Website Layout Research Articles

Design and Development of a MOOC for Academic Institution in Iraq

Massive Open Online Courses, shortly MOOCs, are a phenomenon in online education nowadays because it supports teaching and learning processes in academic institutions. Therefore In this paper a new design of MOOC website have been developed for Iraqi academic institution; specifically for Informatics Institute of Higher Studies. The new website is designed and implemented as an interactive educational platform using PHP7 scripting language (back end code that control front end logic), MySQL to build the database, HTML language used to design the layout of website, CSS language is used to add style to the web page finally JavaScript programming language is also used to add dynamic elements and action to the web page. The result of the project is to establish MOOC website based on the general curriculum provided by the Iraqi ministry of higher education to spread usage of E-learning in Iraq and also establish the first E-Iraqi University.

AUTOMATION OF ACCOUNTING THE NUMERIC PARTS AND UNITS AT MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES

Objectives. The substantiation of the need and disclosure of the substantive and technological features of the design and development of an information system for the registration of numeric parts and units at a manufacturing enterprise. Methods. Case-technology,object-oriented programming. Results. The development mechanism of an information system for registering numeric parts and units at a manufacturing enterprise is described. The development process begins with an analysis of the subject area, wherein the requirements for the information system are defined. Two business processes related to the activity of the production preparation engineer are identified and the entities and types of these attributes are indicated. Using the case-tool DBdesigner 4, a data scheme is constructed and code is generated for scripts used to create a database in the SQL language. The database is implemented on MySQL. The web-interface of the information system is designed: website scheme, action sequence diagram, website logical structure and layout. The resulting data scheme is implemented within MySQL data base management system (DBMS) and a web-based system interface developed using object-oriented programming using Notepad ++ text editor. The web-interface allows a multi-user working mode to be provided with the information system. The separation of basic and summary data among different tabs is performed in order to simplify the work of personnel and minimise the human factor associated with the processing of disparate data. The requirements to be met by the developed information system are defined.All software used in the development process is free. Conclusion. The selection of software tools for the development of a system for accounting of numeric parts and units at a manufacturing enterprise is implemented, allowing the conceptual, logical and physical design of a database – as well as its web interface – to be developed. All stages for creating an information system were realised.

The Internet in “Their” Language: South Korea and the Internationalizing Web

Abstract For most of the World Wide Web's history, Web developers and users have been restricted to the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) to create and access websites by title/Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Over roughly the last fifteen years, an international group of hardware and software experts, coordinated in part by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has created a workaround that allows for top-level Web domain names to be writable and readable in character sets other than ASCII, including Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, and Greek. But rather than prompting a discrete switch from one dominant language (English) to many, this development has prompted increasing linguistic complexity as internationalized sites include both English and more regional/local languages to fulfill rhetorical purposes. This article extends earlier research on Web internationalization and multilingualism by focusing on South Korea, which is simultaneously highly Internet connected and highly monolingual. Genre and linguistic analysis of three websites in Korean domains reveals language contact across “content” and “functional” areas in website layouts. Analysis suggests ongoing work across computing devices as well as research using diverse methodologies.

Do consumer shopping styles influence consumer attitudes toward services offered by shopping websites?

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the current research was to examine the influence of consumer shopping styles on Indian consumers' attitude toward services offered by shopping websites. Online service factors like product information, refunds, transactions, ability to return and exchange products, ability to cancel orders, and customer support services were examined. Unlike research findings from other countries, it was found that different consumer styles had no influence on consumers' online service attitude. Only a quality-conscious shopping style influenced consumers' website service attitude. The findings can help online shopping firms and retailers in understanding fears and apprehensions of consumers regarding online service. Service-related factors like refunds, product delivery, information availability, customer service, and financial transactions can be modified to improve consumers' attitudes toward online shopping websites. Future research can address issues related to consumer attitudes toward website features, layout, design, displays, and pictorial images.

Experiencing websites: UK DVD distributors and the promotion of Asian media

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose what can be learned from the study of specific promotional materials. Design/methodology/approach – The in-depth analysis of the text and layout of websites – adapted from Niels Brugger, and in contrast to the study of promotional materials as ancillary or interrelated texts. Findings – That websites can tell the author much about the intentions of distributors, and their target market, even when these resources are no longer active or social media is used. Research limitations/implications – Specific promotional materials should be increasingly studied as individual texts. Websites have their own conventions and structures that can be studied, as well as other digital and physical artefacts. Originality/value – The findings are potentially widespread, as they are evident within a defunct distributor’s webpages, as well as one that remains to be active in the UK market.

