Which attributes can evaluate the performance of content available from a university website from a user perspective?
Here, users can be prospective students or parents of students, or can be a employee who wants to join the organization.
Dwell time must not be too short (info irrelevant) or too long (not understandable).
If people are going directly to the page required, and not going via the home page, this is a good sign.
A Google of: sher-e-kashmir university application form
takes me right to a home page http://www.skuastkashmir.ac.in/
The page is full of hard to read highlighted links, garish colour, NEW bling, and distracting panes scrolling vertically and horizontally. Does that give the right impression that this is a serious institution?
Compare for example with http://www.unisa.ac.za/Default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=15670
My supervisor had this rule: Imagine your prospective student is sitting in Timbuktu. How long will it take him to find what he needs? The results of this sort of test will shock you, because pages are being dictated by the wrong people.
Sticky web sites are ones you cannot easily escape from, they register long dwell times. That is not what the poor Timbuktu guy wants.
Hi Mudasir, I always ask one question, where is the Library (website)? Of course being a Librarian that would be my question. Different users no doubt will have different requirements. How do I find out if the University offers course in the subject I want to study?
Anyway its possibly not scientific, but I do find that if I have to click more than three times to find the Library then the website is in trouble as it (generally) reflects a wider confusion about what users want. BW Matt
You can measure the duration of visiting time for each page - this could be a good hint. Further your log files shows you, how many pages have been visited by the user and maybe you can define target sites (for examples online application formulae) and measure the user, reaching this target sites.
All the best for your project
Elke
Dwell time must not be too short (info irrelevant) or too long (not understandable).
If people are going directly to the page required, and not going via the home page, this is a good sign.
A Google of: sher-e-kashmir university application form
takes me right to a home page http://www.skuastkashmir.ac.in/
The page is full of hard to read highlighted links, garish colour, NEW bling, and distracting panes scrolling vertically and horizontally. Does that give the right impression that this is a serious institution?
Compare for example with http://www.unisa.ac.za/Default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=15670
First you need to establish what the business goals and user needs related to the site are. Next you need to determine what aspect(s) you really want to judge. Check out “The elements of user experience” by J.J. Garrett. Performance has to do with a lot of aspects, check out for instance “Prioritizing web usability” by Nielsen and Loranger. Number of clicks is to single-sided a measure. It doesn’t take into account an interface that scrolls for instance. Nor does it into account the cognitive effort the route-decisions cost. Generally speaking it is better to offer easier, less ambiguous choices, over lesser more ambiguous choices that cost more cognitive effort (I don’t remember the research on that however). Besides that, the kind of structure in relationship to the content involved is important (Microsoft did some research on that), depth vs. breadth. You also need to differentiate between the kind of navigation used (drop down/horizontal bar/vertical bar etc.), the structure and labeling of the information (information architecture) and the way it is visually presented (information design). Each is evaluated differently (user testing/card sorting/eye tracking respectively). Succes!
I put this together for a colleague who needed to offer general advice to website managers, mainly in the health sector. Its meant to be short, a little humorous and to the point.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xzZJgmcjQ5bRgRgeNupSP9d7877taox8f7DigB-2yhE/edit?usp=sharing
Dear Sir
I think this question is so general . For best result I recommend you have a more narrow down in your finding . A very nice research about "User Satisfaction" is " The Asymmetric Effect of Website Attribute Performance on Satisfaction:
An Empirical Study" , Christy M.K. Cheung & Lee 2005 .
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CEAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F221180985_The_Asymmetric_Effect_of_Website_Attribute_Performance_on_Satisfaction_An_Empirical_Study%2Ffile%2Fe0b4951806a58d3cb1.pdf&ei=3ct5U530GJCj8AXGq4KoAg&usg=AFQjCNEKq5eEszeRcFqvCfyNr76bwfSQ5w&sig2=l1YPvSio2zy_JAfpZNSGuw&bvm=bv.66917471,d.dGc&cad=rja
Firstly I would suggest you carry out a user research, an easy way to achieve this is to conduct an online survey, just so you can have an understanding of what the users want . After providing contents that meets users need, you can use web analytics program that will provide you with information about how people engage with the contents. If you have social media integrated, check out what people are saying about your contents.
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