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Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed
... Thus, language-neutral strategies are mostly concerned with linguistic aspects even when discursive, rhetorical and textual aspects dependent on genres can also be differently conventionalized. Conventions play a vital role in web usability, as it has been empirically shown that websites that do not follow conventions lead to lower usability, comprehension, recall, etc. (Nielsen 2000;Nielsen and Tahir 2002;Nielsen and Loranger 2006;Vaughan and Dillon 2006). In part, this is due to the fact that websites are instrumental texts that are not necessarily written to be read linearly; quite on the contrary, websites are normally scanned in order to identify the information that the user is looking for (Nielsen and Loranger 2006). ...
... Moreover, if the objective of the industry is to produce texts that are received as if they had "been developed in-country" (LISA 2004, p. 11), localisation strategies should in principle guarantee that websites serve their purpose efficiently and share whichever characteristics are conventional in each locale (Nielsen 2000;Nielsen and Tahir 2002;Nielsen and Loranger 2006) . It is therefore logical to argue that, apart from eradicating any transfer and language errors in the target language, a quality localised website should share the characteristics of a similar locally made website. ...
... It is therefore logical to argue that, apart from eradicating any transfer and language errors in the target language, a quality localised website should share the characteristics of a similar locally made website. In order to accomplish this goal, compliance with existing cultural and linguistic conventions in natively produced texts becomes an essential aspect of quality (Jiménez-Crespo 2009a; Nielsen and Tahir 2002). This issue then goes beyond error identification and requires full active competence in the genres in question (Gamero 2001), that is, translator-evaluators should have the ability to produce these highly communicative instruments. ...
The goal of the Localisation Industry is to produce sites that "look like they have been developed in-country" (LISA 2004, p. 11), even when due to cost-effectiveness considerations international versions are frequently released for languages with multiple locales. Thus, the industry's discourse links quality in localisations to texts that are received as local productions, while its internationalisation strategies strive to erase certain dialectal and cultural differences. This paper researches the strategies applied by multinational corporations when dealing with neutral international version of localised websites. After a theoretical review of the interrelated notions of internationalisation, quality, neutral language version and localisation level, the empirical study researches the case of Spanish, one of the languages with the greater number of different locales. Following a corpus-based approach, the Spanish localisation strategies of the 600 largest US companies are analyzed. Detailed statistics for each model and locale are provided. In a second stage, a longitudinal study is presented that contrasts data collected in 2006 with the localisation strategies observed in 2009. The results show that multinational companies apply different strategies for the European and Latin American markets, while the largest US companies have gradually increased the Spanish localised versions of their websites. Additionally, the fuzzy US Spanish locale continues to grow despite the fact that this locale is not still internationally recognized and standardized.
... A landing page is the root element of modern UX interactions [13], where users fallback when they get lost and are discovering interaction flows. Providing an intuitive initial screen is imperative for new users in our TaskBot. ...
... Multimodal devices present opportunities for richer interactions. Users are familiarized with a desktop paradigm [13], and voice-based interactions present new challenges, even in smaller devices with limited screen sizes. The TaskBot Challenge presents exciting opportunities and challenges while exploring this shift towards voice-based interactions, in an unforgiving real-user feedback scenario. ...
This paper describes the vision, scientific contributions, and technical details of the Task Wizard (TWIZ) team's participation in the Alexa TaskBot Challenge 2021. Our bot design envisions the support of an engaging experience, where users are guided through multimodal conversations, towards the successful completion of the selected task. This is achieved through four key principles: a) robust dialog interaction, by making core dialog components (utterance processing, dialog manager, and response generator) tailored for an in-the-wild setting, b) effective and conversational task grounding, c) delivery of an immersive multimodal task guiding experience, and d) engagement maximization and user cognitive stimuli. In the following sections, we present the proposed methods to tackle each one of these principles, leading to a novel multimodal curiosity-exploration task guiding conversational assistant, that manages to balance user engagement and cognitive load, while guiding users through complex tasks.
... The underlying model for taking up this type of research is that target texts should incorporate a similar percentage of creative or non-conventional features in the target language system. Nevertheless, in many instrumental types (Nord 1997), the opposite trend can also be found: some texts, such as websites, need to conform to the body 8 of conventions expected by users in order to be fully effective (Nielsen 2000;Nielsen and Tahir 2002). Therefore, not complying with the set of expected conventional features can be detrimental to the communicative and pragmatic purpose of any localised website (Nielsen 2004). ...
... As far as the cluster of hypothesis that suggest that translated texts favour more conventional or less creative features than non-translated texts, navigation terminology was chosen as it is highly conventionalized in most languages (Nielsen and Tahir 2002). The results from navigation menu terminology, an instrumental type of translation (Nord 1997), do not support the generality that these hypotheses entail. ...
Since the emergence of Corpus-Based Translation Studies, research into potential regularities in translational behaviour or "general tendencies in translation" has been at its core. However, translation scholars have also criticized this type of descriptive research from methodological and theoretical grounds (i.e. Tymoczko 2005, 1998; Snell-Hornby 2006; House 2008). This paper reflects on these issues through an overview of studies on general tendencies using a translation modality, web localization. The goal is to discuss what this new modality as can add to the existing body of knowledge on general tendencies. Methodologically, the data for most studies was provided by the Spanish Web Comparable corpus containing 40,000 original and localized webpages from corporate websites. The overview of results will summarize the findings from published studies on explicitation, conventionalization and sanitation (-2008a, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, forthcoming a; Diéguez 2008), as well as an additional feature of translations, the tendency to "clone" source text structures (Larose 1998;-2009c, forthcoming b). This tendency has not been previously conceptualized as a general tendency, partly due to the fact that it cannot be directly studied using current methodologies and lexical analysis tools mostly focused on word-based metrics. 2
... However, the second group of the respondents does not care how information is presented since they are just interested in content. Furthermore, the homepage was considered as the most important page on the website than the others [18] , because it gets more users' views than any other page types. Homepage is the place, from where the journey to the site will really begin. ...
... Apart from this, a significantly slow processing speed causes users to leave the site or abandon online transactions. 70% visitors expect from websites to be loaded within 12 seconds [57] or the page loading speed should not exceed 10 seconds of delay [18,55,[58][59][60] . Actually, 64% of smartphone users left web pages when their response exceeded 8 seconds [61] . ...
... Usability is defined as the ease of use that a computer system and digital tools have according to a specific context, such as electronic commerce, business systems, and educational technologies (Nielsen & Tahir, 2001). The use of usability in educational technologies is analyzed in various studies (Issa & Jusoh, 2019;Kumar & Mohite, 2018;Martinho et al., 2020;Mohd-Khir & Ismail, 2019;Na & Liu, 2019;Yáñez-Gómez et al., 2019). ...
