A strategic framework for website evaluation based on a review of the literature from 1995-2006

Many studies have proposed new website evaluation frameworks and criteria. We have attempted to understand and improve website evaluation through the analysis of 83 articles by classifying them into IS, marketing, and combined-approaches. Our findings showed that most early studies adopted the IS-approach but that later ones (after the burst of the dot-com bubble) shifted to a combined-approach. Our study also revealed that most papers analyzed the evaluation factors via a ranking list. Our review showed that most studies conducted user-based surveys to examine a website, but that very few addressed strategic issues of website evaluation. We therefore proposed a strategic framework as an internal evaluation to ensure consistency between web strategy and actual website presence. The framework involved analysis of web strategy and a hybrid approach that included evaluation during three transaction phases; the framework was designed to be applied by a specific website vis-a-vis its goals and objectives through a five-stage evaluation process.

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