The explosive growth of the Internet led to utilizing the Web pages as an important area of digital communication. Very often, when browsing on Internet, web sites are the cues that provide first impression of a certain organisation. Furthermore, these online spaces are sometimes crucial to either weaken or strengthen company’s reputation. When a person opens a web site, it probably takes few seconds for the first impression to be created, and the user will either stay or move on to the next site on the basis of many factors.
Knowing the purpose and objectives of the Site help to determine what it can be offered to the customers and how the site structure will achieve it. Design priorities allow companies to match customers’ needs: purchase a product/service, find information, save money/time, or talk to the organization (Chaffey and Smith 2005).
But, what factors determine whether a Website is good or bad and encourage visitors back again and again? Previous research showed that product visibility and the use of search engines is a key element (Rowley 2000). Kolesar and Galbraith (2000) stick for the easy to use aspect while the structure and how the information is linked within the page was studied by Ceri et al. (2000). Few years later, Huarng and Christopher (2003) refer to information search tools as key elements for a good design whereas Siddiqui et al. (2003) analyzed the navigational issues. For the purpose of this article usability and accessibility will be discussed.
Usability refers to how easy the web site is for everyone to use without errors, accessing the information as quickly as possible in order to provide satisfaction (Yates 2005). This term is vital for the success; if the website is difficult to use, the homepage does not explain properly what business you are in, if the information is not clear and the user get lost, people switch off to another site (Chaffey and Smith 2005). Elements such as the time that takes to complete a task, sometimes appeal more to the customers than the speed to download something. Appearance and design are important but they will never replace usability, and any website lack of it will not be able to keep or encourage new visitors.
Accessibility refers to all barrier-free characteristics of the website that allow visitors interact with it regardless of the disabilities they may have (Yates 2005). Usability and accessibility complement each other and sometimes overlap because if someone can´t access the website obviously they can´t use it neither (BLOG). The next model adapted from Webdale (2003) shows the relationship between usability and accessibility to improve the user experience.
Accessibility requires management support and trained staff to integrate these elements into their web strategies. Despite the cost exercise to improve accessibility, the benefits associated for all stakeholders and customers prove that is necessary to implement it together with usability in order to create an effective site (Yates 2005).
REFERENCES
Rowley, J. (2000) “Product search in e-shopping: a review and research propositions”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, 17 (1), 20-35.
Kolesar, M. and Galbraith, R. (2000) “A services-marketing perspective on e-retailing: implications for e-retailers and directions for further research”, Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, 10 (5), 424-38.
Ceri, S., Fraternali, P. and Bongio, A. (2000) “Web modeling language (WebML): a modeling language for designing web sites”, Computer Networks, 33, 137-57.
Huarng, A. and Christopher, D. (2003) “Planning an effective internet retail store”, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 21 (4), 230-8.
Siddiqui, N., O’Malley, A., McColl, J. and Birtwistle, G. (2003) “Retailer and consumer perceptions of online fashion retailers: web site design issues”, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 7 (4), 345-55.
Webdale, J. (2003) Accessibility [online] available from<> [31 April 2010].
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/web-development/success-factors/
USABILITY NEWS: http://www.usabilitynews.com/
USABILITY RESOURCES: http://www.usabilityfirst.com/
ACCESSIBILITY GUIDELINES: www.w3.org/WAI
100 Killer Web Accessibility Resources.
http://whdb.com/2008/100-killer-web-accessibility-resources-blogs-forums-and-tutorials/
What Everybody Ought to Know About Usability and Web Design.
http://www.blogdesignblog.com/blog-design/usablity-web-design/
1 comments:
An well written piece on factors influencing a good website. However, that is the 'what' aspect of a good website. How about suggesting 'how' we can achieve it in terms of technical and construction? Is there any free resources on the web that businesses can use to make their website more successful?
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