... This quality criterion (usability) is explained by the ISO in two current standards: ISO/IEC 9126-1: 2004 (understandability, learnability, operability, and attractiveness) and ISO/IEC 9241-11: 2018 (effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction), as well as by the ISO/IEC 25010: 2011 norms (learnability, appropriateness, recognizability, operability, user error protection, user interface aesthetics and accessibility). Consequently, usability should be evaluated by features and metrics, that are used by both general computer systems (Nielsen & Tahir, 2001) and specific systems related to a particular social context, for example, the NTAE mentioned above (Salas et al., 2019). ...
The objective of this article is to determine which are the international standards and norms of usability that are used in educational technology applied to the teaching of mathematics at secondary and higher education levels, focused on two scenarios: (1) digital educational resources and virtual learning environments (VLEs), and (2) game-based learning. The PRISMA protocol was used and the Scopus and IEEE Xplorer databases, the Springer publishing House and the ACM Digital Library were used for the search strategy. Forty-seven primary studies were selected, emphasizing the use of the ISO/IEC 9241-11 standard. However, the isolated use of criteria to usability assessment without achieving engineering integration is reflected. Primary studies in the teaching of mathematics mainly use the ISO 9241-11:2018 and ISO/IEC 9126-1:2004 standards. Game-based learning scenario uses ISO 9241-11:2018 standards and procedures that guarantee, at least, the integration between efficiency, effectiveness, and ease of use. Digital educational resources and VLEs scenario uses ISO/IEC 9126-1:2004 and ISO/IEC 9241-11:2018 standards, and procedures that guarantee at least the integration between efficiency and ease of use; effectiveness and ease of use; ease of use and accessibility; and effectiveness, ease of use, accessibility, and efficiency.
... Algunos de estos tres tipos de datos pueden incluir o no la componente temporal. La trascendencia de la componente temporal en un sistema multimedia/hipermedia consiste en: Alcanzar la sincronización entre los diversos medios activos, caso contrario es un error de la usabilidad del sistema [11]; Emplear algoritmos idóneos en la comprensión y descompresión de ficheros con imágenes y/o sonidos. La compresión y la descompresión en el menor tiempo posible y ocupando el mínimo espacio de almacenamiento; Acceder a un registro de la base de datos en fracción de minuto. ...
Introducción Las últimas tecnologías en el nuevo milenio ha potenciado la velocidad de producción de sistemas hipermediales on-line y off-line. En los últimos años, estos sistemas han demostrado ser una herramienta importante para potenciar el patrimonio cultural. Sin embargo, se observan algunos casos en que la calidad comunicacional de los mismos ha decrecido en perjuicio del usuario final. En la actualidad una de las principales metas de la ingeniería del software es mejorar la calidad de los productos hipermediales, pero desde el punto de vista del diseño, el concepto de calidad puede presentare en más de una ocasión de modo ambivalente. Esto se debe a que tal como sostiene Fenton, N. [1] "la calidad al igual que la noción de belleza está en los ojos de las personas". Empero, a ello se le puede unir que afirmación de Ceddia, D. [2] "la calidad es generalmente transparente cuando está presente, pero fácilmente reconocible en su ausencia". Consecuentemente, el factor calidad de comunicación prevalece sobre la usabilidad del sistema hipermedia. La calidad de un sistema hipermedia ha puesto de manifiesto el tema de la usabilidad para alcanzar excelentes resultados en la interacción persona-ordenador. Sin embargo, ahora transitamos en la era de la comunicación, en donde la usabilidad comienza a ocupar un segundo plano porque la divulgación y uso de sistemas informáticos ha pasado de los entornos profesionales al ámbito doméstico. Un fiel ejemplo de tal realidad es considerar a los portales universitarios como ventanas abiertas hacia el mundo y tendientes a promover el patrimonio cultural de la comunidad a la cual pertenecen. En el presente trabajo se analiza la presencia del patrimonio cultural en los portales universitarios de España e Italia. Para tal fin, se emplea la metodología (MEHEM: A Methodology for Heuristic Evaluation in Multimedia [3, 4, 5]) y un conjunto de métricas orientadas a evaluar la comunicación de un sistema hipermedia/multimedia (MECEM-Metrics for the Communications Evaluation in Multimedia [6, 7, 8]). Portales: Formación versus Mercantilismo Tradicionalmente, la presencia en Internet consistía en realizar unas páginas Web de presentación. En nuestros días, un portal es un elemento de necesidad y distinción. Por lo tanto, quienes disponen de un sito Web tienen casi una obligación de transformarlo velozmente en un portal, ya sea desde el punto de vista de la interfaz como del markenting. El problema en el caso de las universidades es que el fin último-teóricamente-es la formación y no el mercantilismo [9]. Ahora bien, en Internet se observa un proceso de "portalización" de las páginas web universitarias. Es decir, hay más sitos polifuncionales que se presentan como portales y brindan al usuario diversos servicios. Este fenómeno responde a que los portales están teniendo un gran éxito, ya que en numerosas situaciones los mismos pueden ser utilizados como punto de referencia u orientación en el momento de navegar en Internet. No obstante, en algunos casos se puede constatar como la "portalización" puede ser considerada como una evolución, incluyendo funciones no previstas en el diseño de la misma. Por ejemplo, en algunos portales de universidades italianas, tienden a incorporar funciones del servicio metereológico (Osservatorio meteorologico-A. Serpieri), como ocurre con la Universidad de Urbino (www.uniurb.it). Sin embargo, hasta aquí estamos dentro del ámbito de la información y el encuadre en el contexto universitario puede ser considerado correcto. Los primeros conflictos aparecen cuando en algunos portales universitarios se recurre al fin mercantilista o comercial, como sucede con la Università degli Studi di Siena (www.unisi.it), con la venta "on-line" de productos que llevan el logo de esa casa de estudios. En otros casos, se puede incluso disponer de un cómodo euro convertidor (web.uniud.it) como ocurre en la home page de la Universidad de Udine. Como se puede constatar en el anexo 1 y 2 de las "home page" de las universidades españolas e italianas, cuando se localizan elementos del patrimonio cultural los mismos no hacen referencia directa a aspectos comerciales. Por ende, si la tendencia es el cambio de diseño y contenidos en las páginas web universitarias, es necesario ponderar el patrimonio cultural ante el factor mercantilista.
... Evaluating the homepage alone allows critical usability and accessibility issues to be identified from the user's first contact, as it contains representative design and navigation elements. It is also an efficient way to conduct an evaluation when resources are limited [56]. ...
This paper discusses the design and evaluation of a set of heuristics (U + A) to assess the usability and accessibility of interactive systems in terms of cognitive diversity in an integrated way. Method: An analysis of the usability and accessibility aspects that have the greatest impact on people with cognitive disabilities is presented. A set of cognitive usability and accessibility heuristics targeted at people with cognitive disabilities is generated with the support of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). Result: Several interactive systems are evaluated to validate the U + A heuristics. A quantitative classification of the evaluated systems is obtained, i.e., the "U + A-index", which reveals the most and least usable and accessible systems for people with cognitive and learning disabilities. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that it is possible to carry out a classification of heuristic criteria considering accessibility, usability, and cognitive disability. The results also show that the selection of criteria proposed by GenAI is optimal and that this technology can be used to improve usability and accessibility of interactive systems in a practical way. Yet, further evaluations are needed to support the results of the analyzed proposal.
