An Exploratory Study on Web Usability and the Internationalization of US E-Business

The Internet provides opportunities in accessing international marketplaces that in the past were virtually unreachable by many organizations. As a result, US businesses are pursuing a global Web presence at an increasing rate in recognition of the huge global market external to it. Along with the opportunities in the international marketplace, there are complexities associated with the diversity of religion, culture, and language. There are also complexities associated with local differences in computing technologies used to access the Internet. An exploratory case study was conducted using seventeen e-businesses in the US to assess the state of Web usability from a localization perspective. The findings are summarized in terms of potential barriers uncovered during the use of a Web usability assessment model as a framework for evaluating localized sites. Several Web usability factors from the model, design layout, information content, and performance, were used to uncover design and technological issues that might impede the widespread use of localized Web sites. 1