E-Skills assignment “Websites 2”

By robbe Hofman

E-SKILLS / WEBSITES 2
Dries Peeters – Xin Chen Pen – Robbe Hofman – Louis
Vercammen
 Table of contents
Contents

Table of contents ............................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 2
Criteria .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 4
Results/findings ................................................................................................................................. 5
Universities .................................................................................................................................................5
Web Shops ................................................................................................................................................12
News Websites..........................................................................................................................................14
Blogs .........................................................................................................................................................17
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 21
Reflection ........................................................................................................................................ 22
References ....................................................................................................................................... 24

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 Introduction
In this report, you will find a broad analysis about 12 websites. We have categorized the
websites into four groups. This means that every group consists of three websites. Each
group has been discussed and evaluated precisely. We also tried to be as objective as
possible in our analysis. After you have read this report, you should be able to understand
the differences and irregularities. Hereunder you can find the four groups:

 UNIVERSITIES

- University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom - http://www.ox.ac.uk/#

- University of Milan (Milan, Italy) - https://www.unimi.it/en
- University of Beijing (Beijing, China) - http://english.pku.edu.cn/

 WEB SHOPS

- Zalando (Berlin, Germany) - https://www.zalando.be/

- Alibaba (China) - https://www.alibaba.com/
- Taobao (China) - https://www.taobao.com

 NEWS WEBSITES

- Het Nieuwsblad (Belgium) - https://www.nieuwsblad.be/

- People’s Daily (China) - http://paper.people.com.cn/
- CNN (United States of America) - https://edition.cnn.com/

 BLOGS

- HuffPost (United States of America) - https://www.huffpost.com

- Mashable (Aberdeen, United Kingdom) - https://variety.com/t/mashable/
- The Beijinger (Beijing, China) - https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog

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 Criteria
In our report me made use of six types of criteria:

 Authority

= Has the person or institution the qualifications and knowledge to make the
site? (authorship, contact information, credentials)

 Purpose and coverage

= What is the website meant for? Is the site selective or comprehensive, and
are the topics explored in depth?

 Functionality

= Is it easy for a viewer to navigate through the site?

 Objectivity

= Is the information biased?

 Currency

= How often is the site updated or modernized?

 Attractiveness

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 = Is the website attractive? Can we speak of a visually strategic website?

Methodology
Our report involved research activity. That’s why, in this methodology section, we will
provide you with an accurate description of the materials and procedures used. We will
explain what we did and how we did it. We are doing this in order to allow you to evaluate
the reliability and validity of our research process.

Obviously, most of the time we used the internet in order to gain a sufficient amount of
info. As we all know, the internet is one of the most used research tools that enables
efficient data collection.

We used quantitative methods (e.g. surveys). Quantitative methods are easy to use and
they helped us to identify patterns and making generalizations.

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 Results/findings
In this section, we will provide you with an objective summary of our findings to describe
the most important results.

Universities

- University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom - http://www.ox.ac.uk/#

- University of Milan (Milan, Italy) - https://www.unimi.it/en

- University of Beijing (Beijing, China) - http://english.pku.edu.cn/

 Cultural background

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 The websites of the Universities are based in three different parts of the world. In
this way we could analyse the visual differences and content in several parts of the
world in a structural way. Besides that we also analysed the cultural factors, who are
having an impact on the website.

The universities are located in the United Kingdom, Italy and China. In the chart
located above, we can see that those three countries have quite different cultural
values, this could influence their way of communication as their way of designing.
For example, in the Chinese website we can clearly see that there is an existing form
of power distance as the site is built in a way to give clear information about
academic regulations and structures.
On the other hand, the website of the Milanese university indicates more attention
to the individual by using a more personal approach.

 Authority

The authorship and credentials are clear in all websites.

Contact information can be easily found for both the British and Italian universities
at the bottom of the page. Everything is included: address, phone number and email
contact. On the other side, the Chinese university does not provide direct contact
details. We were only able to find the address.

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 Purpose and coverage

While searching for the Oxford University website we arrived immediately on their
English homepage. By navigating through the different sections of the website we
noticed that their website is very orderly and that it’s easy to find a lot of
information.

