E-commerce is becoming increasingly familiar across industries. Customers find it easier to browse and purchase items and services online than by visiting the traditional bricks-and-mortar stores. This allows the customers and firms to save money and generate business faster. The main challenge of e-commerce is acquiring and maintaining good customer relations and trust because the customer only interacts with an electronic interface. Therefore the interface and its design is very important for businesses. This dissertation considers various website interface design parameters and determines whether a relationship between the parameters and the popularity of the website exists. The research methodology utilised is a statistical analysis of a survey of high, medium and low popularity websites and the interface parameters. The e-commerce websites explored fall into the clothing, consumer electronics, and health sectors. The researcher will also discuss the design parameters employed by popular websites. / Dissertation (MIT)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Informatics / unrestricted

The main objective of this diploma thesis is to analyze websites of electronics retailers. An initial analysis is followed by evaluation of the determined results and designing the right solutions. The diploma thesis is divided into a theoretical and a practical section. The theoretical section is focused on consumer behavior and the aspects of well-developed websites, which are visibility, usability, accessibility, technical and graphic design. These elements are the basis for the compilation of methodology, which is then used for analyzing websites. The practical section includes a detailed audit of five selected websites. It also contains user testing by randomly selected respondents. The detailed analysis is followed by a summarization of the results of individual companies. The output of the thesis is an overview of the quality of tested companies' websites. The main contribution of this thesis is an overall analysis and concrete design improvement of the electronics retailers' websites.

With increasing student access to technology and the Internet, Texas school districts have invested in content management systems (CMS), improved technology infrastructure, and professional development with little research available about best practices and current use of class websites. Using the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework, this study investigated how contextual factors predicted the number of website components related to the teacher information, communication, classroom management, and teaching content section of a class website designed by a Texas high school teacher. This quantitative, predictive correlational research design included data collected from a proportional allocation of 191 Texas high school teacher websites representing 20 geographic areas, 5 content areas, 5 grade levels, Title 1 designation, campus enrollment levels, and self-reported teacher technology readiness. Multiple regressions revealed the campus' Title 1 designation was a significant predictor of the number of teacher information and teaching content components included on the class websites of Texas high school teachers. The study revealed that opportunities to access online resources through class websites were reduced for students in Title 1 designated schools. Several possibilities that positively contribute to social change were discovered. Educational decision makers and administrators may use this information to determine where expenditures should be made to ensure development of class websites that meet students' needs. Estimates show a 2-day professional development to create class websites for Texas secondary teachers would cost $93,237,200. Ensuring funds spent results in sites that provide optimal academic support to students could improve learning and bring significant social change.

In today’s society, using a website is something one does daily. There is an incredibly large amount of websites out there, and every website has a purpose. Previous research states that to fulfill that purpose it is important to consider the user experience of a website. However, there is little research when it comes to the user experience of public informational websites, and what is important to consider when designing one. Therefore, this paper investigates the user experience of a public informational website, Sveriges Radio’s website, with the aim of investigating what factors that affect the intuitiveness and user-friendliness of a website. In addition, factors affecting trust and reliability on a website have also been investigated. Nine participants were recruited to take part in a user test consisting of a cooperative evaluation and a semi-structured interview. The data was then analyzed using affinity diagramming and thematic analysis. The results indicate that factors like structure and layout, word association, and pictures are important to consider when designing an informational website. Having a clear and simple structure influenced both the intuitiveness and user-friendliness of the website in a positive way. It became evident that the existence of headings were important, however, to improve intuitiveness the word chosen as heading needed to be easily associated with the information located under the heading. The inclusion of pictures affected the perceived enjoyment of the site, while also creating irritation when the size of the pictures was perceived as too big. The factors affecting the reliability of the SR website were the amount of information provided, as well as the website’s structure and layout. / I dagens samhälle används hemsidor dagligen. Det finns en otroligt stor mängd hemsidor att besöka, och alla hemsidor har ett syfte. Tidigare forskning visar att det är viktigt att överväga användarupplevelsen av en hemsida för att uppnå det syftet. Det finns dock endast lite forskning gällande användarupplevelsen av offentliga hemsidor med syftet att informera, och vad som är viktigt att tänka på när man utformar en sådan. Denna uppsatsen undersöker därför användarupplevelsen av en offentlig informations hemsida, Sveriges Radios hemsida, i syfte att undersöka vilka faktorer som påverkar hemsidans intuitivitet och användarvänlighet. Dessutom har faktorer som påverkar förtroendet och pålitligheten på en hemsida undersökts. Nio deltagare rekryterades för att delta i ett användartest bestående av en cooperative evaluation och en semistrukturerad intervju. Affinitetsdiagram och tematisk analys användes sedan för att analysera datan. Resultaten pekar på att faktorer som struktur och layout, ordassociation, och bilder är viktiga att tänka på när en informations hemsida utformas. Att ha en tydlig och enkel struktur påverkade både hemsidans intuitivitet och användarvänlighet på ett positivt sätt. Resultatet visade även på att förekomsten av rubriker var viktigt, men för att förbättra hemsidans intuitivitet behövde ordet som valts som rubrik lätt kunna associeras med informationen under rubriken. Inkluderingen av bilder bidrog till en positiv upplevelse av hemsidan, samtidigt som de skapade irritation när storleken på bilderna upplevdes som för stora. Faktorerna som påverkar SRs hemsidas pålitlighet var mängden information som visades, samt hemsidans struktur och layout.

