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Evaluation Guidelines
To examine the constituent components of a website - namely: Architecture, Technology, Style, Content, Strategy and Management - a range of research techniques must be adopted.
These include: Observation, Automated Tests, Usability Tests, a User Survey, a Webmaster Survey and Telephone Interviews. Each of these
Key Research Activities
are described in the following section.
An Evaluation Framework
(note 11)
was used to develop a set of specific questions for each of the six website components mentioned.
For each component the evaluation attempts to assess a set of website-qualities related to that particular aspect of website design and production.
The Evaluation Framework provided below details the specific research question to be asked, and the appropriate research technique to be employed for each individual question.
by
Jon Taylor
Website Evaluation Framework
File size: 35KB
Taking each component of the Evaluation Framework in turn:
ARCHITECTURE refers to the structure of the website and the logic by which the pages interconnect. By examining this component the evaluation seeks to assess the navigability of the website, or how easy is it to find information.
TECHNOLOGY refers to issues around the quality of the code and the appropriateness of any technologies used. We look at technology primarily to assess how accessible the site will be to an international audience with different software and hardware capacities.
STYLE simply refers to the appearance of the layout and display of text and images on the website.
CONTENT refers to issues around the quality of textual content and the degree to which the website supports user interaction.
STRATEGY refers to the degree to which the site has met stated objectives concerning its target audience.
MANAGEMENT relates to the human and financial resources that the site has at its disposal, which may constrain the outputs of the website.
In the following section a methodology for the evaluation of websites using this framework is outlined.
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