Understanding and Managing Website Information Content: The WICS Method

This study describes and demonstrates the Website Information Content Survey (WICS), which is intended to provide practitioners and researchers with a means of systematically describing website information content. In an exploratory survey of twenty business-to-consumer websites across five e-commerce domains, we demonstrate how the survey can be used to make cross-website comparisons that can identify potential gaps in a website’s information content. The results of this study offer actionable guidance to practitioners seeking to match their website’s information mix to customers’ demands for product, company, and channel information. We also enable future investigations of hypothesized relationships between website information content and user-website interaction outcomes

A website supporting sensitive religious and cultural advance care planning (ACPTalk): Formative and summative evaluation

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) promotes conversations about future health care needs, enacted if a person is incapable of making decisions at end-of-life that may be communicated through written documentation such as advance care directives. To meet the needs of multicultural and multifaith populations in Australia, an advance care planning website, ACPTalk, was funded to support health professionals in conducting conversations within diverse religious and cultural populations. ACPTalk aimed to provide religion-specific advance care planning content and complement existing resources. Objective: The purpose of this paper was to utilize the context, input, process, and product (CIPP) framework to conduct a formative and summative evaluation of ACPTalk. Methods: The CIPP framework was used, which revolves around 4 aspects of evaluation: context, input, process, and product. Context: health professionals’ solutions for the website were determined through thematic analysis of exploratory key stakeholder interviews. Included religions were determined through an environmental scan, Australian population statistics, and documentary analysis of project steering committee meeting minutes. Input: Project implementation and challenges were examined through documentary analysis of project protocols and meeting minutes. Process: To ensure religion-specific content was accurate and appropriate, a website prototype was built with content review and functionality testing by representatives from religious and cultural organizations and other interested health care organizations who completed a Web-based survey. Product: Website analytics were used to report utilization, and stakeholder perceptions were captured through interviews and a website survey. Results: Context: A total of 16 key stakeholder health professional (7 general practitioners, 2 primary health nurses, and 7 palliative care nurses) interviews were analyzed. Website solutions included religious and cultural information, communication ideas, legal information, downloadable content, and Web-based accessibility. Christian and non-Christian faiths were to be included in the religion-specific content. Input: Difficulties gaining consensus on religion-specific content were overcome by further state and national religious organizations providing feedback. Process: A total of 37 content reviewers included representatives of religious and cultural organizations (n=29), health care (n=5), and community organizations (n=3). The majority strongly agree or agree that the content used appropriate language and tone (92%, 34/37), would support health professionals (89%, 33/37), and was accurate (83%, 24/29). Product: Resource usage within the first 9 months was 12,957 page views in 4260 sessions; majority were (83.45%, 3555/4260) from Australia. A total of 107 Australian-based users completed the website survey; most felt information was accurate (77.6%, 83/107), easy to understand (82.2%, 88/107), useful (86.0%, 92/107), and appropriate (86.0%, 92/107). A total of 20 nurses (general practice n=10, palliative care n=8, and both disciplines n=2) participated in stakeholder interviews. Qualitative findings indicated overall positivity in relation to accessibility, functionality, usefulness, design, and increased knowledge of advance care planning. Recommended improvements included shortened content, a comparable website for patients and families, and multilingual translations. Conclusions: The CIPP framework was effectively applied to evaluate the development and end product of an advance care planning website. Although overall findings were positive, further advance care planning website development should consider the recommendations derived from this study

A Review of Internet Resources Related to Spoken Language Intervention for Spanish-Speaking Parents of Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify website information related to hearing loss, hearing technology, and spoken language development available to Spanish-speaking parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). Design: An exploratory, descriptive design was used to determine the presence or absence of parent education information on a variety of websites. Study Sample: The study explored Internet resources provided by national, state, and parent support organizations in the United States. Results: A total of 53 organization websites were identified that had information for parents of DHH children learning spoken language, eight of which were international. Fifteen content areas were reviewed for each website. Of the 53 websites, 25 had information in Spanish. Conclusions: Results of the current study revealed website resources are often fragmented and less in depth for Spanish speaking parents with children who are DHH learning spoken language

Higher Education Support for Adjunct Faculty on Institutional Websites

This exploratory study explores the types and level of explicit support available for adjunct faculty on institution's public-facing websites by analyzing a random sample of 50 non-profit four-year institutions of higher education in the United States. The sample, drawn from the Carnegie Classification, indicates the information strategies for a range of colleges and universities. Public-facing institutional websites are an important source of information that is used by adjunct faculty to acquire information regarding work requirements, academic policies, financial payment information, etc. This study considers the variations in website content and concludes by recommending content and features that support adjunct faculty

Content marketing and website users engagement: The impact of relevant content on the web on user engagement behaviors

The marketing landscape is changing; we are switching from traditional methods to digitalized methods to attract consumers/users. The new trend of marketing tends to gain loyal consumers. Nowadays, content marketing is used to create this trusting consumer relationship. It consists in providing valuable information in the form of content, this content is in both sides giving information to the user and strengthening bonds with the brand offering the content. This article is a study of Content Marketing linked to Website users’ engagement. Its aim is to understand how the relevance of the content and the quality of a website can influence the users’ engagement. A study of existing concepts and an exploratory research were developed in the article to find the relationship between content marketing and engagement behavior of Internet users. The article tries to understand how consumers/users perceive the content online and based on which standards they choose to engage or not. The challenge today for the enterprises is not only creating content for the users, but creating a valuable and relevant content for their consumers

Improving GPs' knowledge of the benefits and harms of treatment to support decision making in multimorbidity: qualitative research and co-design of a novel electronic information resource