... Usability is defined as "the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context" (International Organization for Standardization, 2010b). Usability is one of the most important characteristics of any user interface, and it is a measure of how easy the interface is to use (Nielsen & Tahir, 2002). The user is an individual interacting with the system (International Organization for Standardization, 2011); they can judge the quality of the offered services. ...
This research evaluates e-commerce platforms (ECP) amid the COVID-19 pandemic and investigates the relationship between usability and user experience (UX) and e-commerce platforms performance (ECPP) by testing online customer's interactions with online retailers. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses assessed the research constructs' dimensions, dimensionality, validity, and composite reliability, while structural path analysis tested the hypothesized model relationships. The empirical results indicate that six usability dimensional attributes are strategically significant antecedents to UX and ECPP: navigation, information architecture, value of content, satisfaction, aesthetics, and consistency and functionality. An integrated framework of usability and UX is recommended for retailers running their businesses on digital platforms. This research investigates usability, UX, and ECPP through understanding digital marketing frameworks in e-commerce stores in the COVID-19 context, shedding light on the strategic role of usability attributes and how they affect UX digital performance.
... Moreover, despite the commonly agreed upon functionality of homepages (i.e., welcoming visitors, showcasing "what the company is, the value the site offers, … and the products and services offered" (Nielsen & Tahir, 2002: 2)), homepages are too complex to be readily assigned the label of the genre (Bateman, 2014b). Identifying whether properties of some elements (e.g., search box/icon, social media icons) are "due to some genre of 'homepages', or to the properties of webpages as such, or to conventions that have arisen in the use of webpages" (Bateman et al., 2017: 348) remains open to an empirical investigation. ...
This thesis studies web homepages to understand the complex social practice of organizational identity communication on a digital medium. It examines how designs of web homepages realize discourses of identity through the mobilization and orchestration of various semiotic resources into multimodal ensembles, addressing critical organizational visual identity elements (‘logo,’ ‘corporate name,’ ‘color,’ ‘typography,’ ‘graphic shapes,’ and ‘images’), communicative content of the page, and navigation structures. By examining these three ‘strata’ of organizational identity communication, it investigates how a homepage uses formal design elements and more abstract principles of composition, such as spatial positioning and content ordering, as resources for making meaning.
The data consists of three complementary sets drawn from thirty-nine web homepages of Australian university websites in 2020. Data set #1 includes four homepages for an in-depth study of organizational identity designs; data set #2 consists of 400 images from the ‘above the fold’ web area as the most strategic space on four homepages between the years 2015 and 2021; data set #3 is comprised of eight historical versions of a selected web homepage between the years 2000 and 2021, with three most representative designs for an in-depth investigation. Grounded in the discourse-analytic approach informed by multimodal social semiotics, the thesis adopts a mixed-method approach to data analysis. It applies multimodal discourse analysis combining the Genre and Multimodality model (Bateman, 2008; Bateman et al., 2017) to document the structural design patterns and social semiotic (metafunctional) approach to address the meaning potentials of the identified patterns; (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2021); content analysis (Bell, 2001; Rose, 2016) and visual social actor framework (van Leeuwen, 2008) to identify key representational tropes and visual personae.
The study reveals the role of design as a mediating tool between the participants of discourse – the rhetor-institution/designer and envisaged audiences – and offers systematic insights into the uses of semiotic resources, both material (e.g., formal design elements and navigation structures) and nonmaterial (e.g., spatial considerations and content structuring), all contributing to the production of meanings and fostering identification with such meanings in the form of association with the university’s identity. Addressing the subtle differences and shifts in the form and function of key layout structures and strategies of viewer engagement, the study concludes that is plural – each university constantly revises semiotic choices and their multimodal composition to achieve specific rhetorical purposes. Together with several visual design choices, five identified strategies of viewer engagement – proximation, alignment, equalization, objectivation, and subjectivation – promote the university as a place of opportunity, achievement, sociality, and intellectual growth for a student as an individual and as a member of the community.
The current research contributes to the emerging collaboration between multimodality, organization studies, and branding, recognizing the complexities and importance of multimodal communication in web-mediated texts amidst the critically increased roles of marketization and social presence in the current higher education landscape.
... Web menus and navigation play a crucial role in user experience (UX) design in web development. They provide a structured way for users to access and navigate the content and features of a website and serve important functions such as helping users orient themselves and understand the website's structure, enabling clear navigation, and reducing cognitive load [5,6]. Navigation history, which refers to the record of pages or content a user has visited on a website, also serves important functions such as allowing users to retrace their steps and resume tasks. ...
Adaptive User Interfaces (AUIs) have been developed to improve the usability of products by adapting to the user, the platform, and the environment. However, there is a limited understanding of how different adaptation policies impact personalization and usability in adaptive menus. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of different adaptation policies in adaptive menu design. The study surveyed computer science students at Kathmandu University and conducted a usability study to gather data. The results of the study showed that a majority of participants were neutral in their perception of the ease of use of the websites they regularly visit, but a strong majority (83%) indicated a preference for personalized menu options. Personalization was found to be a key factor in the effectiveness of adaptive menus. Participants valued the ability of adaptive menus to tailor their options based on their specific needs or preferences. The findings of this study provide insight into users’ preferences for adaptation policies in adaptive menus and suggest that a recency-frequency-based menu is most effective in meeting users’ needs. Similarly, findings also suggest users’ preference for adaptation policy also changes based on the context of use. Future research could further investigate the effectiveness of different adaptation policies in different contexts of use.
... We use data collected in 2001 to assess website quality to test the M-MORE methodology. At that time the avalanche of investment associated with the dotcom boom not only funded a web design industry, but it raised practical questions about how to combine functionality, usability, and aesthetics to create a high quality website (Nielsen & Tahir, 2001). Numerous attempts were made to identify the characteristics of successful websites (for a summary, see Table III in Surjadjaja, Ghosh, & Antony, 2003). ...
... A website with a visually optimal interface is usually processed more fluently, since 80% of the information processed by an Internet user depends on sight (Mattelart, 1996). Users' initial impressions upon visiting a website are crucial since the first few seconds of interaction help them to decide whether or not to continue navigating (Nielsen & Tahir, 2002;Tractinsky, Cokhavi, Kirschenbaum, & Sharfi, 2006). Lindgaard, Fernandes, Dudek, and Brownet (2006) contend that users' first impressions (on a computer in an indoor setting) are built in about 50 milli-seconds and appear to remain stable over time. ...
