The motoring organisations have been classifying hotels for years - so when it comes to assigning five stars to Web sites I think we should learn from them. Hotels get stars for good solid facilities and service not for flashing neon signs. In this set of guidelines I apply the same principles and judge sites on the basis of the service they provide and the facilities that make your stay in the site enjoyable and effective.
The site contains clear, accurate, useful, comprehensive and timely information which is appropriate for the intended audience.
It is easy for visitors to find their way round the site. They should never get lost and feel at sea.
A consistent view of the Site should be presented to the user from all parts of the site. The links should be of a consistent style and there should be standard global navigation on each page. As a minimum it should be possible to go straight back to the home page from anywhere in the site.
The goal for all pages should be "instantaneous access" - a few seconds. If certain features such as graphics or database queries can take longer, visitors should be warned so that they can choose whether to wait or not.
It is accepted that speed of access can fall below these levels when the Internet (or Intranet) is busy. This shouldn't be used as an excuse poor web site design or Web servers with inadequate capacity.
The site must have a consistent look and feel which is appropriate to the audience and creates the required ambience. The design should also be used to assist in navigation of the site, e.g. different colours for different parts of the site, and where possible assist in making the content easier to understand. The design should be non-obtrusive so that it does not distract visitors from the information that they have come for.
Interaction should be encouraged in all conceivable ways. All forms of input should be accepted - comments on products, notification of change of address, etc. Do not restrict input to feedback on the site. You also need to have the infrastructure to respond to any input promptly. Any query from a site visitor should receive a response in 24 hours. This response could simply be a timescale for a full response. It is unacceptable for the response to require the site visitor to use some other means of communication (phone or mail) unless there is some overriding legal or security reason.
A site which fully matches up to the above five criteria earns 5 stars.
Unlike a hotel, an organisation's web site should accommodate all visitors who have a reason to communicate with the organisation. So for example, it is not valid in the long term for a company to say that they only serve customers and not share holders via their web site.
If it is not possible to provide 5 Star support for all visitors then the organisation should strive for 5 Star service for as many categories of visitor that they can and make it clear to other categories that they are not geared up to support them yet. Ideally they would give some timescales for when support for the other visitors would be provided..
A sixth star is reserved for sites which provide five star support for all those categories of visitor who have a need to communicate with the organisation.
I invite you to apply these criteria objectively to your site and see how you perform. If you would like us to independently audit your site there is a request form.
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Last updated: 15 August 1999
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