Background General practitioners (GPs) regularly prescribe prolonged treatments for long-term conditions. However, GPs may benefit from further understanding of the absolute benefits and harms of these treatments, enhancing their ability to engage in shared decision-making and manage multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Aim To produce and evaluate a website to provide information on the benefits and harms of treatments for long-term conditions in a way that can be understood by GPs and potentially integrated into their practice. Methods The study consisted of three parts. First, a qualitative interview study and framework analysis with GPs exploring their attitudes to and understanding of the quantitative benefits and harms of treatments. Second, a participatory co-design process to design the website, coupled with a pragmatic approach to evidence collation to provide clinical content. Finally, an exploratory evaluation study of the website using online focus groups. Results The interview study reported findings on GPs’ understanding of quantitative information on the benefits and harms of treatments which informed the co-design research. The co-design research resulted in the creation of a website, www.gpevidence.org, which presents complex scientific information on treatment effect sizes and the nature and quality of the relevant clinical evidence. The evaluation study showed that participating GPs were able to understand the clinical information on GP Evidence, and that in hypothetical scenarios this might change their prescribing practice. Some participants found some information confusing. There was limited evidence that this new information could be integrated into complex decision-making for multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Conclusion The aim of producing a website able to deliver information on the benefits and harms of treatments for long-term conditions to GPs was achieved. Further research is needed to evaluate the effect of GP Evidence in real-world practice

Evaluation of Quality in Cultural Heritage Websites: A case study at the National Centre of Linguistic and Historical Research of Maldives

Cultural heritage websites aim to provide people with the information they need to improve their quality of life and sense of belonging. To do this, quality in websites is one aspect which has to be taken into account throughout the process. In Maldives no user studies have been done so far on this topic. The primary goal of the study was to evaluate and understand how quality principles and current trends in web services can improve the services offered by cultural heritage web sites to users. This exploratory study has made an initial attempt to explore ‘users’ and ‘makers’ priorities, perceptions and expectations of quality of cultural heritage website using MINERVA quality framework and current trends in web services. A case study was carried out using the National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research (NCLHR) of Maldives involving users and makers. It comprised of a qualitative approach of focus group with staff and face-to-face interviews with users. In this study ‘Users’ are the people using the cultural heritage website for a specific information need and ‘Website-Makers’ are used to refer to the group of individuals within the organization, the staff who deal with website creation, maintenance and updating. The results indicated that for user’s quality of website started at content. All the quality principles from MINERVA, most important of which were highlighted as being effective and responsive, had to be based on this content. On the other hand, website-makers expectation of quality ended at the content. The content could not be provided due to offline daily work at the organization and lack of resources. For website-makers, users were perceived as a unified group of people. Users were very fluent with current trends in web services and website-makers were cautious of such new web services

Online Reviews as a Measure of Service Quality

The proliferation of socialized data offers an unprecedented opportunity for designing customer service measurement systems. In this paper we address the problem of adequately measuring service quality using socialized data. The theoretical basis for the study is the widely used SERVQUAL model. The analysis is based on a database of online reviews generated on the website of the leading price comparison engine in Italy. We use a weakly supervised topic model to extract relevant dimensions of service quality from the user-generated content. Despite its exploratory nature the study offers two contributions. First, it demonstrated that socialized textual data, not just quantitative ratings, provide a wealth of customer service information that can be used to measure the quality offered by service providers. Second, it shows that the distribution of topics in opinions differs significantly between positive and negative reviews. Specifically, we find that concerns about merchant responsiveness dominate negative reviews

SME stakeholder relationship descriptions in website CSR communications

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to report on an exploratory, qualitative study of how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) describe their firm’s relationships with or impact on stakeholders when communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) on their websites. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative content analysis was conducted on 22 Australian SME websites from the information media and telecommunications sector. Stakeholder theory was used as the basis for analysis. Findings – An important aspect of CSR communication is reporting the firm’s relationships with stakeholders such as society/communities, ecological environment, employees, customers and suppliers. This paper provides insights into how these relationships are manifested in SME website communications. For example, three-way relationships between the firm and stakeholders were described on some websites, but few explained the impact of their CSR on stakeholders. Research limitations/implications – This study concentrated on identifying the CSR communication on websites from one industry sector in Australia. These limitations provide the basis for future research to explore and compare CSR communication on websites by SMEs from other industry sectors and countries. Practical implications – The findings offer SME owner-managers ideas on different ways they can incorporate details of stakeholder relationships in CSR website communications. Originality/value – There has been little research on how SMEs use channels such as websites to communicate CSR. This paper addresses this gap in knowledge by providing insights into how SMEs describe stakeholder relationships in CSR website communications

Investigating the Effects of Exploratory Semantic Search on the Use of a Museum Archive

Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in how new technologies can support the more effective use of online museum content. Two particularly relevant developments are exploratory search and semantic web technologies. Exploratory search tools support a more undirected and serendipitous interaction with the content. Semantic web technology, when applied in this context, allows the exploitation of metadata and ontologies to provide more intelligent support for user interaction. Bletchley Park Text is a museum web application supporting a semantic driven, exploratory approach to the search and navigation of digital museum resources. Bletchley Park Text uses semantics to organise selected content (i.e. stories) into a number of composite pages that illustrate conceptual patterns in the content, and from which the content itself can be accessed. The use made of Bletchley Park Text over an eight month period was analysed in order to understand the kinds of trajectories across the available resources that users could make with such a system. The results identified two distinct strategies of exploratory search. A risky strategy was characterised as incorporating: conceptual jumps between successive queries, a larger number of shorter queries and the use of the stories themselves to acclimatise to a new set of search results. A cautious strategy was characterised as incorporating: small conceptual shifts between queries, a smaller number of longer queries and the use of composite pages to acclimatise to a set of new search results. These findings have implications for the intelligent scaffolding of exploratory search