The FM Best Corporate Websites Award takes a user-centred approach to evaluating how effectively listed companies are using the online channel to communicate with a range of stakeholders. It holds that if the website does not work for the user, it does not work.
It is not a design, technical or content award, but rather an analysis of how these elements contribute to the user's experience of the website. The method was developed by BlueRiverStone and Prof Andrew Thatcher of Wits.
The awards are based on a score sheet that was developed to measure how a user would interact with a website in a defined scenario of use. It was validated by experts and then applied in a controlled environment by trained evaluators.
The evaluation is made up of two major components: technical quality, which contributed 20% to the final score, and quality of online service experience, which contributed 80%. Technical evaluation was performed using Software Research's eValid, a browser-based client-side website validating and testing tool.
This tool allows for the analysis of important technical metrics such as the number of links per page, the number of broken links, the percentage of old and slow pages, average size of pages (in bytes), the number of large pages, and average time to download a page. These metrics are used to compile scores measuring the technical efficiency of the website (which partly reflects how well the site was built for performance) and how well the site is maintained.
The Quality of Online Service Experience looks at the website and e-mail communications from the perspective of three important users of the corporate website: an investor, a candidate employee, and someone trying to determine business opportunities.
It includes metrics used to score each website against components such as content, functionality, communication, and connection. The e-mail component contributed 20% to the scenario score.
A site-wide Quality of Online Service Experience index measured metrics such as the ease of finding the website, navigational aids, website usage content (service and legal notices regarding the use of the website and its functionality) and professionalism.
The investor relations scenario was weighted as the most important score for the Quality of Experience component at 38%.