Responsive Web Design: A New Type of Design for Web-based Instructional Content

As the time passes by, more and more people surf through the Internet using mobile devices compared to a desktop computer. Recently, mobile device and computer screen designers have been trying to provide users with qualified web-browsing but this hasn’t been able to afford adequately users’ needs that are exposed to traditional website layouts. Therefore, there is a need to switch to Responsive Web Design which is capable of reshaping itself depending on various screen sizes and resolutions from largest screen sizes to smallest on mobile devices. Thus, the users will be exposed to the best experience with content visual display on the device or platform that they are viewing it on. This is more significant when users are studying on instructional web-sites and pages not to decrease their concentration, motivation and performance on their study since the responsive web design automatically change page layout, resize the images or crop them proportionally. In the paper, the authors will inform the audience on Responsive Web Design by indicating an educational web-site as a sample and discuss about its features.

Optimization of column width in website layout for advertisement fit

Advertising is the basic source of income for many web businesses. Preparing website layout for the advertisements is a problem faced by many web designers. The ads and other content are placed in several columns. Usually column widths are chosen ad hoc to fit the widest advertising unit. To make a more informed decisions website column width selection is formulated in this paper as optimization problem. A method of selecting column widths for a given set of advertisement units is proposed. Ad unit combinations that fit the given column widths are generated by the improved Wang algorithm for two-dimensional stock cutting problem. Column widths are evaluated for several objective functions. Two approaches are proposed. The first constructs a Pareto frontier of column width combinations. The second calculates the optimum column widths with respect to a weighted linear function of the objectives. To justify the weights expert survey was conducted. Both approaches are examined on datasets of internet advertising units.

The Use of Fuzzy Logic System in Determining Preferences toward GUI Design for E-Commerce Website

This paper presents the findings of a survey that correlate human personality types with the preferences towards graphical user interface (GUI) design for e–commerce website. Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) inventory is the personality instrument used to conduct personality test on human beings in this study. The targeted sample is the students from UCSI University KL Campus. They are first group into one of the sixteen MBTI personality types, and then they are further grouped into one of the four Myers–Briggs temperaments. 2 types of surveys are imposed: the Personality and Preferences Questionnaire (PPQ) which aim to figure out the correlation; and User Evaluation Questionnaire (UEQ) which is conducted online is used to collect user feedbacks on the resultant website prototypes. Fuzzy logic theory together with the data collected during PPQ is implemented into ANFIS systems to come out with inferences about whether or not the suggested correlation exists. Conclusion drawn from this study is that human's personality type does affect some of the preference towards website elements (website layout and font type used), but not all.

User information seeking behaviour: Perceptions and reality. An evaluation of the WHO Labresources Internet portal

Evaluation on Internet portals is a key component of any online resource development. Understanding user information seeking behaviour and user perceived behaviour is essential to obtain the full picture of user needs, online activities and draw lessons to improve the design of Internet portals to better meet user expectations. This article discusses the evaluation of a WHO Internet portal: the Labresources website. The evaluation investigates user satisfaction with the resource, usability, demographic information about users and how well they could complete specific tasks using the website and compared this with the actual online behaviour revealing a number of discrepancies. An online questionnaire was advertised on the Labresources website during the period 25 November 2005 to 20 February 2006. As the site caters to English and French speakers, the questionnaire was made available in both languages. It consisted of two sections – the first section required the participant to complete three tasks using the website whereas the second section tested user satisfaction, information needs and appropriateness of the content. Weblogs data were compared with the questionnaire results to compare user perceived and actual online behaviour. Twenty one respondents completed the online questionnaire from a total of 18 countries. This was out of a potential 60 website users among whom the questionnaire was promoted. In general, respondents were satisfied with the website layout and navigation. 61.9% of respondents listed WHO among their top 5 and a third listed the Labresources website. The number of sessions where users browse (146) the information resources is almost three times more than the number of users who search (52) the resources. Weblogs revealed most interesting results with differences between what users reported doing when completing tasks and how easy they perceived the tasks and what they actually did. Twelve respondents completed at least one task. Of the remaining nine respondents, three did visit the Labresources website from the link in the questionnaire but did not go on to complete the tasks. Only one of the twelve who completed a task reported it being difficult. Three of the respondents who didn't complete a task reported the tasks to be difficult but only one of these actually followed the link to begin the tasks in the questionnaire. This article described an evaluation study investigating user perceived and actual behaviour at the WHO Labresources Internet portal. Although the questionnaire results demonstrated general satisfaction with the resource, a combination of a weblog evaluation with the questionnaire revealed a clearer picture of the user perception of and satisfaction with the website compared to their actual activity when completing the set tasks.

