Evaluating global e-government sites: A view using web diagnostics tools

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2004 The AuthorsSeveral governments across the world have embraced the digital revolution and continue to take advantage of the information and communication facilities offered by the Internet to offer public services. Conversely, citizens’ awareness and expectations of Internet based online-public-services have also increased in recent times. Although the numbers of the different national e-Government web portals have rapidly increased in the last three years, the success of these portals will largely depend on their accessibility, quality and privacy. This paper reports the results of an evaluative study of a cross-section of e-Government portals from these three perspectives, using a common set of performance metrics and Web diagnostic engines. Results show that not only are there wide variations in the spectrum of information and services provided by these portals, but that significant work still needs to be undertaken in order to make the portals examples of ‘best practice’ e-Government services

Effects of White Space on Consumer Perceptions of Value in E-Commerce

As e-commerce becomes an increasingly large industry, questions remain about how the isolated effects of design elements on websites influence consumer perceptions and purchasing behavior. This study used a quantitative approach to measuring the effect of a ubiquitous element of design, white space, on the perception of the monetary value of individual items. White space is a key component of design and website usability, yet it has been shown to be related to the perception of luxury. Little is known about the direct relationship between manipulation of white space and the outcomes on consumer perceptions of value in an e-commerce context. This study found no significant difference between two levels of total white space area (large vs. small) measured by participants\u27 perceived cost of items (chairs). In contrast, while holding total white space constant, the effect of white space distance between images was significant for males but not for females. Additionally, no significant relationship between gender and frequency of online shopping behavior was found, χ2(1) = 3.19, p = .07, ϕ = .17. Gender and amount of time spent per month online were significantly related, χ2(1) = 6.21, p = .013, ϕ = .24

IMPROVING THE DEPENDABILITY OF DESTINATION RECOMMENDATIONS USING INFORMATION ON SOCIAL ASPECTS

Prior knowledge of the social aspects of prospective destinations can be very influential in making travel destination decisions, especially in instances where social concerns do exist about specific destinations. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an ontology-enabled Hybrid Destination Recommender System (HDRS) that leverages an ontological description of five specific social attributes of major Nigerian cities, and hybrid architecture of content-based and case-based filtering techniques to generate personalised top-n destination recommendations. An empirical usability test was conducted on the system, which revealed that the dependability of recommendations from Destination Recommender Systems (DRS) could be improved if the semantic representation of social attributes information of destinations is made a factor in the destination recommendation process

What Window Shopping the Health Insurance Exchanges in Year Two Revealed about the State of the Consumer Experience

Soon after the launch of HealthCare.gov, the exchange websites that formed the vanguard of the Affordable Care Act quickly became notorious for numerous bugs, crashes, and painfully slow loading times. Over a year later, the portals have reached a sufficient level of stability and core functionality on the back end. But what about the front end?https://repository.upenn.edu/pennwhartonppi/1024/thumbnail.jp

Integrating customer relationship management strategies in (B2C) e-commerce environments

Creating value and generating a total customer experience(TCE ) is important for E -Commerce in order to attract customers. However, with increasing competition in the marketplace, it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain customers. E-Commerce, therefore, should focus on continuously providing value to the customers to build long-term relationships and reduce customer defections. We have evaluated five E -Banking sites from the UK finance industry and have shown that an organisation whose Web site is usable in HCI terms (that satisfies the Web Design heuristics / E -Commerce guidelines) might not always generate a TCE . It is important that along with usability heuristics, customer relationship management (CRM) strategies are integrated into the design of E-Commerce sites. In this paper, we have applied the service quality (SERVQUAL ) framework from the relationship marketing literature for deriving customer relationship enhancing heuristics which can be integrated into the design of E -Commerce environments

