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What makes a good website and what makes a bad website? The design? The information availability? In order to demonstrate how a website can be optimized we have decided to analyse a section of our university website, more precisely the Library section which is dedicated to the university students.

 

There is a lot good aspects in this section of the website, first of all there is absolutely no time of downloading, as we know that a internet user won’t wait more than a few second before quitting the page if the downloading is too long. Second important thing is that the page is really clear; all services proposed by the library are available from the front page and little simple icons are illustrating each important function; a user will then find very easily and very fast the specific information that he is searching. And if, by any chance he doesn’t, help or contact us section are very visible. From a graphic point of view elements such as colours and fonts are well chosen as they help the organisation of the information; the colours are simple, harmonious and not too present (only purple, blue and grey) and the fonts are consistent. Finally when entering any section of the library website the left navigation bar will stay the same so the user always know where he is on the website and will not get lost when searching information.

 

It is quite difficult to find any bad aspects of the Library section of Coventry university’s as the whole Coventry website is well structured and well designed. Even though we can point at some shortages. First of all, there is lack of pictures in the  Library section. A gallery section can solve this problem and give an opportunity to see the exterior, interior of the building and the facilities of the library. Another shortage is the absent of language option in this section and also in some other sections of the website. It can be helpful for the international students whose first language is not English.  We would recommend other well known languages in the world as Spanish, French, Chinese or Russian.  

 

We may say honestly from our previous experience that Coventry University possesses one of the most appealing web pages of all UK universities. For example the library page instantly grabs the attention with its modern appearance, well-organized content and easy-to-navigate platform. However, according to my opinion, there are some amendments that may have to be taken into consideration. First of all the administrators need to popularize the library website especially in the search engine ranking. In addition an integration of virtual map or tour on the library page would be useful approach. Especially due to the fact that nowadays a huge portion of the international applicants gain their first impression on the basis of the website appearance and the diversity of information that it presents that’s why creating a virtual vision of the library may significantly increase the number of the potential student candidates. To make the site more interesting and attractive for the young audience a good idea may represent the inclusion of section dedicated to the “life” in the library promoting with fascinating video clips not only the educational process but the way the students may interact, benefit from each other and entertain themselves during the academic year.

To follow the step with technology, we recommend to establish a new way of communication with the Library via IM (instant messaging). The Website is providing a similar service ”Ask a librarian” in the section of help and aim to reply within 2 working days. The new IM service will eventuate in quicker respond in contrast to  mentioned email support. In our opinion the visitors will appreciate such a service, as nowadays the users has no patience and want to get the information as soon as possible. 

Trust and Trustworthiness of websites

In relation to internet technologies and commerce trust is seen as an essential part of the stable relationship, vital for the maintenance of certain level of privacy and security. In the business context the idea of trust is affiliated with the relationship built and nurtured over a time which involves the exchange of tangible/intangible favors. Trust is needed whenever the parties recognize the existence of risk or uncertainty so that any future business exchanges will be carried out smoothly. As a result the existence of trust brings alone many advantages in online business such as the reduction of transactional cost and complexity. It enhances the stable co-operation and the maintenance of long-term relationship as well as it enables the reduction of the perceived business risk (Sculli 2002).

Although trustworthiness is frequently confused with trust in the academic literature (Caldwell and Hansen, 2005), one person trusts another when the second person is trustworthy.

Giddens (1990) suggested the hypothesis that trustworthiness is combination of the long-lived well established face contact interpersonal trust and the faceless commitments concerning the development of trust in what Giddens terms abstract expertise systems. According to the author the systems of expertise play fundamental role in allowing people to trust institutions or organizations. He noticed that finding the balance to harmonize those two dimensions on personal and system level trust may ultimately create a strong tie of trustworthiness

Moreover Sztompka (1999) added that let alone trust is crucial factor for successful business enterprise but yet it is not enough. Companies have to take measures to build customers` loyalty because in on-line environment every consumer will be able to assess individually, the trustworthiness to several firms simultaneously, before committing any purchase. Sztompka (1999) has defined three dimensions of trustworthiness: reputation, performance, and appearance. The good organizational reputation can influence the effect of perceived risk which, in turn, will either strengthen or weaken the level of company’s trustworthiness. Furthermore the performance is seen as the object of trust’s recent result. For instance a consumer is offered a trial period for a particular product during which he/she can evaluate and justify whether to buy or refuse the item. As for the appearance in the case of online commerce it can be related to the image of particular web site which further enhances the trustworthiness. In conclusion companies should design the consumer’s trust by building high-quality reputation, by demonstrating excellent product performance, and by preserving a professional appearance in dealing with clients.

