7,331 research outputs found

    Secure webs and buying intention: the moderating role of usability

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    El presente trabajo ha planteado un modelo conceptual a fin de mostrar como los antecedentes de la intención de compra se ven reforzados en contextos de Webs altamente usables. Específicamente, el trabajo analiza en profundidad el rol moderador de la usabilidad en la explicación de la conexión entre seguridad de una Web e intención de compra. Entre ambos extremos (seguridad e intención de compra), se han incluido diversas variables para explicar mejor su conexión. Para ello, ha sido diseñada una Web ficticia de ropa dirigida al segmento joven de clase media. A fin de alterar la usabilidad de la Web se han realizado dos tipos de manipulaciones: la velocidad y la facilidad de uso de la Web. Las dos Webs creadas (alta usabilidad y baja usabilidad) fueron visitadas por un total de 170 encuestados que fueron compensados con un USB valorado en 15 euros. Los resultados muestran que la seguridad percibida en la Web acarrea tres interesantes efectos (especialmente para la Web altamente usable): (i) mejora las actitudes agrado, (ii) reduce el nivel de riesgo percibido; (iii) aumenta la confianza. Los dos últimos efectos, a su vez, acaban aumentando la intención de compra.. Por último, se ha demostrado que la usabilidad, efectivamente, refuerza las relaciones consideradas en el modelo propuesto para explicar la intención de compra.A conceptual model has been proposed to show how buying intention antecedents are reinforced in highly usable contexts. Specifically, this paper deeply analyses the moderator role of system variables (usability) on explaining the relationship between Web security and buying intention. Between both extremes (security and buying intention), several relationships have also been stated to better explain this effect. An “ideal” fictitious Website was designed for a non existent clothing company directed at the segment of middle class consumers. In order to alter Web usability, two blocks of changes were made, one concerning Website speed and the other related to ease of use. Our experiment sample consisted of 170 respondents who participated in exchange for a pen-drive (USB) valued at 15 euros. The results show that improving website security has three interesting effects (especially in high usable contexts): (i) it improves pleasure attitudes, (ii) reduces the level of perceived risk and (iii) increases trust. Secondly, it has been found that to increase buying intention, two actions must be taken: (i) to diminish perceived risk and (ii) to improve users’ pleasure attitudes towards the Website. Finally, usability has been found to have a moderating role in all the relationships considered (reinforcing them)

    Mastering the requirements analysis for communication-intensive websites

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    Web application development still needs to employ effective methods to accommodate some distinctive aspects of the requirements analysis process: capturing high-level communication goals, considering several user profiles and stakeholders, defining hypermedia-specific requirements (concerning navigation, content, information structure and presentation aspects), and reusing requirements for an effective usability evaluation. Techniques should be usable by both stakeholders and the design team, require little training effort, and show relative advantage to project managers. Over the last few years, requirements methodologies applied to web-based applications have considered mainly the transactional and operational aspects typical of traditional information systems. The communicational aspects of web sites have been neglected in regards to systematic requirements methods. This thesis, starting from key achievements in Requirements Engineering (hereafter RE), introduces a model (AWARE) for defining and analyzing requirements for web applications mainly conceived as strategic communication means for an institution or organization. The model extends traditional goal and scenario-based approaches for refining highlevel goals into website requirements, by introducing the analysis of ill-defined user goals, stakeholder communication goals, and a hypermedia requirement taxonomy to facilitate web conceptual design, and paving the way for a systematic usability evaluation. AWARE comprises a conceptual toolkit and a notation for effective requirements documentation. AWARE concepts and notation represent a useful communication and analysis conceptual tool that may support in the elicitation, negotiation, analysis and validation of requirements from the relevant stakeholders (users included). The empirical validation of the model is carried out in two ways. Firstly, the model has been employed in web projects on the field. These case studies and the lessons learnt will be presented and discussed to assess advantages and limits of the proposal. Secondly, a sample of web analysts and designers has been asked to study and apply the model: the feedback gathered is positive and encouraging for further improvement.Lo sviluppo di applicazioni web necessita di strumenti efficaci per gestire alcuni aspetti essenziali del processo di analisi dei requisiti: l'identificazione di obiettivi di comunicazione strategici, la presenza di una varietà di profili utente e di stakeholders, le definizione di requisiti ipermediali (riguardanti navigazione, interazione, contenuto e presentazione), e il riuso dei requisiti per una pianificazione efficace della valutazione dell'usabilità. Sono necessarie tecniche usabili sia dagli stakeholders che dai progettisti, che richiedono un tempo breve per essere appresi ed usati con efficacia, mostrando vantaggi significativi ai gestori di progetti complessi. La tesi definisce AWARE (Analysis of Web Application Requirements) - una metodologia per l'analisi dei requisiti specifica per la gestione di siti web (ed applicazioni interattive) con forti componenti comunicative. La metodologia estende le tecniche esistenti dell''analisi dei requisiti basate su approcci goal-oriented e scenario-based, introducendo una tassonomia di requisiti specifica per siti web (che permette di dare un input strutturato all'attività di progetazione), strumenti per l'identificazione e l'analisi di obiettivi ill-defined (generici o mal-definiti) e di obiettivi comunicativi e supporto metodologico per la valutazione dell'usabilità basata sui requisiti dell'applicazione. La metodologia AWARE è stata valutata sul campo attraverso progetti con professionisti del settore (web designers e IT managers), e grazie ad interventi di formazione in aziende specializzate nella comunicazione su web

    Referencial para a caracterização de websites de hotéis de acordo com as necessidades dos consumidores

