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This paper presents the major findings from the project “Development of new methods for evaluation of library Web sites on the World Wide Web”. The report includes a brief examination and discussion of quality applied to Web sites in general and concerning library Web sites in particular. Findings from a few empirical surveys are presented. A new list of quality criteria for evaluation of academic libraries is compiled. The list is tested on three Danish academic libraries. Finally, a revised list of criteria is applied to twelve major Danish academic libraries. The findings include the panellists’ scores and their verbal comments. The main conclusion is that the Web sites of the Danish academic libraries in question are above average compared with Web sites in general. They do not, however, come up to expectations as virtual expressions of the quality levels of the libraries. This situation can only be improved if the libraries allocate the necessary resources regarding updating and development of the Web sites. This should be done on the basis of regular user studies and comparative evaluations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an evaluation approach and to develop a model of web site evaluation that includes the specification of evaluation criteria, key issues to discuss and recommendations for improving the web site – in this case, that of the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto (CSPC‐T).

The research consisted of three phases: phase 1 involved selection of the general evaluation criteria for web sites, based on a review of the literature plus the collection of factual data on information systems related to the CSPC‐T web site; phase 2 included a step‐by‐step evaluation of the existing CSPC‐T web site based on the general criteria presented in phase 1; and phase 3 provided recommendations in association with the key issues identified in phase 2 in order to improve the CSPC‐T web site, and developed the key components of the evaluation model.

The evaluation of the CSPC‐T web site found mostly positive results in terms of the content of the site and its ability to deliver information to the residents and local communities of Toronto. However, the design of the web site had some negative points requiring improvement, including site structure, page layout and interface design.

The paper demonstrates a step‐by‐step, practical evaluation of community web sites. The research provided a detailed report to CSPC‐T about its existing web site. This should be useful to CSPC‐T in considering how to improve its web site or whether to redesign it to deliver information and services more effectively.

This paper contributes to the knowledge base in the fields of community networks and web site evaluation, and to the improvement of the quality of information and service delivery to local communities via the web.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the attempt to find an evaluation instrument for undergraduate students to use to evaluate public web sites, the analysis of the variety of instruments discovered, the subsequent development of an appropriate instrument, and the application of the instrument in workshops with students.

The instrument was created based on the following criteria that the authors determined would meet the students' needs. It focuses exclusively on the information aspect of a web site, has some basis in theory or is based on an accepted model, is parsimonious, is quantitative, with both absolute and relative measures, and indicates whether or not the information should be accepted or rejected. The instrument was also developed with the goal of focusing on the process rather than the outcome.

Although a number of diverse evaluation instruments from the literature and from web‐based sources were examined, none was deemed suitable for students to use so the authors developed their own.

The authors concurred that, based on their assessment of the learning environment, the focus of an instrument should be on evaluation as a process.

This paper aims to provide knowledge about methods used to evaluate the accessibility of Iranian web sites through a real research environment.

The main theoretical base of this article is that almost all research conducted to evaluate the accessibility of web sites has used only one of three methods (namely manual, automatic and users' experiences). However, it seems that using a combination of these three methods is actually necessary. Consequently, taking a critical approach this article examines 18 Iranian ministerial web sites using the three methods.

Findings in both documents and evaluative studies show that each of the methods has deficits and it is necessary to employ a combination of the methods in order to conduct a reliable accessibility assessment. The different rankings of ministerial web sites in various evaluations have confirmed this view.

Identifying the advantages and disadvantages of the three methods and employing them in real research environments to assess the accessibility of ministerial web sites has been a useful exercise. The work can not only be a starting point for further discussions on the reliability of accessibility evaluation methods, but can also be applied to other types of web site.

The study examines SMEs' investment in B2B web sites and the relationship between organizational drivers such as adoption readiness and constraints and evaluation of investments. We investigate how these drivers influence the perception of B2B web site benefits and the effect a great understanding of issues has on stakeholder satisfaction in the investment.

A quantitative approach is used to test the hypotheses, which are developed from the literature. Following a pilot study, a survey of 1,000 Australian SMEs with B2B web sites is used to collect the data, which is analyzed using structural equation modeling techniques.

Findings reveal the mediating relationships between organizational drivers and their influence on SMEs' perceptions of benefits and stakeholder satisfaction and support the B2B web site evaluation effectiveness model. Further insights show that SMEs do not understand the complementary nature of the organizational drivers that support strategic alignment and therefore fail to realize benefits from their web sites.

Limitations of the research are noted and discussed with regard to constructs and the views of survey respondents.

Results suggest that SMEs consider reallocation and/or prioritization of resources and business objectives in order to improve their IT investment evaluation practices. This would have a direct impact on the level of IT benefits realized, and ultimately affect the degree of stakeholder satisfaction with B2B web site adoption.

A key contribution is the development of a B2B web site evaluation effectiveness model that supports greater understanding of how SMEs can gain more value from their B2B web sites.

The corporate Web site is an indispensable part of any e‐commerce venture. If users find it difficult to do electronic transactions, they will visit another online source, or go to a physical source instead. Evaluating the performance of e‐commerce Web sites has received some attention in the past few years, but there is still a pressing need for a more comprehensive approach. This paper attempts to address this need by providing an e‐commerce Web site evaluation framework and method built on solid business principles, and using multidimensional scaling to analyse evaluation data and present the results in a graphic manner for easy interpretation.

The purpose of this paper is to: determine which criteria of the car insurance brokers' web sites are important or unimportant; establish how well those criteria are presented on the car insurance brokers’ web sites; and find out whether the consumer’s final decision to purchase the product is influenced by the web sites' characteristics, the price, etc.