From another point of view, trustworthiness of websites relates with some other requirements. It need to be considered that web sites full of banners, pop ups and advertisements may simply lose interest (Hayes et al,  2007).On the other hand having a user friendly website which is easy to navigate and informative would be more appealing. The site more likely to be revisited is the user friendly site, this is because the more user friendly tools you have to navigate the site an increase in trust will be developed with your consumers (Pimmanee et al 2006). But how to be trustworthy on your website? They are couple of tools which can make the website more friendly. Most of this tools are used in all the professional websites. The next paragraph is going to analyse how to be trustworthy, based on the success website of Chealse football club:

Purchasing an own domain name is one of the basic steps. It gives to the site a professional and trustworthy look and it enables to control the content on the website and avoid ineligible advertisements. This will put more emphasis on subject area. Chealse football club chose domain www.chelseafc.com. At the very first visit of the site we can recognise the suspicion of welcome/enter page. The presence of this could divert the attention of the consumer who is seeking for fast information. Including legitimate contact information is another important requirement of trustworthiness. This information is situated on left bottom of the homepage of Chelsea website. This includes all important phone numbers, working hours a business mailing address and an associated email. Furthermore Chelsea is  keeping all his contents up to date. On the home page and in section news we can find the most relevant news updated daily. Users nowadays have no patience. Make sure you pages upload quickly. This will show professionalism and will also boost confidence in your potential buyers/viewers. Adding a "about us" page can give personal touch to the website. Chelsea provides lot of information about the club, such as his history, sponsors and partners. Absence of this information could generate suspicions. In order to make the Chelsea website more trustworthy, it gives to his fans a chance to share they opinions and gives a chance to communicate among them. And finally the Chelsea website provides the latest secure purchase program available to secure purchases your clients purchases. This includes a secure server, a secure gateway, and information that informs you that the customer’s online purchase is as secure as is currently possible. All this tools heps to make the Chealse website as trusthworthy as possible.

 

Reference

 

Acohido, B. (2008) 'Cyberthieves Mine for Corporate Data Nuggets.' USA Today

Barrett, M. Gendron, Y. (2005) “WebTrust and the“commercialistic auditor”.The unrealized vision of developing auditor trustworthiness in cyberspace.” Accounting, Auditing &Accountability Journal 19,(5) Available from www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3574.htm

 Ejike, O., Patricia, B., Ian, R., Scott, D. and James, M. (Sep/Oct2008) 'How Do We Build Trust into E-Commerce Web Sites?' IEEE Software 25 (5) 7-9

 Fisher, J., Frada;, B., Kathy, L. and Lazarenko, K. (2008) '"Usability + Usefulness = Trust": An Exploratory Study of Australian Health Web Sites.' Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy 18, (5) 477-498

 Hassanein, K. and Head, M. (2007) 'Manipulating Perceived Social Presence through the Web Interface and Its Impact on Attitude Towards Online Shopping.' International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 65, (8) 689-708

 Hayes, L. Caldwell, C. (2007) “Leadership, trustworthiness, and the mediating lens available.” Journal of Management Development 26, (3) Available from< www.emeraldinsight.com/0262-1711.htm>

 Li, X., Rong, G. and Jason, T. (2009) 'Swift Trust in Web Vendors: The Role of Appearance and Functionality.' Journal of Organizational & End User Computing 21, (1) 88-108

 Pimmanee, R. and E.Vatcharaporn (2006) 'What Makes Websites Trustworthy? A Two-Phase Empirical Study.' International Journal of Electronic Business, 3, (2) 1-1

 RADIN, T., MARTIN, C. and PREDMORE, C. (2007) 'New Challenges to Old Problems: Building Trust in E-Marketing.' Business & Society Review 112, (1) 73-98

 Sculli, D. So, M. (2002) “The role of trust, quality, value and risk in conducting e-business” Industrial management and data systems 102, (9) Available from

<http: //www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm>

 

Online Communities

For a few years, we assist to a new online phenomenon: Online communities. Websites such as FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Second Life, and World of Warcraft attract millions of internet users over the world. Cova, Kozinets and Shankar (2007) explains this phenomenon by the fact that we are more and more living in an individualistic and globalized society of progress in which we are loosing our roots.  The family is often destructured (more divorces for example), members of the family and friends spread all over the planet. Consequently, people are searching for ways to build new « roots » within a virtual community and then restore their social network. The Internet is enhancing this phenomenon by facilitating the creation of virtual communities in which internet users are able to get together and communicate with all kind of people whatever their location.

