Web Wisdom: How to Evaluate and Create Information Quality on the Web

Citation

Morris, A. (2000), "Web Wisdom: How to Evaluate and Create Information Quality on the Web", The Electronic Library, Vol. 18 No. 5, pp. 370-374. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2000.18.5.370.4

With so much information on the WWW there is an increasing need for users to become adept at evaluating the Web sources they use. This book goes some way to help users do this. Although written by two US librarians and very much US in flavour (both in use of language and the example Web sites provided) its relevance extends beyond this continent. Intended for Web users and page authors, the general approach used is to provide a series of checklists that can be used to assess different types of web sites using a visual approach.

The book begins by discussing the need for Web‐specific evaluation criteria. It then outlines the role traditional evaluation criteria such as authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, coverage and audience, which the authors state have their origins in the print media, can play in Web evaluation. Added to this is discussion of more Web‐specific criteria such as hypertext links, frames, instability of Web pages and so on. A chapter is also provided on advertising and sponsorship on the Web which details how you can distinguish between the two and the strategies for analysing Web information provided by such sites. However, the bulk of the book is concerned with applying the criteria to evaluate six different types of Web page: advocacy (the primary purpose of which is defined as influencing public opinion); business (where the main aim is to promote or sell products or services); informational (which cover the provision of factual information); news (where the object is to provide current information on local, regional, national or international events); personal; and entertainment (pages that provide enjoyment to users by means of humour, games, music, drama and so on). The checklists are applied in each case to examples and annotated Web pages are provided to further illustrate the points made. Although this approach is easy to follow it does lend itself to a lot of repetition. The depth of treatment each page type receives also differs but in each case more emphasis on evaluating informational content would have been a useful addition. A final chapter discusses how to create effective Web pages and sites and provides checklists relating to the consistent and effective use of navigational aids, the appropriate use of non‐text features such as graphics, frames, sound and video, and the effective handling of interaction and transaction features.

The appendices contain a compilation of the checklists, a glossary of terms and a bibliography mixing print and Internet resources. The coverage of the latter is not as extensive as one might expect and would have been more useful if it had been presented under topic headings rather than alphabetically under the name of the author.

On balance, the book is worth reading and is a useful complement to other texts in the field. However, readers should bear in mind the scope of the book. It only addresses design as it relates to the usability of a page; the use of graphics and colour, for example, were considered by the authors to be beyond their defined scope. Consequently, readers looking for extensive coverage such as criteria relating to graphics and colour, guidance on informational content and the use of search engines and subject directories, for example, must look elsewhere.