The Extended Web Assessment Method integrates the original Web Assessment Model, developed by Petra Schubert and Dorian Selz, with the widely utilised Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). Furthermore, it builds on contributions from researchers and practitioners who are willing to share their assessments and possible reasons of failure and strategies for improvement.

Criteria

EWAM defines a set of 26 criteria and several sector profiles. According to TAM and TRA, a criterion has to refer either to "Ease of Use" (Criterions EOU1 - EOU8), to "Usefulness" (Criterions USEF1 - USEF15) or to "Trust" (Criterions TRUST1 - TRUST2, derived from "Subjective Norm"). Each criterion is relevant in every sector, but differs in its importance according to that specific sector. In order to take this fact into consideration, importance weights for each criterion and sector were defined.

Categories

The criteria are grouped together in six categories: The transaction phases of electronic markets ("1. Information Phase", "2. Agreement Phase", "3. Settlement Phase", "4. After-Sales Phase") as well as "5. Community Component" and "6. Final Section", which covers criteria that are relevant for all categories.




Personalization

In the Digital Economy, companies target customers in a different way compared to traditional media. Successful marketers build one-to-one relationships with prospects. EWAM implies that a successful electronic commerce application takes full advantage of different technologies to allow each customer to customize and personalize a website. Personalization aspects are looked at in several "Ease of Use" and "Usefulness" criteria.

Conclusion

The data gathered helps to identify and confirm success factors of electronic commerce applications and serves as a reference for companies which want to benchmark their own businesses in cyberspace..

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