Evaluating and enhancing websites : a case study of an Eritrean state owned media website - shabait.com

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Ministry of Information of Eritrea is basically aimed at providing the society with news,information, education and entertainment. In addition to its service presentation through radio,TV and printed press the Ministry of Information has taken the initiative to present itsservices in the digital way by publishing a website known as shabait.com. But as thetechnique is new to the country as well as to the organization, it is to be expected that therewill be inaccuracies in the way the website was designed. Hence, evaluating and redesigningshabait.com with the goal of making it informative, attractive and easy to use will be verybeneficial to the organization as well as to users of the website.This recently launched website is not very attractive and not successfully directed to its users.Therefore, the main aim of this study is to assess and find the best way of presentinginformation digitally to the Eritrean society, as well as to anyone interested in finding outabout Eritrea through the State owned media website.This study was firstly approached by gathering previously written relevant information frombooks, journals, and the Internet. In addition to that interviews with concerned people inEritrea were held to understand the aim, difficulties and challenges of the website.Subsequently the website was assessed according to the evaluation criteria developed, basedon the literature review. The evaluation of the website assumed three different approaches ofqualitative as well as quantitative types. A usability test with both quantitative and qualitativequestions was done through a questionnaire, which was analyzed statistically. A competitiveanalysis, of qualitative type with two international websites was also made.In order to create a good quality website, it is essential to have clearly specified goals, policiesand strategies, and adequate advanced human as well as technological resources, so that it willbe easy to overcome the common challenges such as competition, diversity of users, budgetconstraints, and inadequacy of policy instruments. The findings of the evaluation ofshabait.com indicate that the website is not attractive, is user unfriendly, of low contentquality as well as with low download speed and, more importantly, was not advertised well.Therefore, shabait.com is not fit to be considered as a sole first hand information providerwebsite for the Eritrean society as well as for anybody who is concerned about Eritrea. At theend of the study recommendations of how the website can be modified to be successful arelisted.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University