Web accessibility monitoring systems support users in checking entire websites for accessibility issues. Although these tools can only check the compliance with some of the many success criteria of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they can assist quality assurance personnel, web administrators and web authors to discover hotspots of barriers and overlooked accessibility issues in a continuous manner. These tools should be effective in identifying accessibility issues. Furthermore, they should motivate users, as this promotes employee productivity and increases interest in accessibility in general. In a comparative study, we applied four commercial monitoring systems on two of the Stuttgart Media University’s websites. The tools are: 1) The Accessibility module of Siteimprove from Siteimprove, 2) Pope Tech from Pope Tech, 3) WorldSpace Comply (now called axe Monitor) from Deque, and 4) ARC Monitoring from The Paciello Group. The criteria catalogue consists of functional criteria that we gleaned from literature and user experience criteria based on the User Experience Questionnaire. Based on a focus group consisting of experts of Stuttgart Media University, we derived individual weights for the criteria. The functional evaluation criteria are: Coverage of the website and the guidelines, completeness, correctness, support in locating errors, support for manual checks, degree of implementing gamification patterns, support for various input and report formats, and methodological support for the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology 1.0 and for the German procurement law for public authorities Barrierefreie Informationstechnik-Verordnung 2.0. For determination of the user experience criteria, we conducted exploratory think-aloud user tests (n = 15) using a coaching approach. Every participant tested all tools for 15 min (within-subject design). The participants completed post-test questionnaires, including the User Experience Questionnaire. According to our results, Siteimprove turned out to be the best tool for our purposes.
Despite the widely acknowledged importance information technology plays in multinational corporations, many companies lack an understanding of when and how to (re)organize global IS management. The issues of timing and organization of global IS management, however, seem to be of utmost importance in a company's attempt to implement a new, global business strategy. Based on three case studies from the pharmaceutical industry, this paper analyzes the sequence in which business strategy, organizational structure and global IS strategy/structure should be designed to respond to changes in the competitive environment. Furthermore, it argues that new ways of designing IS management in MNC might be needed to meet the information processing requirements resulting from global business strategies. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.The relationship between an organization's environment, business strategy and organizational structure on the one hand, and IS strategy and structure on the other hand, has been widely discussed in literature. However, as the competitive environment in most industries has changed dramatically over the last few years and the companies adopt new strategies and structures, more research is required as these changes have not been sufficiently incorporated in the research yet.Over the last few years most industries have become multinational industries. Globalization forces many multinational corporations (MNC) to seek new ways to manage their worldwide operations. In order to achieve economies of global scale, to develop products for worldwide sale, and to provide high quality service to customers around the world, careful coordination of activities across national borders is required (Welge/ Böttcher, 1991; Macharzina, 1992).Despite the widely acknowledged importance information technology has in MNC (Senn, 1994), many companies lack the understanding of when and how to (re)organize global IS management. Although some anecdotal evidence exists on the role IT can play in global firms (Reck, 1989, Runyan, 1989, Carlyle, 1990, the IS strategies and structures needed to support the multinational firm's global business are yet to be systematically investigated. Several authors suggest contingency approaches describing IS strategies/structures that fit certain types of business strategy and organizational structure. But, as Earl/Feeny put it, "the resolution is not as straight forward as speculative practitioner and academic articles suggest" (1992, p. 20). Furthermore, the timing of adapting IS strategy and structure to the new business strategy and organizational structure appears to play an important role but has hardly been considered in literature.This paper addresses the issue of organizing global IS management to meet the new competitive challenges based on case studies from the pharmaceutical industry. The analysis focuses on the sequence in which changes in business and IS strategy and structure are implemented and the way IS management is organized. The Winter 1995 Jour...
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