Critical review of the e-loyalty literature: a purchase-centred framework

Over the last few years, the concept of online loyalty has been examined extensively in the literature, and it remains a topic of constant inquiry for both academics and marketing managers. The tremendous development of the Internet for both marketing and e-commerce settings, in conjunction with the growing desire of consumers to purchase online, has promoted two main outcomes: (a) increasing numbers of Business-to-Customer companies running businesses online and (b) the development of a variety of different e-loyalty research models. However, current research lacks a systematic review of the literature that provides a general conceptual framework on e-loyalty, which would help managers to understand their customers better, to take advantage of industry-related factors, and to improve their service quality. The present study is an attempt to critically synthesize results from multiple empirical studies on e-loyalty. Our findings illustrate that 62 instruments for measuring e-loyalty are currently in use, influenced predominantly by Zeithaml et al. (J Marketing. 1996;60(2):31-46) and Oliver (1997; Satisfaction: a behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw Hill). Additionally, we propose a new general conceptual framework, which leads to antecedents dividing e-loyalty on the basis of the action of purchase into pre-purchase, during-purchase and after-purchase factors. To conclude, a number of managerial implementations are suggested in order to help marketing managers increase their customers’ e-loyalty by making crucial changes in each purchase stage

Fine-tuning Central Banks Web Communications: Usability Tests & Content Management

Business processes especially in the Central Banks are more fully integrated and streamlined than ever before. Also, realistic system landscapes often consist of many systems. Disconnected silos of unstructured information continue to pile up for each organizational function and different interfaces are often implemented using the technology that is considered to be ideal for the respective interface. There appears to be lack of Enterprise Content Management strategy thus leading to significant business challenges such as untrustworthy business information due to inaccurate, outdated, conflicting information, longer financial cycles and generally inefficient processes, system performance degradations and poor data organization, inconsistent, confusing user interface as well as frequent context switching. There is therefore the need for an effective enterprise content management strategy. Web content management systems are often used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentations. Usability testing of web sites is an essential element of quality assurance and a true test of how people actually use Central Banks’ web site. It is a test of whether outsiders can successfully use the Banks’ Web site. Although formal usability tests are expensive, time-consuming and often prohibitive, periodic user testing is an important element in developing and maintaining a reader-friendly Website. Usability should emphasise clarity of communication, accessibility, consistency, navigation design, maintenance and good visual presentation. A solution to corporate intranet/internet chaos are Enterprise Portals. An enterprise portal is the gateway to the end user. It offers a central point of access to information, applications and services in an enterprise. It is a one-stop shopping for knowledge workers; the portal is both a gateway to and a destination on the enterprise network that provides transparent, tailored access to distributed digital resource. An Enterprise Portal provides numerous benefits to users, allowing them to interact with relevant information and application, both internal and external to the company, collaborate with others both inside and outside the Central Banks through self-service publishing customise-and-tailor a Web page with information that is easily found. This paper discusses the issue of Usability Tests and Web Content Management that enhance user productivity. Drawing from some award winning intranets some areas for best practices for the financial services such as the African Central Banks are high-lightened vis-à-vis the infrastructural problems facing the African Continen

Improving the Dependability of Destination Recommendations using Information on Social Aspects

Prior knowledge of the social aspects of prospective destinations can be very influential in making travel destination decisions, especially in instances where social concerns do exist about specific destinations. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an ontology-enabled Hybrid Destination Recommender System (HDRS) that leverages an ontological description of five specific social attributes of major Nigerian cities, and hybrid architecture of content-based and case-based filtering techniques to generate personalised top-n destination recommendations. An empirical usability test was conducted on the system, which revealed that the dependability of recommendations from Destination Recommender Systems (DRS) could be improved if the semantic representation of social attributes information of destinations is made a factor in the destination recommendation process.Content-based filtering; Recommender Systems; Ontology; Social Attributes, Destination recommendation

Intentions and perceptions : the emerging gaps between web system designers and users

In recent years, organisations have been increasingly developing web systems as portals through which B2C or B2B eCommerce is conducted. Many such systems suffer from inadequacy in function, form and quality. While such deficiencies are quite commonly encountered in traditional software systems, in the case of web systems, the problems are magnified by the emerging gaps in designers\u27 intentions and the expectation of a global, and frequently grossly misunderstood, user. In this paper we therefore present an approach to investigating the gaps in perceptions between web developer&rsquo;s intentions and end-users expectations and the subsequent use of web system features. Furthermore, we empirically investigated B2C web systems and determined several useful approaches to practical evaluation of the degree of cohesion between designer and user views of the system.<br /