Introduction
In recent times, businesses have resorted to using the internet as a retail channel. The internet is a tool that can reach large markets of over 1 billion people. Therefore, companies are designing websites to ensure that they can tap into the growing internet market. However, not all websites have an equal success rate.
Some websites are more successful than others are. Other websites fail to even take off despite the vast investments and time put into developing them. In this light of events, there has been an increase in the amount of research to determine the factors that affect the success of a website and e-marketing. Many researchers identified the website’s design as the key factor that determines the success of a website.
Moreover, the design of a website contributes to development a good web page interface. A good website design may enhance the survival of a company that uses e-marketing to boost sales. With this knowledge in mind, managers have developed special interest to understand the major factors that lead to website success. In addition to the managers, scholars have also developed an interest in this subject.
Therefore, students and other scholars are required to do research on factors that determine the success of a website. Researchers use various methods and models to determine the success of a website. Among the models used is the ‘heuristic test strategy model’. This article therefore, uses the heuristic model to analyze Rileys bar’s website.
The analysis will focus on identification of the major factors that determine the success of this website. Moreover, the article may propose some special designs. These designs may enhance the success of the website.
Background of the study
Researches done to assess the success or failure of websites have mainly focused on the relations between the consumers and the websites. These researches evaluated the success of the websites depending on customer numbers. Lagrosen, 2005 for instance, intimated that the success of a website is decided by the number of consumers that visit the site.
Kim and Stoel 2004 on the other hand, suggested that the success of a website is decided by the number of consumers who feel that the website trustworthy. Moreover, a successful website ought to capture the customer’s interest.
Using the above definitions, researchers can do an analysis on a successful website. The analysis of a website usually involves investigating the factors that affect the degree to which consumers accept a website. Kuster and Natalia 2011 analysed the success of the website using the perceptions and attitudes of the consumers.
By observing the attitudes of the consumer towards various aspects of design, it is possible to determine the aspects of a website that determines its success. Some consumers make their decisions to buy via the internet based on the design of websites. The appearance of the website is used to determine the legitimacy of a website according to consumer’s perspective.
Most consumers are of the opinion that the first thing that captures their attention is the appearance of the website. The manner in which the website appears determines whether the consumer will use the website or not (Tan and Wei, 2006).Apart from appearance consumers also used factors such as the ease of access and cost of access to determine whether or not to use the website.
Researchers have carried out analysis on the website design to determine the success of the website. With the growth in the e-marketing sector, companies have been designing websites to enhance their stake in the market. However, there are different opinions on how to determine the key factors of a website design. Different designers propose different designs. Moreover, different products on sale require different web designs. With this knowledge in mind, companies design their websites to suit the product they are selling.
Analysis on usability of a website focuses on the elements that make it easy for a customer to manoeuvre around the website. These elements in a website may lead to increased levels of satisfaction, loyalty, and trust of the customers. A good website design must ensure that there is a high level of usability.
Moreover, it should be attractive in appearance. This is because attractiveness of a website captures the customer’s interest and evokes the customer’s feelings. Nielsen 1994 observed that the usability of a website is the ease with which the consumers can to manage, to access, navigate, and memorize the basic functions of the website. Usability of a website generally entails the ease of learning how to use a website and efficiency of use once the customer learns how to use the website.
Matters such as the number of errors a customer commits after learning how to use and the degree of satisfaction a customer derives from using the websites are also handy in determining usability. Therefore, a website that is easily usable attracts consumers and leads to general satisfaction. Usable websites may lead to increased sales and higher traffic (Pearson and Pearson, 2008).
Studies on client’s characteristics show that the usability of a website is dependent on the character of the user. In addition to character, the age of the user may also determine how a client uses the website (Banati et al, 2005). Therefore, analysis of a website is dependent on various factors that may be directly connected to the website or indirectly connected.
Some factors on the website may be used to define the business environment. These factors influence the consumers’ attitude and behaviour when purchasing or doing business via the internet (). Factors such as visual cues, layout of the page, and the different colouration determine the response of the customers to a website page. Designers of websites try to incorporate elements in the design that would elicit a positive response from the customers.
According to Melian and Padron 2006, the best strategy to use in turning a web user into a web client is by capturing his or her attention for a sizeable amount of time. Taking this fat into account, web designers have to find a way of capturing the attention of their clients and keeping that attention for a sizeable period of time. The information content in a website is also associated with the degree of success. The information given on a website determines its competitive advantage (Pearson and Pearson, 2008).
A website must go beyond the concept of just being friendly to the consumer and incorporate an element that meets the consumer needs (Van-der-Heijden and Verhagen, 2003). Therefore, in designing a website the relevance of the website is one of the key factors to consider.
Evaluation of Riley’s website (https://www.rileys.co.uk/)
As suggested earlier, this article incorporates the use of heuristic model to identify the flaws in a design of a web page. The analysis using the heuristic model involves subdividing the website into small units then evaluating the units depending on usability. It should however be noted that this analysis does not yield the full merits and demerits of a website. Nevertheless, the heuristic model assists in yielding results that web designers can use to improve their websites.