This study focuses on the effects of user interfaces in mobile commerce (m-commerce) on the perceived ease of use and related consumer behaviors when controlled for environmental conditions (sunshine, humidity, and brightness). Effects were tested in real-time contexts (outdoor m-commerce). Specifically, three key design attributes related to commercial website interfaces were examined using a full factorial plan (222): color contrast, layout, and font type. A website selling music CDs was created for the experiment. Data were collected through an online questionnaire (n=560) to investigate potential direct and interaction effects of these interface attributes. The results show that an m-commerce website with a positive color contrast (light text on a dark background) and airy line spacing with a sans-serif font (Arial) is perceived as easier to use when engaged in outdoor m-commerce. This combination of interface attributes is associated with higher intentions to purchase as well as an increase in revisits and recommendations of the website. The implications for both m-commerce research and practice are discussed.
... Scholars have developed many guidelines for web developers to use to make websites usablenotable among these are guidelines Nielsen originally developed, all the other guidelines based on Nielsen's original work (Nielsen, 1994(Nielsen, , 2000(Nielsen, , 2005Nielsen and Tahir, 2001), and work from other researchers (Bevan, 2001(Bevan, , 2005Cosgrove, 2018;Krug, 2009). Despite the wide availability of usability guidelines and principles, studies show that even website designers and developers trained in usability find it difficult to readily apply the guidelines and principles either because they perceive that a significant effort may be required on their part when following the principles, or because they do not have the technology to readily code website elements that will make the sites usable. ...
Study aims were to investigate how usable COVID-19 dedicated state public health websites in the US were, and whether case counts in different geographical regions in the US were related to website usability. 16 state websites representing the 2 highest and the 2 lowest case count states in each region were selected. Five experts used a heuristic evaluation procedure to independently rate all 16 websites on a severity scale of 0-4. Usability criteria published by the US Department of Health and Human Services and criteria on risk communication and data dashboards were used. Analyses involved cross tabulation of usability criteria with case counts, comparison of usability scores using Mood's median tests, test of differences in average usability scores using ANOVA and post-hoc tests, and identification of correlations between case counts and usability scores. Results from the Mood's median test showed that the median usability scores for the states were significantly different from each other at the 5% level of significance (df = 15, chi-square = 38.40; p = 0.001). ANOVA showed statistically significant differences between the mean usability scores for the states at the 5% level of significance (F = 6.33, p < 0.05). Although not statistically significant, results from a correlation analysis between case count and usability scores showed a negative correlation (r = -0.209, p = 0.437) indicating that the higher the case count, the better the usability score. Overall, the websites fared well on usability, but many websites were used as an information and data repository. These websites must communicate infection risk better.
Relevance to industry:
The study applies to public health agency websites that communicate essential information during a pandemic.
... Normally, the homepage, being the web entry or the path most commonly taken from search engines, is the page that receives the most clicks. It is therefore essential that it be a starting point for users who access it, offering content that generates engagement (Nielsen & Tahir, 2011). • Seeking simplicity, given that the web environment is circumscribed within a world full of distractions, users appreciate the absence of noise, that is, unnecessary information (Nielsen, 1999). ...
In a globalized world, tourist destinations must have a website containing accurate information for potential tourists. However, there is currently no model that serves as a guide to evaluate the usability of tourism websites. A web usability audit manual is presented in this work with the application of a case study methodology, which combines theoretical contributions with those of a real audit of a tourism institution. Apart from the description of the manual itself, the results of this work have made it possible to identify a series of actions to be taken into account, as well as others that should be avoided when a usability audit is being carried out in the tourism field.
... Home page menurut [6] adalah bagian yang sangat penting dalam situs website oleh karena itu maka harus di persiapkan dengan baik yang disesuaikan dengan tujuan dari lembaga atau instansi dalam kemudahan pengguna. Usability merupakan salah satu factor penentu dalam menilai keberhasilan suatu situs website termasuk didalamnya terdapat home page dari situs web [7]. ...
Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) adalah suatu Lembaga Pemerintahan Non Kementrian yang bertanggung jawab langsung kepada Presiden, lembaga ini memiliki tugas untuk melakukan kegiatan statistik yang ada di Indonesia. Sebagai lembaga yang memiliki tugas untuk menyediakan data statistic di Indonesia maka Badan Pusat Statistik membuat website untuk memberikan informasi dan berita terkait dengan kegiatan statistik yang ada di Indonesia. Setiap website termasuk website pemerintahan harus memiliki kualitas yang baik agar mudah untuk digunakan oleh pengguna. Untuk menguji kualitas website tersebut maka dilakukan evaluasi website dengan menggunakan metode pengujian usability website dengan mengobservasi pengguna dengan metode observasi, dilanjutkan dengan metode Think Out Loud, serta ditambahkan dengan kuesioner Nielsen’s Attributes of Usability (NAU). Berdasarkan hasil penelitian yang dilakukan dengan metode observasi website Badan Pusat Statistik berada pada tingkat ke-3 dari 5 skala atau Cukup, lalu dengan metode Think Out Loud mayoritas reaksi responden adalah positif, serta pengujian dengan kuesioner NAU dapat disimpulkan bahwa website Badan Pusat Statistik Cukup dalam memenuhi kelima kategori usability menurut Nielsen Model
... In inquiry-based learning, especially on the Web, there are a significant number of resources within a few easy clicks of a computer mouse. However, unlike reference books and journals in a library, anyone can publish on the Web without being reviewed or approved by experts, and without following any standards in the design of the website's homepage (Nielsen and Tahir, 2001). Thus, in Web resource-based learning, learners are challenged with the need to quickly and critically evaluate both the credibility and content relevance of a website for a given task (Case, 2003). ...
The aim of this study is to investigate whether the use of social networking (SN) website-based learning activities can promote students’ critical thinking (CT) skills and their participation in course activities. For this, an educational intervention was designed and implemented through several stages, drawing from the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation) learning design model. The intervention is a type of learning activity design based on the WebQuest model, and included open-ended questions and different SN website sources. In order to answer a given question, students were required to browse, criticise and evaluate the source content and present their thoughts in an argumentative essay.
I adopted the design-based research (DBR) approach within a mixed methods research design framework to evaluate the effectiveness of the research intervention. Research tools included a CT rubric and student questionnaires as the quantitative tools; and observations, student focus groups and student reflections as the qualitative tools. The main study was conducted in one semester course (16 weeks) with 24 undergraduate female students at King Saud University (KSU), in the first semester of 2014-2015.
The quantitative and qualitative data were analysed at the same stage, at the end of the semester. The quantitative data was analysed using one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pairwise Comparisons (post-hoc test) and some descriptive statistics. In addition, the qualitative data was analysed thematically using the research questions as a basis for the analysis themes.
The intervention revealed positive findings in terms of students’ CT and argumentative writing skills as well as their attitudes. The findings also provide a deeper understanding of students’ perceptions of SN website usage and investigate the factors that affect students’ participation in these course activities. This study found that SN websites alone cannot promote student participation in course activities. SN website usage should be combined with other aspects/factors such as choosing activity topics, the teacher’s role in introducing and implementing activities and consideration of students’ time and other course’s requirements. This study contributes to knowledge by exploring how social constructivism propositions can apply to SN website-based learning activities to help Saudi students learn and apply CT skills.