As evidenced by the sheer number of websites presently on the Internet and the exorbitant amount of dollars that are spent on maintaining corporate websites determining the successfulness of these websites is of the utmost importance. In building a successful website the design must match the organization's objectives and these objectives need to be clearly defined. However, the objectives of a website differ depending upon the website type. As a result, from the user perspective, this results in varying ideas of satisfaction as well as success. Thus, from the user perspective determining success across websites is both goal and context specific. This dissertation investigated five variables which were believed to impact website satisfaction: information quality, system quality, perceived effectiveness, social influence, and trust. Theories in information systems success and information technology adoption provided theoretical foundations for this dissertation. The research was conducted by surveying multiple respondents, who were regular users of two different websites, each fitting into a different category within the taxonomy of websites. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to build the models of determinants of satisfaction for each website. The research results indicate that depending upon the type of website being evaluated different determinants of satisfaction were present. Four variables were found to be significant determinants of website satisfaction in the online community website: information quality, perceived effectiveness, social influence, and trust. However, in the information specific search website only three variables were found to significantly predict website satisfaction: information quality, system quality, and perceived effectiveness. Thus, this dissertation has shown that website users' determinants of satisfaction and overall successfulness is dependent upon the context of the website being evaluated and that determinants of satisfaction are goal specific. Several contributions were made by this study. In particular, this research is one of the first to empirically measure determinants of satisfaction, from the user perspective, in varying website contexts. / Ph. D.

The importance of the retail environment has been a prominent area of research for over four decades, focusing upon the effects of design. The retail environment, like other aesthetic surroundings affects customers’ behaviour, perceptions and attitudes. Yet, while there is a growing body of research regarding design, there is little research to date specifically on fashion retail shopping environments. Technology has made shopping via multiple channels possible and economically feasible, and the demand for more channel options is being driven by the consumer. The significant growth of online retailing has led to the evolution of traditional retailing, developing from a single channel to multi-channel models. This study has used both quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to explain theoretically the online shopping environment cues that contribute towards creating an online fashion shopping environment. As this research is taking into consideration the development of the retail market and the movement of retailers towards multi-channel fashion retailing, design cues which can be replicated, or transferred from a physical shopping environment to an online shopping environment will be discussed. Fashion retailers can use the different channel environments to induce a desired shopping experience for the consumer, facilitate the consumers’ needs and fulfil the retailers’ strategic objectives. This report includes new perspectives on how website design has developed during the past decade as a result of advances in technology and consumer acceptance. This research will identify and develop some important issues related to online environment cues and consumers' perceptions of online design that have not been addressed by previous studies by investigating literature regarding the physical and online shopping environment, design cues that form part of an online fashion environment focusing on the strategic design of an online retail store will be studied.