The “why Oxford?” section tries to showcase their excellence and superiority. They
also show what their main values and beliefs are to attract the best students and
researchers in the world. Their academic catalogue contains all the important details
of the programmes and courses, admission requirements, etc. The information is
well structured and thorough. The research department provides access to a wide
range of publications and information that may relate to prospective students.

The Chinese website provides an English version, but not all sections have been fully
translated into English. There are many study programs offered in English and they
are well described. By clicking on a study program you will get a list of all courses,
faculties and departments. Although, there is no section that provides useful
information to potential students regarding housing and accommodation, student
life, facilities etc. The Chinese website is well established and clear, but some topics
are missing.

“La Statale University” in Italy also offers an English version of the website.
The website is very clear at first sight, but if you dig deeper, you can see that a
minority of the information remains in Italian. Certain links are even redirected to
Italian versions. Descriptions of their study programmes are available and provide
the necessary information. There is an information section for prospective students
about student life, but not about the facilities.

 Functionality

We can define website functionality as the ease with which a viewer can navigate
through your site and obtain the information they are seeking.

The Oxford University website is well designed and it gives a good first impression.
The design is consistent throughout the sections.
Links and buttons in the site are clear and simple to understand. Navigation is fast
and simple. You also have special categories like staff, alumni, and visitors.

The website of the University of Beijing in China has an old-fashioned design.

Navigating through the website goes smoothly and fast. While scrolling through the

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 website, it is difficult to stay focused all the time since the website is less attractive
compared to the Italian and English website.

The La Statale University website is very modern and it runs easily. Although,
navigating through the website sometimes feels a bit strange. Besides that there is a
lot of information to find.

 Objectivity

Of course all websites are either objective because their goal is to give information,
on the other hand some parts of the websites are subjective but that makes sense
because they want to attract the best students on the planet.
Obviously they all give information about their programs, staff and achievements
and they do that in a way that makes them look the best. This, again, is another way
to lure the best/most researchers and students.

 Currency

The Oxford University actively updates their website with articles about research
results, events and current debates. The website is often updated with up-to-date
videos, publications and announcements about students and other parties involved
in the university.

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 On the website of the University of Milan in Italy you need to search for articles by
yourself. Sometimes an article pops up but in Italian. If you want articles in English
you need to find it yourself, they don’t show up on the home screen. The study
programs and the general information sections are updated both in Italian and in
English.

The University of Beijing shows many articles in English on its homepage. Almost
every article that is written in Chinese has also been translated into English. It’s a
very good website and it is up-to-date.

 Attractiveness

Oxford University's website immediately stands out because of its cured and modern
appearance. It's easy to orientate and quickly find what you need. It offers an
aesthetically pleasing balance between image and text and the choice of colour
theme gives it a serious and professional look.

The upper part of the website University of Beijing in China looks very good but
underneath it looks a bit boring. You have some pictures but mostly it’s just text. It
looks a bit like a student did a good job, but not that good to look like a professional.
There is some work to be done.

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The chosen font is also not very attractive in combination with the background. On
the other hand they are consistent and use the same font everywhere.

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La Statale University Milan in Italy gives a very well-organised experience. The color
theme is well chosen and matches the professional look that the Oxford University
offers. There is much use of pictures and the font and background are a great
combination. It’s only a pity that the menu doesn’t pop up when you go to one of
the categories. It's a bit cumbersome that you have to click on something else to get
that.

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Web Shops

- Zalando (Berlin, Germany) - https://www.zalando.be/

- Alibaba (China) - https://www.alibaba.com/

- Taobao (China) - https://www.taobao.com

In this section, we will compare Zalando, Alibaba and Taobao.

Zalando is an European e-commerce company founded in Germany in 2008 by Rocket

Internet, Robert Gentz and David Schneider. Now, the Swedish company Kinnevik is the
largest owner with 32%.

Alibaba is a Chinese multinational company specialised in e-commerce, retail, internet and

technology. It was founded 20 years ago by Jack Ma.

Taobao is a Chinese online shopping site founded by the Alibaba Group in 2003. It is
according to Alexa the world’s biggest e-commerce website. The headquarter of Taobao is
in Hangzhou.

