Many hotel companies have launched mobile versions of their official websites in the m-commerce era. These websites are used as online marketing and communication tools for travelers worldwide. Given ...that mobile websites are essentially different from their desktop counterparts, a new set of evaluation criteria must be formulated in response to the changing technologies in Internet browsing. This study used the hotels in Hong Kong as samples and produced a revised evaluation instrument for the functionality of mobile hotel websites via focus group discussions. Performance scores were calculated to compare the different types and categories of hotels. Managerial implications were also discussed.
The last few decades have witnessed unprecedented transformations in every sector of society, resulting from the explosive advancement of information and communication technologies. This drastic ...development has raised the hopes of citizens for better lives, in both developing and advanced countries, urging innovation in government to make it more competent. Due to e-business revolutions, governments around the world have applied similar principles and technologies to government by opening their websites for more efficient publication of information and more effective delivery of public services. While a government website is an important venue for citizens to participate in public affairs and decision-making processes, early e-government practices tended to overlook democratic purposes by focusing on the features of e-business and information systems. There have been increasing criticisms that e-government system design has focused mainly on the provider's perspectives. Reflecting on the theoretical implications of this, we argue that a government website should facilitate democratic processes involving not only information sharing and delivery of better public services, but also deliberation and coproduction. The purpose of this study is to probe into multidimensional features that enable government websites to fulfill their promises. Developing an integrative model for evaluating a government website, namely the Democratic E-governance Website Evaluation Model, we conducted a qualitative meta-analysis of four strands of literature: information systems, business, public administration, and democratic theory. Our study contributes to the literature by extending the purview of e-government website analysis beyond the question of citizens' acceptance and towards the issue of their engagement, bringing a stimulating view of citizens as active agents in governance, and it provides a holistic model for public authorities to improve their websites to facilitate democratic e-governance that helps to create more effective public outcomes.
•E-government may contribute to overcoming challenges in contemporary governance, but its impact has been limited.•Urging for a paradigm shift, we analyzed government websites as main public digital platforms.•For democratic e-governance, essential features of government websites were collected from interdisciplinary perspectives.•As a result, we developed DEWEM as a conceptual framework for the design and evaluation of a government website.•DEWEM expands the purview from citizens’ adoption to their engagement, and offers specific policy recommendations.
Phishing is a security threat which combines social engineering and website spoofing techniques to deceive users into revealing confidential information. In this paper, we propose a phishing ...detection method to protect Internet users from the phishing attacks. In particular, given a website, our proposed method will be able to detect if it is a phishing website. We use a logo image to determine the identity consistency between the real and the portrayed identity of a website. Consistent identity indicates a legitimate website and inconsistent identity indicates a phishing website. The proposed method consists of two processes, namely logo extraction and identity verification. The first process will detect and extract the logo image from all the downloaded image resources of a webpage. In order to detect the right logo image, we utilise a machine learning technique. Based on the extracted logo image, the second process will employ the Google image search to retrieve the portrayed identity. Since the relationship between the logo and domain name is exclusive, it is reasonable to treat the domain name as the identity. Hence, a comparison between the domain name returned by Google with the one from the query website will enable us to differentiate a phishing from a legitimate website. The conducted experiments show reliable and promising results. This proves the effectiveness and feasibility of using a graphical element such as a logo to detect a phishing website.
Assessing the quality of web sites Hasan, Layla; Abuelrub, Emad
Applied computing & informatics,
January 2011, 2011-01-00, Volume:
9, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This paper reviewed the most recent evaluation criteria methods which were used in different e-business services. Furthermore, it proposes general criteria for evaluating the quality of any website ...regardless of the type of service that it offers. The dimensions of the criteria are content quality, design quality, organization quality, and user-friendly quality. These dimensions together with their comprehensive indicators and check list can be used by web designers and developers to create quality websites to improve the electronic service and then the image of any organization on the Internet.
Globally children's diet quality is poor. Parents are primary gatekeepers to children's food intake; however, reaching and engaging parents in nutrition promotion can be challenging. With growth in ...internet and smartphone use, digital platforms provide potential to disseminate information rapidly to many people. The objectives of this review were to conduct a comprehensive and systematic evaluation of nutrition promotion via websites and apps supporting parents to influence children's nutrition, from three different perspectives: 1) current evidence base, 2) end user (parent) experience and 3) current commercial offerings.
Three systematic reviews were undertaken of (1) studies evaluating the effectiveness for digital platforms for improving nutrition in children and parents, (2) studies conducting user-testing of digital tools with parents, (3) websites and apps providing lunch-provision information to parents. Searches were conducted in five databases for reviews one and two, and systematic search of Google and App Store for review three. Randomised controlled trials, cohort and cross-sectional and qualitative studies (study two only) were included if published in English, from 2013, with the intervention targeted at parents and at least 50% of intervention content focused on nutrition. Search results were double screened, with data extracted into standardised spreadsheets and quality appraisal of included search results.