Browser based VS game based communities

These communities are of basically of two types: browser based communities or game based communities.

Technically, as the name says it browser based communities require the use of a regular internet browser (Internet Explorer, Modzilla, etc.). Facebook, Orkut, My Space are a few example. These networking websites, or social websites are they are often called, are usually linking people from all over the world, from all kind of background or demographics but having at some point an interest, an activity, an experience in common. People create a personal space, delivering an impressive amount of personal information from basic demographics information to music tastes, professional and personal activities, or even political / religion ideas. From this personal space people create their network with people they work with, used to go to school with, or who have the same interests and activities. The possibility to create new “relationships” are then unlimited.

The online gaming community on the other side requires its users to install specific software and often need a financial participation. Counter Strike, World of War craft, the Sims are a few examples. These online games are virtual places where people get together from around the world to play. These online games create a strong relationship between its participants even if they have nothing in common except the will to play and to achieve their mission’s objectives together.

Whatever the type of community chosen, the fact of being a part of an online community is a growing trend nowadays. People are spending more and more time connected to their computer, playing or managing their personal network (Weber, 2009).

Millions of people are spending hours everyday on these websites. What an audience for advertisers who are always seeking the best place to catch consumer, especially in the more personalized way!

A really interesting survey amongst social network users has been carried out by Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions (2007). The report, named "Word of the Web Guidelines for Advertisers" delivers key advices for the organisations that would want to exploit and make money with social networks. Some figures reveal very promising trends: 23% of social network users add comments on advertisements; 1 on 4 of them forward advertisements to their contacts; 60% of them declare that they would agree on placing sponsored content on their personal page and 43% have already visited a brand’s personal page. This survey evaluates the number of online social networks users to more of 215 millions of people. What a potential for marketers don’t you think?

Here is a huge opportunity for organisations to use these people and some companies are already developing global marketing strategies around very active virtual communities and some online social networks are becoming real promotion tools.

Possible ways to target them

The young people can be easily targeted with social networks. For instance banks nowadays are struggling with rising mortgage and credit card defaults it is not surprise that some of them have turned their attention to attract young consumers truth the social networks (Wilke, 2009). The Nederlands based institution ING has made their own social website designed to relate with potential home-buyers in order to exploit the opportunity to increase the number of their clients. They have specifically targeted different segments of the population by assigning sections of the site to the characteristical individual preferences. For example sections like “Oh Baby” or “Mobving in Together” have been planned to orientate towards the prospective cohabitants and new parents (Social Media Optimization, 2008)  . 

Following the sample of ING the company Fiserv which supplies back-end bill-payment and transaction technology to financial institutions choose different way to entice consumers. They launch Facebook application named MyMoney, which authorise the users to fulfil basic bank transactions such as paying the utility bills, making transfers or simply checking the current account balances. Various studies have proved that young people tend to prefer to use online banking rather than to physically visit a bank branch (Social Media Optimization, 2008)  . As a result such campaigns have won the trust and loyalty of the majority of the young Facebook users (Farquhar, Rowley, 2006).

References

Cova, B., Kozinets, R. and Shankar, A. (2007) ‘Consumer Tribe.’ Elsevier

Farquhar, J. and Rowley, J. (2006) 'Relationships and Online Consumer Communities.' Business process management journal 12, (2) 162-177

Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions (2007) ‘Word of the Web Guidelines for Advertisers’ [online] available from <http://www.techfiles.de/presse/PR/social_networking_exec_summary_347.pdf> [19 March 2009]

Social Media Optimization (2008)  ‘Banks Now Targeting Social Networks Like Facebook’ [online] available from <http://social-media-optimization.com/2008/08/banks-now-targeting-social-networks-like-facebook/ > [17March 2009]

Weber L. (2009) ‘Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business.’ Wiley.