 Authority

Authorship, contact information and credentials are all acknowledged by the site and
can be found on all three sites.

 Purpose and coverage

All three websites can be described as online shopping sites who’s main purpose is
to sell products online to customers. The customer base differs between the three
websites. Zalando focusses on B2C in Europe, while Taobao offers B2C as well as
C2C. Being the biggest worldwide site, Alibaba offers C2C, B2C and B2B.

Zalando is one of the biggest web shops for clothing in Europe. It claims to be a
customer-centric platform currently offering 300 000 product by almost 2000
different brands. Zalando operates in a lot of European countries.

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 Taobao was founded by the Alibaba Group and provides a platform for small
businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online stores that mainly cater to
consumers in Chinese-speaking regions like Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
It is China’s biggest online store according to The Economist.
Consumers can buy by paying a fixed price or through bidding.

 Functionality

All three sites are fairly easy to work with, Alibaba and Taobao have the same
mother company so their layout is almost identical but of course Taobao’s layout is
more suited for the Chinese market and Alibaba’s market is more suited for the
global market. In our opinion, Alibaba has the best user interface, probably because
it’s the only worldwide web shop.
Zalando looks slightly different as it is more suited for selling clothing.
They all have a search box that works fine.

 Objectivity

Alibaba and Zalando both have clear and objective websites. Their main purpose is
to sell products, so obviously the suppliers try to use a positive bias so customers
would buy the product. Taobao does not have an official English site but English
users can still buy products, by using the Chinese site with the help of a Taobao
agent.

 Currency

All three of the web shops have a non-stop refreshment of their product line, prices,
discounts and sales. All products have more than enough information. If wanted,
customers can leave an additional comment about the product.

 Attractiveness

As already mentioned, all three web shops have a good looking site with lots of
products for sale. If we have to choose which website looks the best. We would say
that Alababa has the cleanest looking, overall best working site that will fit most of
the customer base. Zalando’s web shop also has a clean look but more focussed on
the youth. Taobao’s site is, as already mentioned, a good looking site, but Western
civilization may find it chaotic as it is mainly focussed on the Asian market.

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News Websites

- Het Nieuwsblad (Belgium) - https://www.nieuwsblad.be/

- People’s Daily (China) - http://paper.people.com.cn/

- CNN (United States of America) - https://edition.cnn.com/

In this section, we will compare Het Nieuwsblad, China Daily and CNN.

Het Nieuwsblad a Flemish newspaper that mainly focusses on "a broad view" regarding
politics, culture, economics, lifestyle, society and sports.

The People’s Daily is an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
In addition to its main Chinese-language edition, it also has other editions in English,
Japanese, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Korean. The newspaper gives direct info on
the policies and points of views of the Communist Party.

On the website of CNN, you can find the latest breaking news and information on the top
stories, weather, business, entertainment, politics, and more.

 Authority

An authority website is a site that is trusted by their users. That’s why this is so
important for News Websites. What is a News Website without authority?

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 For all three news websites, authorship, contact information and credentials can be
found on the site. We can clearly see the authorship of the institute responsible.
Although, the Chinese website doesn’t mention the author of each article as it only
refers to the institution itself. If we look at the other two websites (the American and
Belgian news websites) we can clearly see that they mention every single author for
every single article.
The websites are all providing an address, a phone number and an e-mail address.
Social media such as Facebook and Twitter is also included.

 Purpose and coverage

The purpose of the websites is to inform readers of what is happening in the world
and to satisfy their need for information.
Although, if we look at the three different news websites, we can see that they differ
a lot from each other in terms of purpose and coverage.

When we look at the Chinese site, we can see that the pages are filled with a lot of
information, making it very bombastic. Additionally, the pages are much longer than
other websites. Therefore, it seems a lot of content, although there are often
unnecessary elements in between.
Thus we can conclude that the Chinese website pays more attention to the layout
and attractiveness than to their content.
Articles about politics are hardly mentioned, while topics such as gaming and sports
are very popular.

