Building a Metric for Website Evaluation; Theory and Practice

This work looks at two types of website communication. On the one hand, we have passive communication that originates with the websites' owners. On the other hand, we have reactive communication that originates with the audience (i.e. users surfing the Internet). Without ignoring synergy-effects of both communication types, it is the reactive type of communication that distinguishes Internet communications from all predecessors—radio, TV, and print. With the underlying assumption that passive communications on the Internet are similar to traditional forms of communication (such as TV, print, and radio), in this work we will look for patterns of the reactive component of the Internet communication, as well as come up with a metric. The metric associated with the reactive type of communication in a website has the dual purpose of both evaluating, and better designing of, websites.