Wilke, A.2009 ‘Online communities engage brands’ Revolution January 2009, p12-12

Interactive TV: Instant personal security or maybe not.

In its essence interactive television presents television with the so-called “return path” model. Literally this feature means that the consumer, unlike the ordinary obsolete analog systems, can interact, influence and subsequently feedback some behavioral information back to the broadcaster. Thanks to the digital technology people would be able to amend or even intervene according to their individual preferences in the content of the programs. iTV can be used as a original information and communication platform which enables the consumers to utilize other applications including home-shopping, personalized banking, video-on-demand, internet access, interaction between user etc.( Tsaih, Chang and  Huang, 2005) .In recent years there has been industry wide recognition for the need to enhance interactive services through the introduction of a return path. It will allow content providers to offer viewers a new range of applications including as voting, games, chat-like services(allowing viewers to send in comments and opinion), and interactive transactions for purchasing goods and services.“ In fact, most commonly people mention iTV with regards to three characteristic features: 1.Instant access/convenience 2.Personalization 3.Security

     Basically the concept of instant access which uses the phone line as a return path helps the consumers to communicate with their service provider. The return path can exist in several forms by telephone, mobile SMS, radio, digital subscriber lines (ADSL) or cable. Among them the phone lines continue to be the most widely-spread mean of communication. They truly are not so efficient method as they require additional efforts and human resources to process or send any information. Furthermore, the phone lines often cause customer dissatisfaction, inconvenience or simply order mistakes. Perhaps soon the technologies will allow faster and more effective ways for interactive correspondence. Until than the consumers will continue to face the inevitable difficulties    

    The idea for the personalization is not as popular concerning the customer’s point of view, however, it signifies enormous achievement for the marketers. With every click of our remote control we create an instant stream of information which afterwards is analyzed to depict a complicated picture of our individual behavioral and motivational patterns. In reality, this spy approach, based on the consumer knowledge, is used by the marketers to target the audience profiles with various marketing techniques. Logically emerges the question “Among all the available ways of communication which is the most efficient to target individuals”.

    Mobile and PC technologies provide appropriate manner to convey your message in person but they still doesn’t guarantee fully the personalized approach. It is not secret that the Internet access and the computers are widely distributed. For instance, in a household which typically consists of four members everybody may have an access to the home computer which, in fact, will not warrant individual approach to the potential customers. This idea can be equally applied with mobile technologies where people can exchange their sim cards between each other. Indeed as if the society has created wrongly the misconception that watching at home television should only be associated with group activity

    The security of the service’s payments is another important part concerning interactive TV. Any personal and financial information disclosed or used without the explicit consent of the party is considered illegal act and thereby can be prosecuted by the low. In that sense the whole idea of revealing your personal details to someone else without any protective measures seems quite scary perspective. Such suggestion would certainly generate multiple cases of financial frauds.

   In fact, there already exists technology which removes the function of the middleman when the consumers want to pay for their monthly subscription. In 2001 the iTV was launched in Finland. From the very beginning of this project the companies have started to research a way to facilitate the financial transactions via the TV receivers. The whole concept was based on the proposal that every sold set-top box would incorporate a card reader and two card slots one of which will be designed for smart card. When the customer orders a product or service which he wants to purchase the system will be able to proceed through the user identification, data security and secure payment transaction protocols. In addition, this massive venture was heavily supported by companies such as Visa, Nokia, OKOBANK Group, Digita, Finland Post and Teleware with the common aim to alleviate the transition to smart card payments. The revolutionary project has allowed fast adoption of any interactive TV services. It has concentrated its attention on implementing multimedia home platform (MHP) using Europay, MasterCard, Visa (EMV) smart cards as a universal international standard for payment transactions. In other words, these companies have pledged their reputation and the viewers should feel at ease for their personal financial matters since the security will be guaranteed.

References

 DigiTV (2001) Secure payments an important part of developing interactive [Online] available from <http://www.digitv.fi/sivu.asp?path=9;1239;3392;1582..>

 DTG press release (2006) Always on return path under development for UK terrestrial TV [Online] available from<http://www.dtg.org.uk/dtg/press_release.php?id=4>

Tsaih, R. Chang, H. Huang, C. (2005)” The business concept of utilizing the interactive TV.“ Industrial Management and Data System 105,   (5)