Publisher's Synopsis
These websites ought to provide various categories of information in a clear and comprehensible manner for different groups of consumers. Each of these groups is interested in a particular content (information, documents, applications) which should be easily and intuitively accessed. For example, city-dwellers would be interested in administrative matters, opportunities to receive advice on administrative procedures, legislative issues and opportunities to conduct such business with the use of Internet applications. Tourists and visitors would look for information about tourist attractions, current and planned events, city life and accommodation. Another important group are investors who would search for information about investment opportunities in a city investment area, bids and auctions etc.). These groups of customers will include foreigners who have the same information needs like Polish residents (except for a part of city-dwellers). In addition to problems regarding information itself (what and how it is to be provided), there will also be problems connected with language versions, incomplete information in different languages or correctness of translation. People or foreign companies which could not find relevant information on a LGU website are often no longer willing to establish contact or even visit the place e.g. for tourism or education. The problem of usability of LGU websites is crucial as it directly shapes the image of a city and may also indirectly influence its development (in the fields of tourism, education, business). Needless to say, if information cannot be found on the Internet it is treated as if it never existed. After a few unsuccessful attempts the user quits the website what leads to loss of opportunities. Both in Polish and foreign literature on subject matter there is not enough research which would include comprehensive studies of usability and relevance of the content and structure of LGU websites. The author of this dissertation decided to fill the existing gap by proposing the referential model of the LGU website (pattern), which would provide guidance both on the effective design of new LGU websites and optimisation of the existing ones. Scope and structure of the analysed issues require searching for solutions towards identification of important information categories which should be included in LGU websites and definition of their basic structure. The structure of the referential model of LGU website has to meet requirements relating to its standardization, to allow duplication (adjustment) of proposed solution to many other real-world situations (Internet websites of different local government units). The main goal of this thesis is to create a referential model of a local government website containing relevant information for local and foreign users. The studied area refers to the three important subjects: investments, business and tourism. These three issues are important to local governments, since they allow increasing income by attracting investors, businessmen and tourists. Additional aims include as following: The analysis of current local government websites in terms of relevance of information. The design of (website tracking) software which would analyse the access paths to information and time required by the user to get information. The established hypothesis states that use of the aggregate method and the examination of existing LGU websites enable development of a referential model of a website that includes information relevant to local and foreign users. the work will include a design and implementation of a web tracking system built by the researcher. The aim of software development is to obtain a tool for measuring usability of LGU websites, including time needed to find information, tracking path to this information, number of links required to find information etc.