The evaluation method employed in this study is the extended web assessment method (EWAM), which is an evaluation tool specifically created for the assessment of electronic commerce applications. A double questionnaire survey has been undertaken to collect data from 28 finance advisers in an independent financial advisory firm in the UK.

The preliminary findings suggest that the majority of the assessed web site criteria fall in the categories of “maintain strategy” and “no immediate improvement necessary” with certain web site features considered as “strategic overkill” or “improvement necessary”. It is also found that the web sites are utilised as a tool for shopping around for quotes but the final purchase would be made by most consumers via the telephone.

It is important to mention that an empirical study with a sample of 28 insurance advisers in one financial advisory company can only reflect a limited picture of current practice in the UK car insurance brokers market. Therefore, the findings reported in this paper are tentative and preliminary. To test or confirm relevant findings reported here, further evaluation work with a larger number of assessors having different backgrounds may be necessary.

While the majority of the assessed web site criteria fall in the “maintain strategy” and “no immediate improvement necessary” fields, efforts should be made by practitioners to improve site maps, site search, and insurers’ details for quotes.

This paper provides useful information for UK car insurance brokers and web sites developers.

This paper aims to describe evolution of a new public information web site, through evaluation‐refinement prototyping cycles.

An expanding range of participants is being engaged in formal evaluations as the site design evolves. The Flesch‐Kincaid Grade Level Score is applied to assess ease of reading in the wording used; the National Quality Forum guideline statements are applied to determine whether the prototyping design process is meeting performance expectations; and then Nielsen's heuristics are applied to evaluate ease of use of the latest prototype.

The page wordings started at a high reading grade level to be technically correct, with a strategy to progressively reduce levels without losing meaning. Reading level was reduced to an average of two and as much as six grades through editing between the third and fourth‐generation prototypes. None of the National Quality Forum principles were found missing from the development process. The prototype web site was ranked at the middle compared to official public web sites of seven other States' healthcare‐associated infection programs, some of which had been open to the public for more than a year. Many of the heuristic violations that weighed against the prototype were described as being minor and easily fixed. Collaboration between a State health department and a university to advance this evaluation‐refinement process was valuable to both parties, enhancing the ability to produce a new public information web site that is more likely to meet the needs of its intended audience.

In response to increasing expectations of transparency and accountability, a growing number of public web sites are displaying hospital performance data. Washington State's mandatory public reporting of healthcare‐associated infection rates is a recent example of this trend. The Department of Health is required by law to launch a public information web site by December 2009. The research was based on an evidence‐based approach to understand and meet the information needs of the public.

Although few studies have evaluated the usage and impact of hospital comparison web sites, these studies uniformly show relatively low usage and disappointing impact. Using the research literature, issues thought to account for poor usage and low impact, and developed design principles that address this poor past performance were identified. Throughout 2008 and 2009, successive prototypes were developed for the web site structure guided by those principles and refined each generation of prototype through focus group evaluations. This paper explains the approach, and summarizes results from the evaluations, leading to improvements before the final design first opens to the general public.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a set of criteria and an instrument for evaluating upscale hotel web sites and test these in a comparative study of South Korean and the US upscale hotel web sites.

The hotel web sites are assessed by a team of 25 trained evaluators. The study measures and compares the overall effectiveness of upscale hotel web sites and checks the correlation between overall web site effectiveness and size of upscale hotels in South Korea and the US by using balanced scorecard (BSC) approach. To evaluate and analyze upscale hotel web site performance or effectiveness, 14 upscale hotels in both South Korea and the USA are selected. These hotels are selected through Expedia.com or Hotels.com and are rated as either four‐ to five‐star.

The results show that there is no significant difference in the overall effectiveness of the upscale hotel web sites in South Korea and the USA. However, the web sites of the Korean upscale hotels perform slightly better than their US counterparts. The main conclusion drawn is that most upscale hotels in both countries are not effectively using web sites from the marketing and upscale hotel perspectives.

The first objective of this research study is to develop a web site evaluation tool for upscale hotels. The modified BSC approach for performance measurement is adopted as the overall framework for the evaluation process. Therefore, BSC performance measurements are adapted and developed to reflect the specific context of upscale hotel online marketing, with an upscale hotel perspective being added to the critical success factors. Also, this study compares actual upscale hotels web page in two different countries and that approach is unique.

This study aims to assess the accessibility of library Web sites of top ten universities of Pakistan. The study also explores commonly identifies accessibility barriers in the subject Web sites. Accessibility analysis of library Web sites has been conducted using Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAET) to examine compliance of the library Web site with Web Content Accessibility Guideline 2.0. The study also attempts to rank each Web site according to number of quality issues identified. Based on literature review, the study also proposes a framework to conduct Web accessibility evaluation of library Web sites. Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive and aging (old-age).

This study examines accessibility of subject Web sites using automated accessibility evaluation tool based on Library Web site Accessibility Evaluation Framework (LWAEF). Commercial WAET SortSite® was used to assess accessibility issues in library Web sites. The tool was also tested to validate components of the LWAEF.

Result shows that 70 per cent of library Web sites do comply with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards. It means that compliance to essential guidelines of priority A level of WCAG 2.0 are finely met by 70 per cent library Web sites of Pakistan. However, important accessibility issues still exist in the subject Web sites. Moreover, in terms of accessibility issues, overall quality of university library Web sites in Pakistan is in better condition.

Equal access to information by all citizens is an important UN charter supported by all developing countries. Assessing the needs of all citizens has been of great importance and value to developing countries like Pakistan, with 19.2 per cent population consisting of disabled people. The paper presents the overall status of accessibility to information and is conducted to focus the library Web sites of Pakistan for the first time. Focusing the library Web sites for accessibility evaluation, this research study will help improve accessibility elements of library Web sites in other developing countries also.