Evaluation of Malaysian`s children websites using fuzzy computing with expressions

Abstract

Websites are important for children as a medium to provide education, entertainment as well as edutainment. Today’s technology with greater Internet access has becoming a reason for people especially children to browse websites in a more convenient way. However, websites found on the Internet are mainly for adults and little can be found specifically for children. Therefore, the limited number of existing children websites in Malaysian context brings an initiative in this study to further investigate the subject. The investigation has focused on three objectives, which are to investigate the status of Malaysian’s children websites, to identify the characteristics of websites and to propose a method of evaluation which is fuzzy computing with expressions. In the evaluation, the use of linguistic variables was applied in place of numbers such as in Likert scale. The findings from this study have indicated that there was limited number of websites can be found for children. This study showed that not many children websites can be found in Malaysian context. In addition, the existing websites are lack of Islamic content. Several websites were found that are appropriate for children but they are lack of the characteristics that a children websites should have. Those characteristics such as bright colour, contain lots of images are the elements that any children websites should have. Previous studies showed that children love bright and attractive colours. This study focuses on the three characteristics for websites which are visual design, content and usability. On the other hand, the use of expressions in evaluation is due to the fact that children have difficulties in understanding numbers unlike adults. Therefore, this study initiate an evaluation based on the existing websites found using fuzzy computing with expressions method. The contributions of this study can be seen in three areas such that the use of fuzzy evaluation method, empirical evidence of the status of characteristics and a source of guidelines for future development of children websites. This study has implemented a new approach by applying fuzzy computing with expression, in evaluation of children websites which could be applied for future studies on other domain of websites