While assessing the Riley bar website, it is logical to start with assessing the first impression the client gets when accessing the page. This would generally involve assessing the appearance of the page. The Riley bar website has a white non-saturated background. The function of this background is to avoid overloading the customer’s mind with irrelevant information. There is a big picture on the front of the web page to attract the attention of the users.
The picture shows the location of Riley’s Bar while advertising the offers given by the bar. In addition to this, all the features on the picture that are important placed on bright red coloured backgrounds to attract the attention of the user. All the other important features on the centre of the picture have a bright colour to ensure that the clients will notice their existence. From the outset, the website incorporates the aspect of advertising properly on the picture.
Therefore, from looking at the picture on the front the clients can derive the concept hat Rileys a bar. Moreover, it has games of pool, and darts. An advert at the top of the page indicates that customers can save up to 70% on pool and snooker. These are just but a few he items that show that the page fulfils its purpose of e-marketing.
The next aspect to analyse on the website is the structure of the website and the ease of navigation. A good e-marketing website should be easy to navigate through (Dailey, 2004). All computer users, both skilled and unskilled, should be able to navigate around a well-designed website (Dailey, 2004; Tarafdar and Zhang, 2005). The website under study is easy to navigate through. All the elements that are important are easy to find.
Clients can easily navigate the page to obtain information about the nearest club to his or her place. Navigating through the first page of this website is easy and anybody with computer minimum computer skills can manoeuvre around the page. Therefore, designers of this page were considerate to both the skilled and unskilled computer users.
The question of how easily a website can be found in the internet also matters when analysing a marketing website (Kim and Eom, 200). Therefore, a simple test to determine the ease of finding a website may be done by typing the company’s name in a search engine. If the results from the search engine find the website, then the website is easy to find. However, in cases where the search engine cannot get any results pertaining to the website, it means the website is hidden.
Therefore, such a website cannot be easily accessed. Customers and clients prefer websites that are easy to find and access. In cases where the customer cannot remember the web address, they use search engines to find the website. It is difficult for most clients to memorize the web address. Therefore, use of search engines is the easiest means of finding a website.
However, upon further evaluation of the page several flaws were detected on the website. One of the flaws of the website design is the fact that the page is dependent on adobe flash player to display the pictures.
These pictures contain a lot of information about Rileys bar. Despite the advances in technology, some gadgets cannot use adobe flash player. Therefore, clients who use such gadgets to access this website may miss some important features of the website. For web designers to ensure that information reaches all the clients, they must use relevant technology that is easily accessible to majority of the clients.
Another shortcoming in the design of the website is in the display of subsequent pages. For example, when accessing the page on how to find a club nearest to your location the page displayed is dull and lacks the bravado seen on the homepage. Moreover, the top part displayed on the page lacks any relevant information unless one scrolls to the bottom of the page.
The fact that the pages are dull and do not display the required information unless the client scrolls may discourage the clients while using the website. This is because the aim of a client is to view the information required. Therefore, by hiding some information and introducing dull pages the client’s attention drifts.
The ease of finding information diminishes with increase person accesses a new page. Clients are required to provide information on postal code in order to know which pub is near them. The Riley bar page has some hidden information. The client uses several steps to access such information. Clients who use the internet to gain access to information prefer using the fewest number of steps to access the required information.
Websites where information can be accessed with the least fuss attract a lot of customers (Richard, 2005). To enhance the success of the website designers are required to formulate a website that will be easy to access. Moreover, the web designers should do a research to decide on the number of steps a client is willing to use before they can access information.
Recommendations
The website analysed has both the desired elements and the undesired elements that determine the success or failure of a website. Therefore, recommendation about the website will be made on aspects that devalue the website. It is recommended that the company should reduce the number of steps involved when accessing information via. This would enable the company to reduce the likelihood clients due to the tedious nature of the website.
Moreover, the other pages in the website should be upgraded to reach the standards set by the home page. If all the pages on a website are equally attractive, there is a high probability of keeping the customers captivated. Melian and Padron 2006 suggested that the best way to keep a client interested in a website is by ensuring that the website remains interesting in all aspects.
With this in mind, the only way the website can captivate the clients is by making all the pages interesting. Another recommendation to the website designers is to take into the technology they are using. The use of Adobe flash player is inconsiderate to clients with gadget that cannot support the flash player. Therefore, web designers should improvise and use technology that all potential clients have access to.
Conclusion
Recent development in technology has led to companies adopting the option of e- marketing. To attain their goals companies employ web designers to come up with comprehensive web designs that may e used as marketing tools. Different designers come up with different web designs. However, researchers noticed that some websites are more successful than others.
This led to increase in studies to find out the reason behind the success of these websites while their counterparts failed. After extensive research, the scholars and economists found that several factors accounted for the success or failure of a website. The key factors contributing to the success of a website included the ease of finding a website, the ease of using a website (usability) and other factors such as the physical appearance.
Using these factors, this article analysed Rileys bar website to determine whether or not it would attract the target client. The analysis shows that the website has both the desired factors and the undesired factors. The analysis of a website usually involves investigating the factors that affect the degree to which consumers accept a website.
By observing the attitudes of the consumer towards various aspects of design, it is possible to determine the aspects of a website that determines its success. Some consumers make their decisions to buy via the internet based on the design of websites. Therefore, it is the attitude of the consumer that determines the success of a website.
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