... In inquiry-based learning, particularly on the Web, a significant number of resources are available with a few easy clicks of a computer mouse. However, unlike reference books and journals in a library, anyone can publish on the Web without being reviewed or approved by experts, and without following any standards in the design of the website's homepage (Nielsen & Tahir 2001). Thus, in Web resource-based learning, learners are challenged with the need to quickly and critically evaluate both the credibility and content relevance of a website for a given task. ...
Critical Thinking (CT) has been recognized as one of the most important thinking skills and one of the most important indicators of student learning quality. In order to develop successful critical thinkers, CT must be incorporated into the curriculum content and teaching approaches and sequenced at all grade levels. This research provides a systematic review of the extant literature on teaching CT skills. The comprehensive review led to the building of a conceptual framework that discusses the four main debates among the researchers engaged in the field of teaching CT. One of these debates; can technology promote students CT skills? Overall, the study of actual practices indicates that teaching approaches tend to focus on subject content rather than CT development. The results indicate a gap in teaching CT skills in terms of innovative methods and particularly in the use of new technologies. They also highlight the need for further research that investigates new approaches for teaching CT skills.
... There are also overlaps of information sub-categories. Zhang and O'Halloran (2012) alert that, although Nielsen and Tahir (2002) Comparatively, location of information on the Ghanaian University homepages is also made relatively easy, especially KNUST and UG, which provide multiple links to sub-pages that concern several demands of the university community. An analysis of the semiotic resources used for the implicit link realisation in Table 7 (page 154) Again, Ghanaian universities show themselves to be less open and welcoming to a less wide community of visitors or users as they tend to 156 establish a certain distance in interpersonal relationship with their visitors through the use of images that foreground social distance relations (close social distance to public distance outnumber intimate to far personal distance) but show strong involvement and equality with their visitors. ...
... There are also overlaps of information sub-categories. Zhang and O'Halloran (2012) alert that, although Nielsen and Tahir (2002) Comparatively, location of information on the Ghanaian University homepages is also made relatively easy, especially KNUST and UG, which provide multiple links to sub-pages that concern several demands of the university community. An analysis of the semiotic resources used for the implicit link realisation in Table 7 (page 154) Again, Ghanaian universities show themselves to be less open and welcoming to a less wide community of visitors or users as they tend to 156 establish a certain distance in interpersonal relationship with their visitors through the use of images that foreground social distance relations (close social distance to public distance outnumber intimate to far personal distance) but show strong involvement and equality with their visitors. ...
The discursive practices of higher academic institutions have become increasingly promotional due to the influences of marketisation values. And the homepage, among other genres, has become a vital marketing tool for promoting certain perceived identities of universities, giving rise to some comparative studies on university homepages. While such comparative studies have mostly focused on universities in Anglo-American and Asia-Pacific contexts, African, and particularly Ghanaian, universities have often remained absent in such discourses. Thus, the present study, comparing Ghanaian and Anglo-American universities’ homepages, aims to uncover the differences and similarities in the way the selected higher academic institutions project their identities through the hypermodal resources. Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) multimodal approach coupled with Zhang and O’Halloran’s (2012) framework is adopted for the analysis. The study revealed that, in the context of marketisation, Ghanaian universities’ homepages tend to be more informative and student-centred but less promotional than their American counterparts. The study also unearthed socio-cultural factors (such as communalism as against individualism) that underpin the construction of the homepages in the two strata. It was concluded that the complete adoption of marketisation principles among Ghanaian universities faces a huge opposition in certain entrenched cultural values. The study, therefore, has practical implications for the design of university homepages in Ghana.
... Although both sets of guidelines focus on the importance of consistency, support for expert users, feedback, robustness, and support recognition rather than recall, the principles proposed by Leavitt and Shneiderman [2006] relate specifically to the design of the interface involving web technologies. Mifsud [2012] states that the principles proposed by Leavitt and Shneiderman [2006] are similar to those discussed by Nielsen and Tahir [2001] in that both provide a complete set of guidelines for web application design. Yatsenko et al. [2002] point out that, although there are similarities between traditional usability guidelines and some web-based usability guidelines, only 20% of the traditional guidelines are web-relevant. ...
Although e-commerce has many benefits for businesses, many organizations struggle with low consumer adoption rates. Research has shown that a user's intention to conduct a transaction online is influenced by two critical factors: the user's perception of the ease of use of the technology, and the user's perception of trust regarding the online merchant. Since the web interface is the main mode of communication between the consumer and the merchant, it is critical that the interface inspire user trust in the merchant and facilitate ease of using the technology. This study explores ways of integrating affective and cognitive trust technologies with human/computer interaction so as to achieve this purpose. In order to formulate a model for encouraging user adoption of e-commerce, this study forms a connection between the core constructs of the technology acceptance model (TAM), perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness and the constructs of usability and trust. The proposed model was developed based on findings from two experiments conducted during the study involving two sets of sample web pages - one set incorporating web usability guidelines and trust indicators identified in the literature, and one set intentionally violating those principles. The results, incorporated in the model, indicate that encompassing the principles improves the user's emotion with regard to e-commerce adoption.
... The aim of this paper is to identify energy consumption dataset to profile "groups of customers" to whom address POWERCLOUD services. In this view, Jakob Nielsen, one of the world's leading experts on usability, states that to conduct an effective usability test of any product, no more than five users are needed [46,47]. A large sample is not necessary, but it is sufficient that the level of experience of the chosen subjects corresponds with a good approximation to that of the population for which the product is addressed. ...
This paper presents a cluster analysis study on energy consumption dataset to profile “groups of customers” to whom address POWERCLOUD services. POWER CLOUD project (PON I& C2014–2020) aims to create an energy community where each consumer can become also energy producer (PROSUMER) and so exchange a surplus of energy produced by renewable sources with other users, or collectively purchase or sell wholesale energy. In this framework, an online questionnaire has been developed in order to collect data on consumers behaviour and their preferences. A clustering analysis was carried on the filled questionnaires using Wolfram Mathematica software, in particular FindClusters function, to automatically group related segments of data. In our work, clustering analysis allowed to better understand the energy consumption propensity according the identified demographic variables. Thus, the outcomes highlight how the availability to adopt technologies to be used in PowerCloud energy community, increases with the growth of the family unit and, a greater propensity is major present in the age groups of 18–24 and 25–34.
... Try to imagine when it can be confusing to enter a shop and not be able to understand instantly what kind of products or services sell. The same principle applies to the home page of a website: it must immediately communicate, at a glance, where the users are located, what the company does and what kind of interaction the site offers [Nielsen & Tahir, 2001]. As regards, instead, the easiness and simplicity of use, the survey shows that for most involved users, the information on the site, especially on the home page, are not always clear and easy to read. ...
In the field of Information and Communication Technology, with particular reference to the
web, usability is one of the determining elements because it depends on the effective use and efficacious fruition
of a website by users. It is an important aspect of the design phase, to be considered in order to create websites
that are easy to use, friendly and attractive. It can be understood as an element of indispensable valuation of the
functionality of the site itself.