When we look at “Het Nieuwsblad”, we noticed that this website also tends to fill up
their pages by using larger fonts and a lot of images but it’s still not that much
compared to the Chinese news website. “Het Nieuwsblad” makes use of different

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 categories to group content into different sections, each category also has its own
subcategories.
The content of each article is straightforward and the facts are clearly stated without
giving much context, as a result the length of the pages are also much shorter.

The American news site on the other hand is much more simplistic in terms of looks.
It minimalizes the use of images and focuses more on providing a title. Just like the
Belgian site the messages of each article are very direct and the facts are clearly
stated. However, the information in one article often refers to another article.
The site has various categories but just like the Belgian site, politics and business are
amongst the more popular ones.

 Functionality

All 3 sites are user-friendly and easy to understand. They all have a clear homepage
with the most popular and relevant information. The different topics are precisely
divided into categories and that makes it very easy for readers to find their favourite
topics. You can also use the search bar in case you want to look up an article.
You can visit the Chinese site English, Japanese, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and
Korean.

The American site also uses multiple language options, it offers the site in English,
Arabic and Spanish. The Belgian website is only available in its own language, Dutch.
Both the Belgian and the American site have a limited daily amount of articles that
you can read without being subscribed.

 Objectivity

We were able to deduce that the Chinese news site is rather predisposed.
The cause is that a large part in China is still very communist. As a result, certain
things are allowed on the site and others are not. Political issues for example are still
a big taboo in China.

When we look at the Belgian and American sites, we can clearly see that they are
trying to be as objective as possible. These sites often provide fair and clear
information. Although, in some cases, the American site requires further
investigation.

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  Currency

For this criteria we looked at the maintenance of these sites. All three of these sites
are updated daily with the latest news. Each article is indicated with the exact date
and time of posting. On all three sites you also have the possibility to search for old
articles using the search box.

 Attractiveness

Let’s first start by looking at the Chinese site. As we already mentioned above, it
contains a lot of content and it is filled with a lot of images, videos, ads, etc.
The website also contains a lot of animated content, colourful images and of course
emoticons as that is typical for Chinese websites.

The Belgian site has a rather formal approach yet innovative. As well as on the
Chinese website, it uses big fonts and large images to attract its readers. The articles
itself are all nicely structured and makes use of high quality pictures. The categories
and sub categories are all orderly structured. Blue is used as the dominant colour.

When we look at the American site, we can say that it takes a more formal and
simplistic approach. It focuses more on interesting titles and facts to attract its
readers. It makes use of simple colours such as black and red and has a fairly basic
theme.

Blogs

- HuffPost (United States of America) - https://www.huffpost.com

- Mashable (Aberdeen, United Kingdom) - https://variety.com/t/mashable/

- The Beijinger (Beijing, China) - https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog

 Authority
On the Beijinger you can clearly see who wrote the article and what his specific role
is. Contact information can easily be found. A phone number and email contact is
included except an address. On the Huffpost it’s very clear who wrote the article and

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 you can contact them if any questions, but you can’t find any contact information so
it’s not easy. Variety is very clear about the people behind the website, contact
information is very easy to find and is complete. They do it perfect on this part.

 Purpose and coverage

All three sites that we are comparing are blogs, so the purpose of blogs is to
generate awareness about your brand and for this people need to read the articles.
The huffpost is defenitly the “youngest looking” blog of the three that has a big
clickbait title when you open the site. The Beijinger focusses a lot more on Asian
related subjects. Both Huffpost and Mashable offer a lot of themes that readers can
choose from. This is less the case with the Beijinger.
 Functionality
All three blogs are easy to manoeuvre through although the Beijinger does not have
a list of themes were the readers can choose what kind of articles they want to read.
In the Beijinger the readers can only scroll through the latest articles in chronological
order.

Objectivity

Of course all websites are either subjective because their goal is to give interesting
information. For a blog this is quite normal, it would be weird if they were objective.

 Currency
All three blogs are uploading daily new articles. Huffpost is the only one out of the
three that has a custom made interface featuring current event. At the moment this
is a Halloween theme.

 Attractiveness
The HuffPost’s website can be described as a very catchy website with enormous
titles. In that way, they want to attract the audience. They also make use of various
colours and different fonts. Although, there is one thing that bothers us; the
advertisements. But that’s understandable because it’s one of their only ways to
make money.

