Web Usability Evaluation to Promote Public Responsibility for Municipal Waste and Resource-Efficiency

Abstract

The main elements of any communication process are source, message and recipient. In order to promote public responsibility for municipal solid waste and resource efficiency, national municipal waste management (MWM) association being reputed and trustworthy source of information could play a central role to educate recipients (general public). The internet technology can be employed as an effective source for mentoring due to its; tremendous growth rate, popularity, cost effectiveness and flexibility to divulge information in multiple forms such as videos, blogs, pictures etc. In this study websites of 4 national MWM associations of Nordic countries were studied. These associations were member of Municipal Waste Europe (MWE), a non-profit organization with prime objective to promote public responsibility for resource efficiency.

The purpose of the study was to perform the real time scenario-based usability testing of the above mentioned website, especially for the Nordic countries in order to determine the ease with which people are able to find the information on these websites.

The features of National MWM association of Finland, to promote public responsibility, were found to be most promising compared to that of other Nordic MWM organization. The study has also highlighted promising examples of use of the internet technology employed by various MWM associations that others can follow to develop sustainable societies.