Through the combined application of various analysis techniques, such as the cooperative methodology
with questionnaire administration and a survey through the eye-tracking devices, the usability of the Caliò
Informatica company website was analyzed. The collected data examined qualitatively (analysis of the obtained
heatmaps) and quantitatively (statistical analysis with SPSS software).
... To make the analysis manageable, only the homepages and overview pages were analyzed. Homepages are likely to be the first page visited and provide an indication of the structure and content of the overall website (Nielsen, 2000;Nielsen & Tahir, 2002). Overview pages provide an indication of the key concerns of the organization behind a website). ...
Private hospitals are caught between two conflicting purposes: providing medical care and profit-making. In this paper, Bumrungrad International Hospital (BIH) and its wellness center subsidiary, Vitallife is investigated from a critical perspective on how it prioritizes these two purposes through examining the homepages and overview pages from its websites using iterative thematic analysis and lexical analyses (keyword analysis, metaphor analysis, and lexical presuppositions). The iterative thematic analysis categorized website information into three key categories: medical issues, non-traditional health issues, and issues associated with profit making, with frequency of items in the categories taken as measures of emphasis. The keyword analysis involved identifying relatively frequent and salient lexical items as keywords with relative frequency measured through log-likelihood against benchmark corpus. The metaphor analysis identified key recurring metaphorical uses of lexis, which are taken as indicative of the conceptual systems of the hospital. The main presuppositions identified were existential presuppositions which assume the existence of the mentioned items. The results highlight how the hospital webpages prioritize profit-making issues over medical issues to attract customers, while the Vitallife webpages aim to expand the market of potential customers by redefining healthcare. These findings are considered in relation to the hospital's stated goals, social expectations and Thai government policies.
This paper discusses the design and evaluation of a set of heuristics (U+A) to assess the usability and accessibility of interactive systems in terms of cognitive diversity in an integrated way. Method: An analysis of the usability and accessibility aspects that have the greatest impact on people with cognitive disabilities is presented. A set of cognitive usability and accessibility heu-ristics targeted at people with cognitive disabilities is generated with the support of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). Result: Several interactive systems are evaluated to validate the U+A heuristics. A quantitative classification of the evaluated systems is obtained, i.e., the “U+Aindex”, which reveals the most and least usable and accessible systems for people with cognitive and learning disabilities. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that it is possible to car-ry out a classification of heuristic criteria considering accessibility, usability, and cognitive disa-bility. The results also show that the selection of criteria proposed by GenAI is optimal and that this technology can be used to improve usability and accessibility of interactive systems in a practical way. Yet, further evaluations are needed to support the results of the analyzed proposal.
This chapter explores what artificial intelligence (AI) intellectual property (IP) owners do in their promotional material to negotiate public distrust of AI. A separation can be observed between the aesthetics and ethics of digital product design where simplified visual design appears to mask the complexity of AI-enabled devices, and systems. These observations can apply to the graphic design and corporate verbal rhetoric surrounding AI-enabled products. In this chapter, AI visual rhetoric is compared to science fiction aesthetics. Examples of masking complexity are described as visual echoes of the ‘Mr Fusion’ design from Back to the Future , while the few AI designs which declare their complexity more openly are described as reflecting ‘Johnny 5’s’ design from Short Circuit . The authors delve into the nexus between the user experience (UX) of autonomous technology, its communication design, and the visual aesthetics used in its promotion as an emerging force.
Semeru Farm is a company operating in the chicken farming sector. The main challenge faced by this company is financial management using manual methods with financial recording and reporting through excel applications. This requires accurate calculations in preparing profit and loss reports. In addition, the company also faces obstacles related to egg stock inventory management to ensure freshness and availability when customers buy. To overcome this problem, an accounting information system is needed that integrates stock management using the FIFO (first in first out) method, so that financial recording and reporting can be done efficiently and on time. This study aims to develop an accounting information system that manages egg stock using the FIFO method. This project includes three main phases: analysis, design, and implementation. The results include 38 database tables, transactions covering 5 accounting cycles, and various financial reports such as cash in and out reports, general journals, and final balance sheets.
PT. Indoflora Cipta Mandiri adalah perusahaan yang bergerak dalam industri produksi agar-agar dan karagenan. Perusahaan ini menghadapi tantangan dalam mengelola data kepegawaian secara efisien di divisi marketing, yang saat ini masih mengandalkan proses manual. Proses manual ini menyebabkan ketidakefisienan dalam pencatatan data pelamar, data pegawai, absensi, penggajian, dan penilaian kinerja karyawan. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode Waterfall. Pendekatan Waterfall mencakup langkah-langkah analisis kebutuhan, desain sistem dan perangkat lunak, implementasi, dan pengujian sistem. Melalui metode ini, peneliti berhasil merancang dan membangun Sistem Informasi Kepegawaian yang dapat membantu divisi marketing PT. Indoflora Cipta Mandiri dalam mengelola data kepegawaian. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa implementasi sistem informasi kepegawaian membawa dampak positif bagi perusahaan. Efisiensi dalam manajemen sumber daya manusia meningkat, transparansi data dapat terpantau dengan lebih baik, dan pengambilan keputusan menjadi lebih tepat dan cepat. Dengan demikian, penggunaan teknologi informasi dalam pengelolaan kepegawaian membantu meningkatkan produktivitas.
Microsoft 365 merupakan suatu platform yang berisi kumpulan media perangkat lunak (software) yang bertujuan untuk mendukung produktivitas dan membantu dalam mengakses suatu informasi para penggunanya. Microsoft 365 ini juga merupakan software yang berbasis pada cloud dan terdiri dari berbagai software pendukung yang bertujuan untuk memenuhi produktivitas para penggunanya. Microsoft 365 terdiri dari berbagai software Microsoft lainnya seperti Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power Point, dan lain sebagainya. Salah satu software yang ada pada Microsoft 365 ialah Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word biasanya digunakan oleh para penggunanya untuk melakukan perubahan (editing) pada suatu dokumen yang berisi teks laporan dan dokumen tertulis lainnya yang bersifat digital. Oleh karena itu para pengguna Microsoft Word harus mudah memahami penggunaan fitur pada Microsoft Word. Pada paper ini penulis akan melakukan Evaluasi Usability terhadap penggunaan Microsoft Word yang menggunakan Questionnaires Nielsen’s Attributes Of Usability (NAU) sebagai Teknik pengujiannya. Oleh karena itu, dalam paper ini dilakukan pengujian evaluasi usability berdasarkan 5 kategori yaitu Learnability, Efficiency, Memorability, Error, dan Satisfaction.
