Specifying Quality Characteristics and Attributes for Websites

Abstract

In this work, we outline more than a hundred characteristics and attributes for the domain of academic sites in order to analyze the quality requirement tree and a way to specify them. These elements are used in a quantitative methodology for assessment, comparison, and ranking processes. The proposed Web-site Quality Evaluation Methodology (QEM) can be a useful approach to assess the quality in different phases of a Web product life cycle. In the academic study, we have observed three different evaluation audiences regarding visitor users: current and prospective students, academic personnel, and research sponsors. Besides, the aim of this work is to show a hierarchical and descriptive specification framework for characteristics, subcharacteristics and attributes. This framework is a key underlying piece in the construction of a hyperdocumented evaluation tool. Finally, some results are presented and concluding remarks are discussed.