Factors that effect the credibility of Non – Profit

Credibility of non – profit websites

Week 12 – Learning Portfolio item 1 – Q3

• Credibility of information – People often don’t cite the information they have used on their site because they feel it has no importance because the information is deemereliable by the creator of the website. Since these citations cannot be followed, the information can not found and therefore may be false.

• Biased – A non – profit website is usually created by a person or a group of people for a purpose. The information on their site could only be their personal opinion, not the actual truth. Online content should, where appropriate,  must show their expertise and trustworthiness (Cugelman,B. 2009)

• Design Layout – non – profit websites do not receive funding meaning they cannot spend money on a professional looking websites.  A website that does not uses the basic design elements of effectiveness, recognition etc may be deemed unreliable.

• Contact information – Non – profit websites do not have efficient contacting systems like Ebay/Apple etc so the owner of these websites often feel uncomfortable displaying their contact information online. Therefore, we do not know who has created or posted the content.

• Usability – Websites should be simple to navigate and use . If  the website appears complicated, unusable etc it often a sign that the website isn’t credible.

Reference List

Cugelman, B. Thelwall, M. & Dawes, P.  (2009) The dimensions of website credibility and their relation to active trust and behavioural impact. Communications of the Association for Information Systems.