Studies evaluating digital nutrition interventions targeting parents (n = 11) demonstrated effectiveness for improving nutrition outcomes, self-efficacy and knowledge. Six of the included randomised controlled trials reported digital interventions to be equal to, or better than comparison groups. User-testing studies (n = 9) identified that digital platforms should include both informative content and interactive features. Parents wanted evidence-based information from credible sources, practical tools, engaging content and connection with other users and health professionals. Websites targeting lunch provision (n = 15) were developed primarily by credible sources and included information-based content consistent with dietary guidelines and limited interactive features. Lunchbox apps (n = 6), developed mostly by commercial organisations, were more interactive but provided less credible information.
Digital nutrition promotion interventions targeting parents can be effective for improving nutrition-related outcomes in children and parents. As demonstrated from the lunchbox context and user-testing with parents, they need to go beyond just providing information about positive dietary changes, to include the user-desired features supporting interactivity and personalisation.
•A research model based on the SOR framework was built to investigate social shopping website users’ purchase intention.•Peer members’ qualities and system affordances affect consumers’ perceived ...utilitarian and social value.•Both perceived utilitarian and social value of a social shopping website lead to purchase intention.
This paper aims to reveal the influence of peer-member characteristics and technical features of a social shopping website (SSW) on consumers’ purchase intentions. Following the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, this study operationalizes “stimulus” as website features and peers’ qualities, “organism” as experiential shopping values, and “response” as the purchase intention of users. The research model is empirically tested with survey data from 313 real SSW consumers. The results suggest that similarity, benevolence and expertise of peer members in the community and the website’s support for recommendations positively impact shoppers’ perceived utilitarian value of the SSW. Moreover, users’ perception of peers’ similarity and benevolence positively affect their sense of social value of using the platform. Finally, both perceived utilitarian and social value predict individuals’ consumption intentions.
eHealth applications not only offer the potential to increase service convenience and responsiveness but also expand the ability to tailor services to improve relevance, engagement, and use. To ...achieve these goals, it is critical that the designs are intuitive. Limited research exists on designs that work for those with a severe mental illness (SMI), many of whom have difficulty traveling for treatments, reject or infrequently seek treatment, and tend to discontinue treatments for significant periods.
This study aims to evaluate the influence of 12 design variables (eg, navigational depth, reading level, and use of navigational lists) on the usability of eHealth application websites for those with and without SMI.
A 2
fractional factorial experiment was used to specify the designs of 256 eHealth websites. This approach systematically varied the 12 design variables. The final destination contents of all websites were identical, and only the designs of the navigational pages varied. The 12 design elements were manipulated systematically to allow the assessment of combinations of design elements rather than only one element at a time. Of the 256 websites, participants (n=222) sought the same information on 8 randomly selected websites. Mixed effect regressions, which accounted for the dependency of the 8 observations within participants, were used to test for main effects and interactions on the ability and time to find information. Classification and regression tree analyses were used to identify effects among the 12 variables on participants' abilities to locate information, for the sample overall and each of the 3 diagnostic groups of participants (schizophrenia spectrum disorder SSD, other mental illnesses, and no mental illness).
The best and worst designs were identified for each of these 4 groups. The depth of a website's navigation, that is, the number of screens users needed to navigate to find the desired content, had the greatest influence on usability (ability to find information) and efficiency (time to find information). The worst performing designs for those with SSD had a 9% success rate, and the best had a 51% success rate: the navigational designs made a 42% difference in usability. For the group with other mental illnesses, the design made a 50% difference, and for those with no mental illness, a 55% difference was observed. The designs with the highest usability had several key design similarities, as did those with the poorest usability.
It is possible to identify evidence-based strategies for designing eHealth applications that result in significantly better performance. These improvements in design benefit all users. For those with SSD or other SMIs, there are designs that are highly effective. Both the best and worst designs have key similarities but vary in some characteristics.
In this study, we propose that perceived website complexity (PWC) is central to understanding how sophisticated features of a website (such as animation, audio, video, and rollover effects) affect a ...visitor's experience at the site. Although previous research suggests that several elements of perceived complexity (e.g., amount of text, animation, graphics, range and consistency of webpages configuring a website, ease of navigating through it, and clarity of hyperlinks) affect important user outcomes, conflicting results yielded by previous research have created an important debate: Does complexity enhance or inhibit user experience at a website? In this study, we draw on the task complexity literature to develop a broad and holistic model that examines the antecedents and consequences of PWC. Our results provide two important insights into the relationship between PWC and user outcomes. First, the positive relationship between objective complexity and PWC was moderated by user familiarity. Second, online task goals (goal-directed search and experiential browsing) moderated the relationship between PWC and user satisfaction. Specifically, the relationship between PWC and user satisfaction was negative for goal-directed users and inverted-U for experiential users. The implications of this finding for the practice of website design are discussed.
This study uses the attribution and signaling theory perspective to scrutinize the key impacts of the determinants of corporate website favorability. In addition, this paper examines the main ...influences of satisfaction and attractiveness on corporate image and reputation, observes the role that the demographics of consumers (gender and age) play in such relationships, and proposes a research model along with research tenets. To examine these tenets, the conceptual framework was empirically evaluated through the perceptions of 563 consumers toward the financial setting in Russia (563). This study employs complexity theory, which integrates the principle of equifinality. To examine the data, this research employs fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Additionally, this study makes a managerial contribution to the understanding of marketing and communication managers and website designers regarding the associations among corporate website favorability, its antecedents, and its consequences.
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