Engagement and satisfaction with an Internet-based physical activity intervention in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

To assess the engagement in and satisfaction with an Internet-mediated physical activity intervention with individual supervision in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The intervention studied was one of the two strategies aimed at enhancing physical activity in RA patients that were being compared in a randomized controlled trial. A total of 82 patients, all experienced in using Internet and e-mail and registered at three different rheumatology out-patient clinics, were randomly allocated to the Internet-mediated individualized intervention (52 weeks). They had access to personal physical activity schedules and received individual supervision by a physical therapist by means of weekly e-mail feedback. In addition, telephone contacts, an online discussion forum, six face-to-face group meetings and electronic newsletters were offered. Besides registration of returned physical activity schedules, engagement and satisfaction were measured through questionnaires. The median physical activity schedule return rate of the 82 participants was 55%. The mean number of patients logging into the website at least once a week was 53 (70%) over 12 months. Of all patients, 69 returned the questionnaires (response 84%). Telephone contacts were used by 38/67 patients (57%), the mean (SD) number of attended group meetings was 3.1 (1.5) and the discussion forum comprised 15 posted messages. Overall, the proportions of patients being (very) satisfied with the amount of e-mail contacts, telephone contacts, usefulness of website information, physical activity schedules, group meetings and website layout were >/=85%. A smaller proportion of patients were satisfied with the links to other websites (68%), the newsletters (55%) and the online discussion forum (32%). Physical activity schedules with weekly feedback by e-mail, telephone contacts and a limited number of group meetings were frequently used website tools and modes of communication of an Internet-based physical activity intervention, with high-satisfaction rates from RA patients. Discussion forum and newsletters were less used and appreciated. Caution should be taken when extrapolating the results found to groups of patients who are not experienced Internet and e-mail users or patients with more severe physical disabilities.

Methodologies and website development: a survey of practice

Website development work is a growing aspect of the IT activities within many organisations. However, the manner in which website development actually takes place within organisations is still largely uncertain. In this paper, we examine the results of a research exercise involving case studies in 25 UK organisations aimed at investigating the way in which website development activities are currently carried out within UK organisations. In particular, this paper discusses the activities that are typically involved in website development projects, and the techniques and standards actually used for website development found within 25 organisations studied. One of the main findings of the research project was that in 25 organisations studied there was only limited use of formalised website design techniques (mainly hierarchy charts and storyboards). However, roughly half of the organisations studied did use some form of website layout standards. Website documentation was only produced in roughly a third of the organisations and only roughly a quarter of the organisations had any formalised website testing procedures in place.

Enticing online shoppers to buy — A human behavior study

ZAXOR Software, a computer system integrator and software developer in the Washington DC metropolitan area, conducted a research project to determine the impact of varying website development techniques on the actual purchasing behavior of online shoppers. To conduct this study, ZAXOR invited five groups of fifteen people each, six male and nine female, to use sample “shopping mall” websites. Each of the groups' sample websites had one variable development technique changed. The groups purchasing behavior was recorded under similar conditions, and post-test interviews were conducted with the participants about their shopping experience. The ZAXOR study took into account: (a) the relationship between purchasing decisions and payment mechanisms, (b) the relationship between placement of objects on a website layout, (c) the effect of special discount pricing (d) the impact of entertaining, non-purchase related activities on a website (e) the impact of animation and VRML on purchasing behavior. Results of the study showed that setting up payment accounts in advance of visiting the website had the biggest impact on purchasing behavior of all other techniques. Test subjects spent two and a half times more money in the same amount of time when their payment account logistics were separated from their purchasing decisions. Special discount pricing had the effect of making items that were not discounted seem undesirable. In effect, special discounts seemed to make online purchasing associated with bargain pricing and lowered overall sales dollar volume. The impact of animation had the next highest positive impact on dollars spent per person (directly after the impact of payment logistics). Objects which moved drew attention and received the most order volume. Next highest were objects directly to the right and below objects which moved. Objects directly above moving objects were adversely impacted. Entertaining activities increased the time spent in the shopping mall, but did not have as much impact on dollars spent per person as the introduction of the VRML world, where products could be met along the way while engaged in an entertaining social activity. The ZAXOR study concluded that the most effective commercial online shopping experience would model the characteristics of a multimedia sensory chat room, rather than a print-media catalog.