Evaluating Web-based Technologies: The Paradigm of User-centricity

Web Search Engines (WeSEs) are information systems that demonstrate large scale distributed system capabilities, and are fluxing and dynamic in nature. It is necessary to continually review them. There is need for methods and metrics that are replicable, which outcome will benefit design teams and content experts. Such results could form the basis to arrive at policies as strategies that are translatable to user-requirements for better user interactive experiences when implemented. This paper attempts to investigate the WeSE and propose evaluative metrics. The paper relied on the guide provided by the Web Analytic Framework (WAF) using both the subjective evaluative modelling technique and the reflective approach. These techniques provided the synergistic support the WAF drew on. The WAF was drawn on to interpret the conceptualization of metrics as the process of assigning measures - values to a phenomenon. The results obtained are replicable; they demonstrated significant effectiveness in their applicability in the assessment of distributed information systems like the WeSE. It will be necessary to try the proposed metrics to assess other distributed information systems in a perception-oriented context in order to ascertain their generalizability and replicability