The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of different types of web page design on browsers' attitudes, figure out if the information processing styles play the moderating roles, and examine the relationship between attitude towards the web page and visit intention. Three web pages are designed specially for this research. They are created in different types, words only, pictures only, and combination of words and pictures. Respondents are undergraduate students, and answer questionnaires online. SPSS 14 is used to perform statistical analyses. Principal findings are summarized as follows. First, there is no significant difference between high and low NFC individuals about attitude towards the web page when the tourism web page presents in words (all-verbal) design. However, when the web page is only composed of pictures without any written description, NFC individuals, without respect to high or low NFC, show much lower level of attitude towards the web page and no differences appear between them. Second, the statistical analysis shows a higher level of attitude towards the web page is associated to high PFA individuals, compared with low PFA individuals, when the tourism web page presents in pictures (all-visual) design. When the tourism web page presents in words design, high and low PFA individuals show much lower level of attitude towards the web page and no differences appear between them. Third, we find that individuals with high NFC and high PFA are significantly different from the other groups when the tourism web page presents in combination (words and pictures) design. They show higher level of attitude towards the web page, compared with the other processor groups. Lastly, result shows that there is a positive correlation between attitude towards the web page and visit intention. Attitude towards the web page has a significant impact on visit intention, namely, higher level of Awp, then higher level of VI.

An important element in retailing is the use of impulse purchases; generally small items that are bought by consumers on the spur of the moment. By some estimates, impulse purchases make up approximately 50 percent of all spending by consumers. While impulse purchases have been studied in the brick-and-mortar retail environment, they have not been researched in the online retail environment. With e-commerce growing rapidly and approaching $20 billion per year in the Canadian and US markets, this is an important unexplored area. Using real purchasing behaviour from visitors to the Reunion website of Huntsville High School in Ontario Canada, I explored factors that influence the likelihood of an impulse purchase in an online retail environment. Consistent with diminishing sensitivity (mental accounting and the psychophysics of pricing), the results indicate that the likelihood of a consumer purchasing the impulse item increases with the total amount spent on other items. The results also show that presenting the offer in a popup is a more effective location and presentation mode than embedding the offer into the checkout page and increases the likelihood of the consumer making an impulse purchase. In addition, the results confirm that providing a reason to purchase by linking a $1 donation for a charity to the impulse item increases the frequency of the impulse purchase.

An important element in retailing is the use of impulse purchases; generally small items that are bought by consumers on the spur of the moment. By some estimates, impulse purchases make up approximately 50 percent of all spending by consumers. While impulse purchases have been studied in the brick-and-mortar retail environment, they have not been researched in the online retail environment. With e-commerce growing rapidly and approaching $20 billion per year in the Canadian and US markets, this is an important unexplored area. Using real purchasing behaviour from visitors to the Reunion website of Huntsville High School in Ontario Canada, I explored factors that influence the likelihood of an impulse purchase in an online retail environment. Consistent with diminishing sensitivity (mental accounting and the psychophysics of pricing), the results indicate that the likelihood of a consumer purchasing the impulse item increases with the total amount spent on other items. The results also show that presenting the offer in a popup is a more effective location and presentation mode than embedding the offer into the checkout page and increases the likelihood of the consumer making an impulse purchase. In addition, the results confirm that providing a reason to purchase by linking a $1 donation for a charity to the impulse item increases the frequency of the impulse purchase.

This dissertation reports on an action research project that guided the development of the Goudmyn (www.onnet.up.ac.za), a web-based information resource for Afrikaans language teachers. The information needs and utilisation of information resources by 78 Afrikaans First Language teachers were determined by means of a questionnaire and focus group discussions. The quality of the Goudmyn as information resource for and Afrikaans teachers' utilisation thereof were formally assessed. From the data it is evident that Afrikaans language teachers do not utilise the Internet as an information resource to a high degree. Nevertheless, statistics of visits to the Goudmyn indicate that the resource is being utilised increasingly. Reasons for low levels of Internet utilisation by the respondents include the following: a lack of Internet access, time, training, relevant information, awareness of resources and integration of ICT skills into the curriculum. The study found that a web site such as the Goudmyn has the potential to play a central role in supporting Afrikaans language teachers, if the teachers are trained and made aware of the use and applications of the Internet for teaching purposes. / Thesis (MA (Information Science))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Information Science / unrestricted

