eTourism: Communication Perspectives CHAPTER 3 – THEORETICAL PART Usability analysis and web analytics October 19-23, 2015 Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni

eTourism: Communication Perspectives Chapter 3 – Theoretical Part

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eTourism: Communication Perspectives Chapter 3 – Theoretical Part

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In this chapter we are going to focus our attention on the usability of online communication, and on its addressees’ actual usages.

At a first sight, we might approach usability as being the “ease of use”. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has provided a more in-depth definition. Six elements are stressed: “extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use” (ISO, 1998, n. 11).

First of all, let us use a very simple example of a chair. Under which conditions can I say that it is usable?

It depends on the users, who deal with it: its stakeholders. A chair suitable for an adult might be very uncomfortable for a child. The chair we use while at the dentist is not appropriate for having lunch.

Different stakeholders might have different goals. For instance, the chairs in a university lecture room are meant for students to feel comfortable, but not to the point of them falling asleep. Also they should be used by room cleaners to move around easily, clean and put back in line without much effort.

The context is very important: chairs perfectly usable indoors might be damaged if brought outdoors (e.g., sun, rain, snow).

The use should be effective: it should meet expectations and needs of the stakeholders.

It should be also efficient: it shouldn’t require a disproportionate use of resources and energy.

The user should be satisfied with the use itself.

If we go back to the Online Communication Model, a comprehensive view on usability can be offered: “the adequacy of contents/functionalities (pillar I) and accessibility tools (pillar II), between themselves and with respect to the users (pillar IV) and the relevant context (5th element). However, this adequacy has to be measured taking into consideration the goals of people who commission, plan, develop, promote and run the website (pillar III)” (Cantoni & Tardini, 2006: 129-130).

While usability can be measured before the product is released, web analytics studies how actual users are using it (actual instances of use are called “usages”), and can be undertaken only after the website has been published.

Usages can be measured directly on the web server through ad-hoc specialized software, analyzing the log-file it produces. Alternatively, the analysis can be outsourced to a third party. In this case, a small script code is embedded in every page, which is executed by the browser and informs a specialized website about the actual navigation of the user. This second strategy has become the most popular one, especially after Google released its dedicated service Google Analytics. Even if it is simpler and relatively free of cost, we should not ignore its limitations. These are related not only to the disclosure of very important data to a third party, but also to the reality that users might de-activate the automatic execution of the script, and

eTourism: Communication Perspectives Chapter 3 – Theoretical Part

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become “invisible”. Alternatively, automatic tools could execute the script without the page being visited, hence artificially creating “fake” visits.

Whichever strategy one adopts, there are three major families of information web analytics can provide to an online communication expert.

We might know a lot about the users: How many are they? How many visits do they make? How many pages do they access per visit? When do they visit and from which countries? Which apparatuses do they use? Moreover, the demographics characteristics, such as age, sex, and interests.

We can learn if they have directly accessed the website, through typing its address, or via a bookmark, or if they have reached it by clicking on a link in another website (through referral). While mapping referrals, three cases are particularly interesting, they are:

o a search engine, which allows us to know the keywords used in order to reach our website;

o a regular website;

o a social network.

We can also learn which pages and sections are visited, how many times, in which order, and for how long. Additionally we can learn which pages are being accessed first (landing pages), or the last ones, from which the user leaves the website.

Of course, many other measures can be undertaken connected with online transactions, or with peculiarities of the online service. Here are a few examples.

Mailing list: subscriptions, opening rates, clicks;

Facebook page: people liking it, interacting, sharing;

Twitter account: reach, new followers, retweets;

YouTube channel: how long people have watched a video.

Once the data are known, with the caveat that they are always approximations, we need to understand and evaluate what kind of implications it has on our business.

Every time we need to make hypotheses and inferences, which can then guide our managerial decisions. We can list here, based on the OCM, three major strategies.

Operate on the content (Pillar I): remove pages/sections that were never or poorly accessed; optimize content to make it more suitable for human readers and for search engines (SEO: Search Engine Optimization).

o Data: The section with the Russian translation of a destination’s website is almost never visited;

o Hypothesis: People are not interested;

o Decision: It is discontinued to avoid useless translation costs.

eTourism: Communication Perspectives Chapter 3 – Theoretical Part

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Operate on the structure or on the publication outlet (Pillar II): distribute contents on different publication channels, reorganize the navigational structure to ensure more internal visibility to under-used sections, or to remove obstacles against the completion of relevant processes (e.g., booking funnel).

o Data: The section with the Russian translation of a destination’s website is almost never visited;

o Hypothesis: People landing on pages other than the home do not realize that Russian translation is available;

o Decision: The website is re-engineered in a way so that in every single page it is possible to move to a different language.

Operate on the users themselves (Pillar IV): putting in place adequate promotional activities (online marketing, online PR, SEM: Search Engine Marketing) to invite the right users.

o Data: The section with the Russian translation of a destination’s website is almost never visited;

o Hypothesis: Russian-speaking people do not know about the existence of the website;

o Decision: Several promotional activities, both offline and online, are done in order to make the website known to the Russian market.

Usability and usages are crucially important. At the end of the day, we develop online communication tools in order to get in touch with intended publics. If they do not listen to us or have an unsatisfactory experience while using our website/mobile app, we fail to reach our communicative and business goal. We should be constantly aware of the fact that our competitors are just a click away and that if we failed to deliver a high quality online experience, users can fly (or bounce) out.

REFERENCES:

Cantoni, L., & Tardini, S. (2006). Internet. London (UK) – New York (NY): Routledge.

Inversini, A., Cantoni, L., & Bolchini, D. (2010). Presenting UsERA: User Experience Risk Assessment Model. In Ulrike Gretzel, Rob Law & Matthias Fuchs (Eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2010. Proceedings of the International Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, February 10-12, 2010, (pp. 99-110). Wien – New York: Springer.

ISO. (1998). ISO 9241. Ergonomic Requirements for Office Work with Visual Display Terminals (VDTs) – Part 11: ‘Guidance on usability’.

Tardini, S., Adukaite, A., & Cantoni L. (2014). How to do Things with Websites. Reconsidering Austin’s Perlocutionary Act in Online Communication. Semiotica 2014, 425-437.

eTourism: Communication Perspectives Chapter 3 – Theoretical Part

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