Stakeholder involvement in New Zealand and Australian library web pages for children : how does it relate to website usability?

Abstract

This report investigates New Zealand and Australian public and state libraries which provide web pages listing links to children's websites. Descriptions are created of the web pages' usability and stakeholder involvement in them, using statistical analysis of data from a specially developed heuristic instrument and an email survey. It is hypothesised that low levels of stakeholder inclusion are related to low levels of usability. The descriptions reveal apparently low degrees of both variables overall. However given the small sample size and lack of comparable external data, this cannot prove the hypothesis on its own. Further comparisons of stakeholder involvement and usability levels within the data indicate that more restricted adult involvement is not necessarily associated with lower usability. However there is evidence that websites which are solely the responsibility of an individual, or in which children are little involved, are less usable. It is also hypothesised that broad stakeholder involvement is related to high usability but there is less data to support this.