Ingeniero Civil Industrial / El presente Trabajo de Título tiene como objetivo principal conocer el impacto que significa la incorporación de una nueva fuente de información a la metodología de identificación de Website Keyobjects. Esta nueva fuente de información será la medida de la actividad bioeléctrica cerebral frente a los estímulos presentados en una página web. Específicamente, se busca diseñar e implementar un módulo con algoritmos de Data Mining para clasificar los objetos relevantes presentes en un sitio web según variables de actividad cerebral. El trabajo se enmarca en el proyecto Fondef Plataforma informática basada en web-intelligence y herramientas de análisis de exploración visual para la mejora de la estructura y contenido de sitios web (AKORI: Advanced Kernel for Ocular Research and Web Intelligence) . Este proyecto está siendo llevado a cabo en conjunto por el Laboratorio de Neurosistemas y el Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial de la Universidad de Chile. La hipótesis que se valida en este trabajo es: "Es posible realizar una clasificación de los objetos relevantes de un sitio web según variables que caractericen la actividad bioelétrica cerebral". Para la validación de esta hipótesis se realiza un experimento en que 20 usuarios navegan libremente por un sitio web de estudio, mientras que un dispositivo de Eye Tracking guarda el posicionamiento de los ojos en la pantalla y los cambios en el tamaño de las pupilas y un electroencefalograma graba los potenciales eléctricos en la corteza cerebral en tiempo real. El análisis de los datos obtenidos se realiza mediante el proceso KDD, en un principio se realiza para la dilatación pupilar con el fin de obtener una línea base de estudio. Luego se aplica a los datos del EEG para realizar una comparación a lo obtenido de las señales oculares. Para ambos tipos de data se seleccionan 19 sujetos, cuyos datos son preprocesados y limpiados, luego transformados según distintas características a los que se les aplican diversos algoritmos de clasificación. Con esto se determina como resultado una lista de objetos relevantes dentro del sitio de estudio. Los resultados obtenidos indican que utilizando variables obtenidas de las señales eléctricas producidas en la corteza cerebral es posible clasificar Website Keyobjects con un 90\% de precisión, mediante el algoritmo K-Means. Esta clasificación es en base a la línea base obtenida, donde de un total de 20 objetos, 18 fueron clasificados correctamente, y fue la mejor que se obtuvo dentro de todas las combinaciones de variables y clusterizaciones realizadas. Finalmente se concluye que el trabajo fue exitoso y se proponen diversos trabajos futuros que aportan al proyecto AKORI y la metodología. Además se entrega una reflexión final correspondiente al uso de metodologías, algoritmos y conocimientos similares en otras áreas de estudio que generen valor para la sociedad.

The purpose of this study is to examine the formation of customer e-loyalty to a social shopping website. The formation of customer e-loyalty to a social shopping website is examined based on cognitive-affective-conative-action loyalty framework. This study proposes that customer e-loyalty is strongly associated with website quality, e-satisfaction and participation. Seven website attributes (i.e., visual aesthetics, navigation, efficiency, user friendliness, security/privacy, entertainment and community driveness) identified in previous research are employed to measure website quality that affects e-loyalty formation. There are 449 data collected from a southwestern university in the U.S., but only the responses from 333 Pinterest users are used to test the hypotheses. Exploratory factor analysis is used to identify dimensionality of social shopping website attributes, and multiple regression and linear regression analysis are conducted to test hypotheses in this study. Results of the study indicate that five significant factors including efficiency, user friendliness, security/privacy, entertainment and community driveness are directly associated with customer e-loyalty. Indeed, such website quality factors as the determinant of cognitive e-loyalty directly affect overall customer satisfaction (affective e-loyalty), customer purchase/return intention to the website (conative e-loyalty), and customer participation, positive eWOM and co-shopping (action e-loyalty). The findings of this study have provided evidence that social shopping website quality dimensions are directly associated with customer e-loyalty to the website. Also, the findings have shown important implications to ensure quality website attributes to increase customer loyalty to a social shopping website.

Tese de mestrado. Multimédia. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2012

This study evaluated one important dimension of nonprofit self-regulation, the relationship between the Iowa Register of Accountability and voluntary website disclosure by Iowa nonprofits. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of self-regulation in Iowa to improve accountability as measured by voluntary website disclosure and transparency. As part of the study, an instrument was developed to reliably measure nonprofit website disclosure and transparency. The disclosure score ratings from Iowa Register of Accountability nonprofit organizations were compared to those not listed on the Register. Other factors relevant to disclosure and transparency (e.g. the method to become listed on the Iowa Register of Accountability and the type and number of organization staff members who received training) were also tested. Results indicated that nonprofit organizations listed on the Iowa Register of Accountability were more likely to have active websites and to voluntarily disclose recommended information on their websites than those Iowa nonprofits that have not sought or achieved listing on the Register. In particular, the Register group had statistically higher mean disclosure scores in four areas (Key Staff, Strategic Plan, Annual Reports, and Audit and Financial Statements) compared to the Non-Register group. Contrary to expectations, the method to become listed on the Iowa register of Accountability and the type and number of staff members who received training were not related to higher disclosure scores. The important finding of this research is that nonprofit organizations listed on the Iowa Register of Accountability were more likely to voluntarily disclose recommended information on their websites than those Iowa nonprofits that have not sought or achieved listing on the Register. Recommendations are made in terms of ways to improve nonprofit website disclosure and transparency by enhancing and expanding training opportunities. A major contribution of this study for future research in the field was the development of a disclosure scoring instrument to assess and compare website disclosure and transparency.