The deaf community has conquered rights in the area of education, and in recent years, with the increase in the number of deaf people in higher education institutions, there is a need to develop new signs in Libras for technical terms in various areas of knowledge. This smallness is justified by the difficulty in producing them, as it is a lengthy process that requires several steps for its development, such as elaboration, recording, validation of signs and implementation of the publication platform. As a result, it is necessary to enhance the production of technical signs in Libras through a digital artifact that makes available to its users the process of elaborating these signs in a simplified and oriented way. Thus, the thesis aims to develop, implement and evaluate a systemic glossary with an accessible interface in Libras and support for recommendations in the production of technical signs. This is a research with a quali-quantitative approach due to the need to understand the entirety of the phenomenon studied, the relationships and changes from the reality of the target audience through organized, detailed analysis and complemented by quantitative treatments with the purpose of to enrich the final discussions of this work. As for the objectives, the research is considered exploratory because its purpose is to build and modify concepts through a different perspective and/or formulation of new hypotheses for new studies. The trajectory began with the conception of a methodology for the elaboration of signs in Libras that served as a foundation to constitute the sketches of the module for the production of the iTecDeaf glossary. It’s construction was based on 3 specific pillars, on Vygotsky's theory that emphasized the use of signs and symbols for the development of human knowledge; in Internet accessibility standards and in the principles of usability that allowed the development of an interface with a minimalist and standardized appearance with the use of videos, animations and written fingerspelling, providing relevant content and support for the cognitive aspects of learning suitable for the target audience. A prototype was developed for the simplifying module that allows any user to build their signs through a set of recommendations, but it is still in the implementation process. Three evaluations were carried out, the first one occurred in a predictive way in order to analyze the usability of the glossary, as it consisted of identifying possible design problems in the interface, carried out by 5 experts with knowledge about the target audience, who used a checklist of 15 questions as an assessment tool. Next, the accessibility of iTecDeaf was analyzed, conducted by running the Lighthouse automatic tool. Finally, the prototype of the sign simplifier module was evaluated in order to recognize its level of acceptance, satisfaction and motivation, as well as aspects related to recommendations for sign production. A checklist of questions was used with the participation of 10 evaluators, equally divided between deaf and hearing people. The initial evaluation resulted in a document related to the problems found in the interface and criticism from the experts, which received 90% positive responses. Similarly, the accessibility analysis tool reached 85% of appreciation and indicated only 3 elements in disagreement with the WAI guidelines. The final evaluation showed a positive result of 89% because the analyzed prototype revealed a mechanic that allows users to learn and/or produce their own signs in an easy way with information arranged in a bilingual format. Therefore, we consider iTecDeaf a learning mediator artifact, as it enables signs through an accessible and satisfactory interface that can contribute to the academic activities of deaf students, interpreters and teachers, in addition to providing opportunities for the expansion of the Libras vocabulary, in several areas of the knowledge.
Keywords: Technical Glossaries, Accessibility, Usability, Deaf, Science Education.
The article presents analysis and evaluation of information usefulness efficiency for recipients with secondary and higher education using the example of information and shopping websites. Different levels of quality and information usefulness efficiency have an impact on different ways of processing information by users which, in turn, may result in different consumer behavior and their decisions. The study describes the basic methodological assumptions, the research evaluation procedure of information usefulness efficiency, and the forms of informational content and various forms of information presentation and visualization, as well as the results of data analysis from the study conducted on a group of respondents. In order to determine the factors that have the greatest impact on the perception of information usefulness on websites by users, the data obtained from the study using various methods, such as online questionnaire, usability testing and heuristic analysis, were analyzed using the DEA method, which is usually used for the analysis and evaluation of efficiency. The results of the research presented in this article can be useful in creating assumptions for methods of content presentation and visualization of various forms of content building for the needs of different user groups for information and business websites.
bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> Background:
The usability of university websites is important to ascertain that they serve their intended purpose. Their usability can be evaluated either by testing methods that rely on actual users or by inspection methods that rely on experts for evaluation. Heuristic evaluation and guideline reviews are two inspection methods of usability evaluation. A heuristic evaluation consists of a few general heuristics (rules), which are limited to checking general flaws in the design. A guideline review uses a much larger set of guidelines/suggestions that fit a specific business domain.
Literature review:
Most of the literature has equated usability studies with testing methods and has given less focus to inspection methods. Moreover, those studies have examined usability in a general sense and not in domain- and culture-specific contexts.
Research questions:
1. Do domain- and culture-specific heuristic evaluation and guideline reviews work similarly in evaluating the usability of applications? 2. Which of these methods is better in terms of the nature of evaluation, time needed for evaluation, evaluation procedure, templates adopted, and evaluation results? 3. Which method is better in terms of thoroughness and reliability?
Research methodology
: This study uses a comparative methodology. The two inspection methods—guideline reviews and heuristic evaluation—are compared in a domain- and the culture-specific context in terms of the nature, time required, approach, templates, and results.
Results:
The results reflect that both methods identify similar usability issues; however, they differ in terms of the nature, time duration, evaluation procedure, templates, and results of the evaluation.
Conclusion:
This study contributes by providing insights for practitioners and researchers about the choice of an evaluation method for domain- and culture-specific evaluation of university websites.
Interaction design patterns have evolved as a resource that facilitates documentation and the reuse of proven solutions. They provide a structured and understandable mechanism for what to do in the design. Mobile devices have characteristics, configurations, and restrictions that make the construction of their interfaces full of particularities to this environment, and problems that are often common to designers and developers. This study presented a systematic mapping of the state-of-the-art regarding interaction design patterns for mobile devices. A total of 23 studies that include articles and books met the selection criteria in this mapping, examining relevant scientific databases and books that were cited in relevant articles. As a main result, 336 patterns were compiled, with 261 of these problems and solutions being dissimilar from each other. The paper describes patterns in 18 categories covering different interaction aspects. Pattern structural elements with mentions in more than five papers included: Name, Solution, Problem, Context, Examples, Related Patterns, Forces, Consequences and Figure. Four studies reported empirical evaluation of the patterns with a limited number of users. The paper contributed with a categorization of existing patterns and the challenges for uniformization of structure and empirical evidence with user evaluation.
Financial inclusion becomes a global agenda to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs). In Asia, many countries are engaging financial inclusion as a strategy to reach inclusive growth. Digitalization now brings digital financial inclusion. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and philanthropy platforms become a new face of digital financial inclusion in Asia. As the third-largest population in Asia and Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, Indonesia has remarkable untapped financial technology prospects in P2P lending and philanthropy platforms. Indonesia represents a major global economy in Asia, where financial inclusion works and the digital economy has begun to arise and has become the most generous country through Islamic philanthropy. Therefore, by using Indonesia as a case study, this chapter describes P2P lending and philanthropy platform by focusing on three issues: (1) entry barriers; (2) developing digital financial inclusion ecosystems; and (3) social and economic impacts. Overall, this chapter has a mission to invite the public to be involved in financial inclusion as a form of shared social responsibility through digital financial inclusion. The aim is not oriented for commercial financing to the people who are the target of financial inclusion, but as social financing for empowering them to reach a better living standard.
