In defining the list of criteria, I assume the target
audience of sites to be business people who are doing business or going
to do business in China. The ratings on content related criteria are basically
on usefulness and timeliness. For style of web site, I adapt the ideas
in Guide to Web Style by Rick Levine to prepare the criteria.
Clear target audience
A site can be a general one to anybody wishing to do business in China
to a very specific one on a particular topic. If a site is a general, it
should have enough coverage. If a site is specific, it should be excel
in its depth.
Content
That’s my personal feeling to the usefulness of content.
Organization/Navigation
The organization of content on the web site. E.g. the use of menus,
search, page bottom buttons, linear or non-linear organization, etc.
Page layout
It includes how the designers grab the attention of visitors. Do they
put the most important content at the beginning of page to grab attention
? What is the general length of the pages ?
Relative Response Time
Generally, a web site ended with a .cn (in China) is very slow compared
with a .com (in USA) one due to infrastructure difference. It’s not fair
to compare them. Hence this criteria is evaluated on the effort they have
put in reducing download time rather than a general perception of response
time.
Quality of pages
Things like timeliness of materials, number of bad links, spellings,
writings, etc. as said in the Quality section of Guide to Web Style.
Grading scale
I will use a five star rating scale to evaluate web sites :
Very Poor
Poor
Fair
Good
Excellent