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Web Survey Bibliography

Title A Typology and Review of Web Evaluation Strategies
Year 2012
Access date 29.06.2012
Abstract

Web evaluation has traditionally focused on usability testing, analytics, and site intercept (pop-up) surveys. While each of these tools is useful, each also has its drawbacks. Usability testing is often used to assess functionality, navigation, and overall site experience with a new website but provides little quantitative output. Analytics provide data on hit rates and time spent on the site but little actionable information. Site intercept surveys provide information from actual users but suffer from potential nonresponse bias. We believe experimental research must be combined with traditional web evaluation techniques. Proper evaluation methods differ depending on the research goal: testing navigation and site experience, evaluating the effectiveness of a new site, or measuring consumer satisfaction. In addition to usability testing, experimental methods, such as benchmarking a new website against existing sites, are important means of quantitatively measuring the effectiveness of a new site in meeting its objectives. The authors will discuss a benchmarking study to evaluate a new career exploration website in disseminating career, college, and military information. Between-group analyses compared the amount of information learned from the new website versus existing career exploration sites. Another experimental study compared the effectiveness of a site redesign in achieving its goal of utilizing multimedia to deliver military lifestyle information. Participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and images of military lifestyle were compared after viewing the redesigned or original website. Web evaluation should not be confined to new or redesigned websites; to create an impactful site it is important to continuously evaluate and update. The authors will discuss the role of usability testing, analytics, and site intercept surveys in combination with various experimental design options to provide actionable results for all stages of web development. A typology of experimental strategies matching web evaluation needs with different stages of web development will be presented.

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Year of publication2012
Bibliographic typeConferences, workshops, tutorials, presentations
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