This study presents an information monitoring system: SIGDesastre. It is a method of monitoring the
various sources of information available on the internet. The monitoring scenario is the failure of the
dam in Mariana, Brazil. This event was considered the biggest socio-environmental disaster in the
country. The creation of SIGDesastre involves the identification of the sources to be monitored, an au-
tomated search system for keywords in these pre-registered sources and the visualization of the results
in a friendly environment. The use of information monitoring on the internet is considered an important
tool for the post-disaster risk communication process. The monitoring of information on the internet is
believed to be a potential device to support managers in institutional decisions and in the formulation
of public policies. Also, for the affected population, they will be able to expand access to information
about the actions being taken by the actors involved.
La notion d’usage est au cœur de ce chapitre. En effet, elle paraît fondamentale et structurante de bien des rapports sociaux dans la mesure où les figures traditionnellement complémentaires ne sont ni dominantes d’un point de vue historique, ni hégémoniques d’un point de vue économique. Autrement dit, l’usage participe de la consommation, de l’accès à des services ou des contenus, de la technique et des technologies qu’elle déploie tout autant que des médias ou des politiques publiques et logiques décisionnaires. L’usager subsume le consommateur, le membre d’un groupe ou d’une communauté, le joueur, l’auteur d’un blog, le commentateur, l’internaute participant, l’innovateur, le citoyen, etc., car toutes ces figures complémentaires ne représentent en fait que le contexte social dans lequel l’usage se crée par l’action de l’usager.
This paper presents an outline of my PhD project as communicated at the Doctoral Colloquium of #AoIR2020 (online): The 21st Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers during 27-31 October 2020. It begins with introduction where I conceptualize university websites as multimodal texts employing image, text, color, and typography to build and represent a comprehensive brand identity to different educational consumers. It proceeds to the field of study review and presents theoretical framework for the study. Next, I explain the need for an integrated methodological toolkit and describe a mixed-method paradigm I have developed to answer the research questions of my project. Lastly, I outline several limitations and considerations of working with complex dynamic multimodal data.
Techniques and tools that enable website developers without formal training in human-computer interaction to conduct their own usability evaluations would radically advance the integration of usability engineering in website development. This paper presents experiences from usability evaluations conducted by developers in an empirical study of means to support non-experts in identifying usability problems. A group of software developers who were novices in usability engineering analyzed a usability test session with the task of identifying usability problems experienced by the user. When doing this, they employed a simple one-page conceptual tool that supports identification of usability problems. The non-experts were able to conduct a well-organized usability evaluation and identify a reasonable amount of usability problems with a performance that was comparable to usability experts.
The discursive practices of higher academic institutions have become increasingly promotional due to the influences of marketisation values. And the homepage, among other genres, has become a vital marketing tool for promoting certain perceived identities of universities, giving rise to some comparative studies on university homepages. While such comparative studies have mostly focused on universities in Anglo-American and Asia-Pacific contexts, African, and particularly Ghanaian, universities have often remained absent in such discourses. Thus, the present study, comparing Ghanaian and Anglo-American universities’ homepages, aims to uncover the differences and similarities in the way the selected higher academic institutions project their identities through the hypermodal resources. Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) multimodal approach coupled with Zhang and O’Halloran’s (2012) framework is adopted for the analysis. The study revealed that, in the context of marketisation, Ghanaian universities’ homepages tend to be more informative and student-centred but less promotional than their American counterparts. The study also unearthed socio-cultural factors (such as communalism as against individualism) that underpin the construction of the homepages in the two strata. It was concluded that the complete adoption of marketisation principles among Ghanaian universities faces a huge opposition in certain entrenched cultural values. The study, therefore, has practical implications for the design of university homepages in Ghana.
The discursive practices of higher academic institutions have become increasingly promotional due to the influences of marketisation values. And the homepage, among other genres, has become a vital marketing tool for promoting certain perceived identities of universities, giving rise to some comparative studies on university homepages. While such comparative studies have mostly focused on universities in Anglo-American and Asia-Pacific contexts, African, and particularly Ghanaian, universities have often remained absent in such discourses. Thus, the present study, comparing Ghanaian and Anglo-American universities’ homepages, aims to uncover the differences and similarities in the way the selected higher academic institutions project their identities through the hypermodal resources. Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) multimodal approach coupled with Zhang and O’Halloran’s (2012) framework is adopted for the analysis. The study revealed that, in the context of marketisation, Ghanaian universities’ homepages tend to be more informative and student-centred but less promotional than their American counterparts. The study also unearthed socio-cultural factors (such as communalism as against individualism) that underpin the construction of the homepages in the two strata. It was concluded that the complete adoption of marketisation principles among Ghanaian universities faces a huge opposition in certain entrenched cultural values. The study, therefore, has practical implications for the design of university homepages in Ghana.
2020). Marketisation of Ghanaian higher academic institutions: a hypermodal analysis of universities' homepages.
Literature has reported user’s culture to be an influencing factor towards the user experience of a website and hence it contributes to its rejection or uptake. It has also been reported that different cultures exhibit specific user interface preferences. However, there has been limited work to develop operational models that can assess the cultural inclination of a website design, which contributes to its user experience. This paper proposes an assessment tool called CIAM (Culture’s Influence Assessment Model) through deriving observable user interface elements and mapping them to prevalent culture models. The proposed markers of culture’s influence on a website were derived by a creative extension of reported work in literature and then was applied on 16 websites of 8 countries by 5 industry experts. It was found that the CIAM based assessment of websites was congruent with cultural dimensions of the 8 countries. In view of these findings, this paper argues that CIAM can be a useful tool when cultural disposition of a website needs to be assessed.
Website usability is an important aspect for a website of electronic commerce as main objective of it lies in presenting the information as vividly as possible without any scope for ambiguity. Moreover the items should be placed appropriately under various heads along with the versatility of being operated on various browsers and gadgets. Hence the final goal of a website operator is to provide an unmatched experience to the users. Apart from developing websites for various objectives, they also cater to various different functions like information, business, services etc. There has been an explosion of e-commerce websites over the past few years that have changed the way business houses and customers engage in commerce related activities. Electronic Commerce can simply be stated as a method of purchasing, exchanging and selling in commerce related activities via internet. The websites of electronic commerce are divided into B2B, B2C, C2C and C2B. The prime aim of paper here is analyzing impact of a website's usability on customer's attitude. So to meet the objectives and infer the results, exploratory and descriptive research designs were used. To capture the data from the respondents, a survey was done with the help of a well structured questionnaire. A total of 350 respondents were approached for data collection. The data was captured using convenience and judgment sampling techniques. SPSS software was used to interpret the result.
This research was carried out to analyse the role of web management in the tourism sector. For this purpose, the main contributions of the literature to the study of the digital economy and its application to the tourism sector were analysed, identifying which variables determine web management in the airline industry. Once the web management model that could be implemented in the airline industry was established, the research was performed using a qualitative study through digital content analysis for a Spanish air operator, Vueling Airlines. The results obtained demonstrate the applicability of web strategies to a tourism business model based on the Internet, considering the determinant variables: (1) website purpose, (2) website structure, (3) website design, (4) website architecture and (5) website content management. It is considered that the present study can help managers to face the specific challenges of web administration in the airline industry.
Web Word Wizardry, Corporate Communications
- R Mcalpine