Usability and Gratifications -- Towards a Website Analysis Model   

This paper discusses website usability issues. Specifically, it assumes that the usability of a website depends more on the perception of the user than on the objectively assessable usability criteria of the website. Two pilot studies, based on theoretical notions of uses and gratifications theory and similar theories, are presented. In the first study, experts evaluated three websites on the national park Mesa Verde in a more formal approach based on criteria defined in the literature. In the second study, non-experts evaluated the same three websites in a more informal and personal approach, using concurrent, or “thinking aloud,” verbal protocol methods. Results show that overall assessment of the websites differs between experts and non-experts. Specifically, overall the website assessed as worst by the experts was liked most by the non-experts. Cognitive and emotional needs as defined by uses and gratifications seemed to make more of a difference with regard to website use, and less with regard to website evaluation. Results from these studies provide the basis for a user-centered website analysis model that may make use of but not depend on usability criteria defined by the literature.

Bunz, Ulla K. Rutgers University (2001). Articles>Web Design>Assessment>Usability