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    Online presence is essential for tourism organisations, and the quality of websites can influence customers. In the case of hotels, there are many studies to evaluate website performance based on functionality, usability and other factors, much less on the amount of different information available to the consumer. In the near future by using Big Data it is expected that hotel websites will be dynamic, they will adapt themselves on-the-fly, showing personalized information to each consumer. Different consumers will have different websites (information? available) from the same hotel. This paper presents a framework for the characterisation of hotel websites, focusing on the amount of information available to the consumer in each website, which was applied in a case study during the last months of 2013 to the websites of five-star hotels that operate in the tourist region of the Algarve, Portugal. The framework allowed to identify a set of exhaustive indicators for hotel website characterisation, which were then grouped into ten fundamental information dimensions. These dimensions further fell into four dimension groups. Finally, it is presented and discussed quantitative and qualitative evaluations, that illustrates which indicators and dimensions are more often considered on hotel websites to satisfy the consumer?s information needs

    Bridging the gap: building better tools for game development

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    The following thesis is about questioning how we design game making tools, and how developers may build easier tools to use. It is about the highlighting the inadequacies of current game making programs as well as introducing Goal-Oriented Design as a possible solution. It is also about the processes of digital product development, and reflecting on the necessity for both design and development methods to work cohesively for meaningful results. Interaction Design is in essence the abstracting of key relations that matter to the contextual environment. The result of attempting to tie the Interaction Design principles, Game Design issues together with Software Development practices has led to the production of the User-Centred game engine, PlayBoard

    Culture in the design of mHealth UI:An effort to increase acceptance among culturally specific groups

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    Purpose: Designers of mobile applications have long understood the importance of users’ preferences in making the user experience easier, convenient and therefore valuable. The cultural aspects of groups of users are among the key features of users’ design preferences, because each group’s preferences depend on various features that are culturally compatible. The process of integrating culture into the design of a system has always been an important ingredient for effective and interactive human computer interface. This study aims to investigate the design of a mobile health (mHealth) application user interface (UI) based on Arabic culture. It was argued that integrating certain cultural values of specific groups of users into the design of UI would increase their acceptance of the technology. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 135 users responded to an online survey about their acceptance of a culturally designed mHealth. Findings: The findings showed that culturally based language, colours, layout and images had a significant relationship with users’ behavioural intention to use the culturally based mHealth UI. Research limitations/implications: First, the sample and the data collected of this study were restricted to Arab users and Arab culture; therefore, the results cannot be generalized to other cultures and users. Second, the adapted unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model was used in this study instead of the new version, which may expose new perceptions. Third, the cultural aspects of UI design in this study were limited to the images, colours, language and layout. Practical implications: It encourages UI designers to implement the relevant cultural aspects while developing mobile applications. Originality/value: Embedding Arab cultural aspects in designing UI for mobile applications to satisfy Arab users and enhance their acceptance toward using mobile applications, which will reflect positively on their lives.</p

    Quality modelling and metrics of Web-based information systems

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    In recent years, the World Wide Web has become a major platform for software applications. Web-based information systems have been involved in many areas of our everyday life, such as education, entertainment, business, manufacturing, communication, etc. As web-based systems are usually distributed, multimedia, interactive and cooperative, and their production processes usually follow ad-hoc approaches, the quality of web-based systems has become a major concern. Existing quality models and metrics do not fully satisfy the needs of quality management of Web-based systems. This study has applied and adapted software quality engineering methods and principles to address the following issues, a quality modeling method for derivation of quality models of Web-based information systems; and the development, implementation and validation of quality metrics of key quality attributes of Web-based information systems, which include navigability and timeliness. The quality modeling method proposed in this study has the following strengths. It is more objective and rigorous than existing approaches. The quality analysis can be conducted in the early stage of system life cycle on the design. It is easy to use and can provide insight into the improvement of the design of systems. Results of case studies demonstrated that the quality modeling method is applicable and practical. Practitioners can use the modeling method to develop their own quality models. This study is amongst the first comprehensive attempts to develop quality measurement for Web-based information systems. First, it identified the relationship between website structural complexity and navigability. Quality metrics of navigability were defined, investigated and implemented. Empirical studies were conducted to evaluate the metrics. Second, this study investigated website timeliness and attempted to find direct and indirect measures for the quality attribute. Empirical studies for validating such metrics were also conducted. This study also suggests four areas of future research that may be fruitful

    Integrated Web Accessibility Guidelines for Users on the Autism Spectrum - from Specification to Implementation

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    This research presented a compendium of web interface design guidelines and their implementation on a transport-planning website based on the needs and preferences of users on the autism spectrum. Results highlighted the importance of having simple navigation and meaningful headings, icons, labels and text to facilitate understanding and readability; these findings offer guidelines for the design of web user interfaces to continue improving the web experience of autistic users, and therefore of the whole community

    Towards Usability Guidelines for Mobile Websites and Applications

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    The market for mobile devices is growing rapidly nowadays. Constant technolog-ical improvements provide great opportunities for the creation of mobile applica-tions. For the success of a mobile application or website, one of the main con-cerns, besides security issues, is usability. Poor usability decreases user produc-tivity and consequently causes loss of users. In order to avoid these problems, usability aspects have to be considered already during the design phase of the ap-plication, e.g. by following predefined usability guidelines. Although usability guidelines for web development are already in place since the 1990s, structured and evaluated usability guidelines for mobile applications can rarely be found in scientific literature. Thus, in this paper we introduce a catalogue of usability guidelines for mobile applications and websites, and subsequently demonstrate their usage by applying them in two case studies: the development of a mobile application and a mobile website
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