and interactive Web site is critical to the success of WBIS. A dialogue act modeling approach is presented for capturing and specifying user needs for easy-to-use Web site of WBIS by WBIS analysis; for example, what users want to see on the computer screen and in which way they want to work with the system interactively. It calls such needs communicational requirements, in addition to functional and nonfunctional requirements, and builds a dialogue act model to specify them. The author hopes that development of the Web site of WBIS will be considered not only an issue in WBIS design but also an issue in WBIS analysis in WBIS development.


Author(s):  
Jack S. Cook ◽  
Laura Cook

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.


2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moses Boudourides ◽  
Gerasimos Antypas

In this paper we are presenting a simple simulation of the Internet World-Wide Web, where one observes the appearance of web pages belonging to different web sites, covering a number of different thematic topics and possessing links to other web pages. The goal of our simulation is to reproduce the form of the observed World-Wide Web and of its growth, using a small number of simple assumptions. In our simulation, existing web pages may generate new ones as follows: First, each web page is equipped with a topic concerning its contents. Second, links between web pages are established according to common topics. Next, new web pages may be randomly generated and subsequently they might be equipped with a topic and be assigned to web sites. By repeated iterations of these rules, our simulation appears to exhibit the observed structure of the World-Wide Web and, in particular, a power law type of growth. In order to visualise the network of web pages, we have followed N. Gilbert's (1997) methodology of scientometric simulation, assuming that web pages can be represented by points in the plane. Furthermore, the simulated graph is found to possess the property of small worlds, as it is the case with a large number of other complex networks.


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