How Website Design Options Affect Content Prominence: A Literature-Derived Framework Applied to SME Websites

Abstract

The literature offers a fragmented view of design options with the potential to affect the prominence of selected content (e.g., privacy information) on organizational websites. This article contributes to knowledge by consolidating the design options into a single framework. It argues that future research should consider how the design options in combination, not just individually, can affect content prominence. The article summarizes the types of qualitative and quantitative studies needed to apply and extend the framework. It presents an example qualitative study showing how the framework can be applied to, and extended by, examining the prominence of ecologically sustainable practices (i.e., green content) on small and medium enterprise websites. The example study emphasizes the value of the framework by illustrating how content prominence may vary depending on interrelationships between design options. The article finally offers suggestions on how practitioners and developers can use the framework when making website design decisions.

KEYWORDS:

• literature consolidation
• small and medium enterprises (SMES)
• website content prominence framework