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The website of Variety is less attractive because there are too much advertisements,
the colours are eye-catching but I think this either works in a positive than a negative
way. A kind of strange logic in our brain. The articles are very well organized. Their
menu is also very clear and easy to use.

The Beijing hasn’t the most beautiful or attractive website, but if you look closer and
dig deeper, it’s actually quite easy to use. The colours are typically Chinese but the
combination of red and white works always.

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 Conclusion
All the websites we analysed looked and worked in general the same. Although, every time,
cultural differences played a vital role. That’s why we’re going to focus on cultural
differences in our conclusion.

As the web is growing and online shops like Zalando, Alibaba and Taobao are targeting
international markets, cultural differences and preferences in web design become of
importance. As we could deduce from our analysis, these companies know that
international customers are more likely to buy their stuff, only if the style of their web shop
looks like the design of websites in customers’ home country.
It is perfectly possible that a web shop who is using emoticons and a lot of images (ref.
Taobao) attracts Eastern people because they perceive it as amusing or creative, while in
Western countries it can be considered as juvenile and unattractive.

We can also conclude that people from Asian countries such as China prefer using the
Internet for social communication and leisure, but if you look at people in the United States,
they tend to use the Internet mostly for shopping, information and entertainment purposes.
On the other hand, European cultures are using more text, and they are trying to spell out
their messages more explicitly.

As a general conclusion we can state that if you want to attract as many readers as possible,
(both domestically and foreign), you’ll need to understand and master the cultural
differences and preferences in web design. A web page designed in one country may not be
equally pleasing to potential customers in other countries.

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 Reflection
 Dries

In the beginning, the analysis of the websites was difficult because it was something
new for me personally. Normally you’re just surfing on a website and searching for
the information you’re specifically looking for. But you’re not asking yourself if it’s a
good website…

Eventually, after a lot of research, we were able to grade the different sites against
the predetermined criteria.
When I look back at it, I can conclude that I’m now able to critically analyse a website
in an objective way.

 Louis

Normally I just go to or through a website without thinking. Sometimes I think “this

is a nice website” or “this a very old website” but I never analysed a website so in-
depth. To look for the authority, the purpose and coverage, the functionality, the
objectivity, the currency was the first time for me, of course the attractiveness is
something very obvious so you always look for that.

After a long time of searching we all found a way to analyse websites in the correct
way to give a good report about them. I learned that how more highly regarded the
university is, the better their website mostly was.

 Robbe
It sure wasn’t easy in the beginning, as a group we came together trying to figure out
how we were going to approach this task. After a while we got the hang of it and I’m
pretty sure we did a good job. The most difficult aspect was figuring out the

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 predetermined criteria on what we had to evaluate our different sites against each
other.

I learned to think critically when evaluating sites and I’m now able to categorise a big
amount of information into different criteria and comparing these.

 Xin

This assignment was very interesting because we could make up our own criteria for
the websites. It improved our critical thinking skills and give use the chance to look
at different kinds of websites and criticise them. Working in this group was a
challenging yet fun experience. It showed me how people can have different
perspectives about the same topic. For these reasons I found this assignment a good
learning tool.

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 References
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Deepl.com. (2019). DeepL Translator. [online] Available at:

https://www.deepl.com/translator [Accessed 2 Nov. 2019].

Unimi.it. (2019). home | Università degli Studi di Milano Statale. [online] Available at:
https://www.unimi.it/en [Accessed 2 Nov. 2019].

Anon, (2019). [online] Available at: http://english.pku.edu.cn [Accessed 2 Nov. 2019].

Ox.ac.uk. (2019). University of Oxford. [online] Available at: http://www.ox.ac.uk [Accessed

2 Nov. 2019].

Het Nieuwsblad. (2019). Het Nieuwsblad. [online] Available at: https://www.nieuwsblad.be/

[Accessed 2 Nov. 2019].

En.people.cn. (2019). English--People's Daily Online. [online] Available at:

http://en.people.cn/index.html [Accessed 2 Nov. 2019].

CNN. (2019). CNN International - Breaking News, US News, World News and Video. [online]
Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/ [Accessed 2 Nov. 2019].

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