Page Design Attributes and Browsing Behaviour on the Web

Author(s):  
R.W. Kopak

Few empirically based standards exist for Web document design. This study collected data on twelve participants who were asked to browse a selected set of Web sites. Participants were also asked to complete a number of tasks. The data were applied to four hypotheses and a research question that were concerned with the use of graphic elements, depth and breadth of hierarchy ...

Author(s):  
Jess McMullin ◽  
Connie K. Varnhagen ◽  
Pheng Heng ◽  
Xornam Apedoe

The World Wide Web (Web) is becoming a popular medium for transmission of information and online learning. We need to understand how people comprehend information from the Web to design Web sites that maximize the acquisition of information. We examined two features of Web page design that are easily modified by developers, namely line length and the amount of surrounding information, or whitespace. Undergraduate university student participants read text and answered comprehension questions on the Web. Comprehension was affected by whitespace; participants had better comprehension for information surrounded by whitespace than for information surrounded by meaningless information. Participants were not affected by line length. These findings demonstrate that reading from the Web is not the same as reading print and have implications for instructional Web design.


Author(s):  
M. Thelwall

Hyperlink analysis is a collection of techniques that researchers can use to identify patterns in the hyperlinks between collections of web sites. The purpose can either be to investigate linking behaviour within a given community or to use links as a convenient data source with which to investigate an aspect of or a reflection of a wider behaviour type. An example of a direct application is investigating the types of links used in political web sites (Foot, Schneider, Dougherty, Xenos, & Larsen, 2003; Park, 2003). Examples of indirect applications include using links between university web sites to identify highly connected pairs of sites (Thelwall, 2002b), and using links to access whether the web publishing of highly-rated scholars is better than that of others (Thelwall & Harries, 2004). There are two general approaches used in hyperlink analysis. The first is a content analysis of the hyperlinks themselves, categorising them by their context in their source web page and using the categorisation results for a descriptive analysis of why hyperlinks are used in the chosen set of web sites. The second general approach for hyperlink analysis is to choose a set of web sites relevant to a research question and then count links between all pairs of sites within the set, then applying statistical techniques to identify or verify a pattern in the link counts.


2000 ◽  
Vol 44 (12) ◽  
pp. 2-527-2-530
Author(s):  
Dahai Liu ◽  
Ibraheem S. Tarawneh ◽  
Ram Bishu

This paper discusses the issues pertaining to web quality. The web quality is defined in terms of the design process of the web sites as well as the presented information. Within each term a set of criteria was developed that affect the web quality. These sets of criteria are applicable for both web page design guidelines and web page evaluation and improvements. A simple quantitative evaluation model was given using these criteria, the model is based on the AHP methodology.


2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Christine Rzepka

One of the top reasons given for use of the internet is the ability to search for health information. However, much of the planning for web-based health information often fails to consider accessibility issues. If health care organizations and community agencies’ web sites have the latest, most wellresearched information on the health topics of the day, it is useless to those who cannot access it because of invisible technological barriers. Many flashy, high-tech sites were designed only to appeal to the needs of the mainstream population, with no consideration given to how people with disabilities must adapt their use of the web in order to access information. This article addresses issues of access specific to web site development, and will explore barriers to accessibility frequently experienced by web users with disabilities, requirements for ADA compliance, and how people with disabilities use the web. Web site accessibility guidelines, as well as simple evaluation tools, will be discussed. A thorough review of the article will enable even the least tech-savvy of health educators to enhance their skills in planning and evaluating web sites to promote access for people with disabilities.


Water Policy ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-212
Author(s):  
J. Lisa Jorgensona

This paper discusses a series of discusses how web sites now report international water project information, and maps the combined donor investment in more than 6000 water projects, active since 1995. The maps show donor investment:  • has addressed water scarcity,  • has improved access to improvised water resources,  • correlates with growth in GDP,  • appears to show a correlation with growth in net private capital flow,  • does NOT appear to correlate with growth in GNI. Evaluation indicates problems in the combined water project portfolios for major donor organizations: •difficulties in grouping projects over differing Sector classifications, food security, or agriculture/irrigation is the most difficult.  • inability to map donor projects at the country or river basin level because 60% of the donor projects include no location data (town, province, watershed) in the title or abstracts available on the web sites.  • no means to identify donor projects with utilization of water resources from training or technical assistance.  • no information of the source of water (river, aquifer, rainwater catchment).  • an identifiable quantity of water (withdrawal amounts, or increased water efficiency) is not provided.  • differentiation between large scale verses small scale projects. Recommendation: Major donors need to look at how the web harvests and combines their information, and look at ways to agree on a standard template for project titles to include more essential information. The Japanese (JICA) and the Asian Development Bank provide good models.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 10-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Q. Yang

Purpose – This study aims to ascertain the trends and changes of how academic libraries market and deliver information literacy (IL) on the web. Design/methodology/approach – The author compares the findings from two separate studies that scanned the Web sites for IL-related activities in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Findings – Academic libraries intensified their efforts to promote and deliver IL on the web between 2009 and 2012. There was a significant increase in IL-related activities on the web in the three-year period. Practical implications – The findings describe the status quo and changes in IL-related activities on the libraries’ Web sites. This information may help librarians to know what they have been doing and if there is space for improvement. Originality/value – This is the only study that spans three years in measuring the progress librarians made in marketing and delivering IL on the Web.


Author(s):  
Carmen Domínguez-Falcón ◽  
Domingo Verano-Tacoronte ◽  
Marta Suárez-Fuentes

Purpose The strong regulation of the Spanish pharmaceutical sector encourages pharmacies to modify their business model, giving the customer a more relevant role by integrating 2.0 tools. However, the study of the implementation of these tools is still quite limited, especially in terms of a customer-oriented web page design. This paper aims to analyze the online presence of Spanish community pharmacies by studying the profile of their web pages to classify them by their degree of customer orientation. Design/methodology/approach In total, 710 community pharmacies were analyzed, of which 160 had Web pages. Using items drawn from the literature, content analysis was performed to evaluate the presence of these items on the web pages. Then, after analyzing the scores on the items, a cluster analysis was conducted to classify the pharmacies according to the degree of development of their online customer orientation strategy. Findings The number of pharmacies with a web page is quite low. The development of these websites is limited, and they have a more informational than relational role. The statistical analysis allows to classify the pharmacies in four groups according to their level of development Practical implications Pharmacists should make incremental use of their websites to facilitate real two-way communication with customers and other stakeholders to maintain a relationship with them by having incorporated the Web 2.0 and social media (SM) platforms. Originality/value This study analyses, from a marketing perspective, the degree of Web 2.0 adoption and the characteristics of the websites, in terms of aiding communication and interaction with customers in the Spanish pharmaceutical sector.


2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (No. 6) ◽  
pp. 243-248
Author(s):  
Z. Havlíček

Web technology is a major element of the Internet. The various and inexpensive possibilities to use this technology allow for the minimisation of differences between rural and urban areas. This article focuses on the use of www technology for creating web sites. It outlines theoretical starting points for planning web sites, as well as practical methods, which are utilised for setting up the web presentation of a farm.


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