Vista University is known in South Africa as a historically disadvantaged or black university. It is a multi-campus university (it has eight campuses throughout South Africa) and caters for learners from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. The Department of Mathematics and Statistics holds an annual meeting to coordinate the activities in the department across all eight campuses. Attendance is compulsory for all lecturers from all the campuses. Every year the same problem arises, which is to have examination papers drawn up that will be of a uniform standard across all the campuses. It is a very frustrating task for the compiler of the papers to get contributions from the lecturers that are submitted on time, in the agreed format and of an acceptable standard. During the 2000 meeting it was unanimously agreed that the long-term solution to the problem would be a database of questions in the agreed format and of an acceptable standard. Because the lecturers are spread over South Africa, this database must be available through Vista’s Intranet. The development of such a product would involve a great deal of time and energy, and the most important question to ask is whether the lecturers would use the product. The solution is to design a prototype of the product: a database with a Web-based portal populated with a sample of questions. The usability of such a database must be determined to ensure the effectiveness of the final product. The aim of this study is, after a prototype of a Web-based Statistical Data and Story Library in the South African Context (in future referred to as SSS) has been implemented, to determine the usability of the product. Copyright 2001, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Basson, EM 2001, The usability of a computer-based Statistics Data and Story Library in the South African context, MEd dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-02042002-094953 / > / Thesis (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2001. / Curriculum Studies / MEd / Unrestricted

Mobile widgets now form a new paradigm of simplified web. Probably, the best experience of the Web is when a user has a widget for every frequently executed task, and can execute it anytime, anywhere on any device. However, the current method of programmatically creating personally relevant mobile widgets for every user does not scale. Creation of these mobile web widgets requires application programming as well as knowledge of web-related protocols. Furthermore, these mobile widgets are also limited to smart phones with data connectivity and such smart phones form just about 15% of the mobile phones in India. How do we make web accessible on devices that most people can afford? How does one create simple relevant tasks for the numerous diverse needs of every person? In this thesis, we attempt to address these issues and propose a new method of web simplification that enables an end-user to create simple single-click widgets for a complex personal task - without any programming. The proposed solution enables even low-end phones to access personal web tasks over SMS and voice. We propose a system that enables end users to create personal widgets via programming-by-browsing. A new concept called Tasklets to represent a user’s personal interaction, and a notion of programming over websites using a Web Virtual Machine are presented. Ensuring correct execution of these end user widgets posed interesting problems in web data mining and required us to investigate new methods to characterize and semantically model browser-based interactions. In particular, an instruction set for programming over web sites, new domain-specific similarity measures using ontologies, algorithms for frequent-pattern mining of web interactions and change detection with a proof of its NP-completeness are presented. A quantitative metric to measure the interaction complexity of web browsing and a method of classifying relational data using semantics hidden in the schema are introduced as well. This new web architecture to enable multi-device access to user's personal tasks over low-end phones was piloted with real users, as a solution named SiteOnMobile, and has received very positive response.

Usability refers to the study and measurement of the quality of human-computer interaction. Internet-based banking is a task-oriented, goal-directed, Web-based, E-commerce application where users access and manipulate bank accounts remotely through a Web browser interface. The examination of the usability of this interaction through the distributed medium of the Internet formed the research basis. The aims of the research are to review the application of general usability principles and properties to Internet-based banking, examine existing usability guidelines for hypermedia and Web design, and apply these during a structured evaluation of local and international online banking facilities. The research instrument is a combination of a checklist-based and heuristic evaluation, and is preceded by a task analysis. Three research questions are addressed and solutions suggested. These are related to improving Internet banking usability, finding the best approach for measuring this, and creating an awareness that Web usability is important. / Science / M.Sc. (Informatyion Systems)

Usability refers to the study and measurement of the quality of human-computer interaction. Internet-based banking is a task-oriented, goal-directed, Web-based, E-commerce application where users access and manipulate bank accounts remotely through a Web browser interface. The examination of the usability of this interaction through the distributed medium of the Internet formed the research basis. The aims of the research are to review the application of general usability principles and properties to Internet-based banking, examine existing usability guidelines for hypermedia and Web design, and apply these during a structured evaluation of local and international online banking facilities. The research instrument is a combination of a checklist-based and heuristic evaluation, and is preceded by a task analysis. Three research questions are addressed and solutions suggested. These are related to improving Internet banking usability, finding the best approach for measuring this, and creating an awareness that Web usability is important. / Science / M.Sc. (Informatyion Systems)