A Quality Framework For Web Site Quality: User Satisfaction And Quality Assurance

1. A Quality Framework For Web Site Quality: User Satisfaction And Quality Assurance Background UKOLN, a national centre of expertise in digital information management based at the University of Bath, UK has developed a quality assurance (QA) framework which can help ensure that the deliverables produced by digital library development projects are widely accessible and interoperable. The Centre for Information Management, School of Management, which is also based at the University of Bath, has developed a quality framework for user satisfaction. The Challenge This poster describes the potential for combining these two approaches: a QA approach intended for providers of Web services and a quality framework intended to identify user satisfaction. The poster reviews the two approaches and outlines a scenario for combing the approaches in order to build an integrated Web site Quality Management Framework (WQMF).

2. Technical policies Systematic checking procedures Compliance policies A Quality Framework For Web Site Quality: User Satisfaction And Quality Assurance • QA Focus • The QA Focus project was funded to develop a quality assurance (QA) framework which would can help ensure that digital library project deliverables were functional, widely accessible and interoperable. • The project successfully developed a lightweight QA framework together with a range of support materials. • QA Framework • The QA Focus framework has a layered approach: • Projects develop technical policies • Systematic proceduresdeployed to ensure compliance with policies • Funders can select the compliance regime (e.g. self-assessment, penalty clauses, etc.) • The framework has been described in several papers. To maximise its use support materials are available under a Creative Commons licence. Technical policies should be based on recommended standards and best practices. However projects will have some flexibility in selecting technical policies to ensure the policies are achievable with the available resources and expertise.

3. A Quality Framework For Web Site Quality: User Satisfaction And Quality Assurance • The e-Qual Approach • A 23 item questionnaire where users rate a Web site and the importance of the quality to them, allowing a weighted quality index to be calculated. Questions cluster into: • Usability (Usability, Design) • Information (Information) • Service interaction (Empathy, Trust) Comments In the evaluation of online bookstores (above), information accuracy, security, and privacy rated as more important to users than site design. Amazon are clearly head and shoulders above their competitors. E-Qual has also been applied to online auctions, online taxation, knowledge sharing, the SME environment and to mobile devices.

4. A Quality Framework For Web Site Quality: User Satisfaction And Quality Assurance • Combining The Approaches • We are exploring possibilities of combining the QA Focus & E-Qual approaches: • To provide an integrated view of quality from the objective characteristics controllable by the supplier (e.g. readability index) to the subjective experience of the user (e.g. E-Qual index) • To define an end-to-end QA process to ensure supplier activities lead consistently & repeatedly to perceived Web site quality by users • To be tested in the e-government domain to meet needs of information provision, interaction, and transactions subject to accessibility and social inclusion • Conclusions • This poster describes an initiative to combine Web site QA processes with Web site quality to create a Web Quality Management Framework (WQMF). • Further Information • See the QA Focus and E-Qual Web sites at: • <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/> <http://www.webqual.co.uk/> • For further information please contact: • Brian Kelly <b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk> or • Richard Vidgen <r.t.vidgen@bath.ac.uk>