Web Site Success Metrics: Addressing the Duality of Goals

by France Belanger et. al.

The authors distinguish web wite success into

• audience (user) specific and
• goal (company) specific

success metrics. They argue that there is a duality between these measures and that they _may_ match or not. Therefore site developers should keep the net benefits of the potential stakeholders visiting the web site in mind.

In contrast to previous studies evaluating Web Site Success based on the functionality a site provides goal related success measures are suggested (for instance success in "online learning", "e-commerce", "life enrichment", "informed decisions, ...), keeping in mind the customers motivation to visit the site. In addition to these factors web sites have to fulfill obligatory factors and might fulfill enhancing factors to improve a sites success.

The authors suggest enrichting the traditional "clickstream"-success-measure by the use of

• quality (user interface, bugs, ...) and
• image (website and the organizations overall reputation.