Chair of Work and Environmental Psychology

Web-CLIC - Capture of website content

Nowadays, the World Wide Web is a daily companion for many people at work and in their leisure time. There is a lot of research and discussion about the design and usability of websites, but content is the most important aspect for users - "content is king"! Content determines satisfaction with the website, perceived quality, trust in the provider, recommendation and revisit behaviour, purchase intentions in the commercial sector, customer loyalty, acceptance and success of online measures in the health sector and much more.

The Web-CLIC is a questionnaire with which users can evaluate the content of a website (Thielsch & Hirschfeld, 2019). A total of 12 questions cover the four areas of comprehensibility, likeability, informativeness and credibility (the abbreviation Web-CLIC stands for "Website-Clarity, Likeability, Informativeness, Credibility"). The construction and validation of the Web-CLIC are based on six studies with a total of n = 3106 respondents and m = 60 tested websites. The questionnaire proves to be reliable: the internal consistency (Cronbach's α) is at least > .80 for the scales and > .90 for the total score. The time stability (retest reliability) over a period of 2 weeks is in the range of .69 ≤ r ≤ .81 for the scales and r = .84 for the total score. With regard to validity, there is extensive empirical evidence; factorial, convergent, divergent, discriminative, concurrent, experimental and predictive validity were tested. In our studies, for example, the Web-CLIC specifically and accurately captured experimental variations in the credibility of a health information website and was also able to predict the donation behaviour of respondents for charitable organisations.

Short version: Web-CLIC-S

The Web-CLIC-S is the 4-item short version of the Web-CLIC. The Web-CLIC-S reflects a g-factor of the subjective perception of web content. This short scale was tested in a series of three studies (Thielsch & Hirschfeld, in press), with a total of n = 1,414 respondents evaluating a total of 33 fully functional websites in various content areas. The Web-CLIC-S shows high internal consistency and high short- to medium-term retest reliability. In addition, we find strong evidence for construct validity in terms of convergent, divergent, discriminant, concurrent, incremental and predictive validity. Interpretation aids in the form of benchmarks for 12 different content areas and optimal thresholds were calculated on the basis of 12,568 ratings for a total of 183 different websites. Overall, the present studies show that the Web-CLIC-S can serve as a well-founded screening instrument for assessing the subjective perception of content by users in practice and research.

Publication on Web-CLIC and Web-CLIC-S

  • Thielsch, M. T. & Hirschfeld, G. (2019) Facets of website content.Human-Computer Interaction, 34 (4), 279-327.

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  • Thielsch, M. T. & Hirschfeld, G. (2021). Quick assessment of web content perceptions. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 37 (1), 68-80. doi. org/10.1080/10447318.2020.1805877

Raw data & codebooks

  • Thielsch, M. T. & Hirschfeld, G. (2018).Evaluation von Online-Inhalten mit dem Web-CLIC Fragebogen.In: Dachselt, R. & Weber, G. (Hrsg.), Mensch und Computer 2018 – Tagungsband. Bonn: Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.

PDF & Poster

 

  • Thielsch, M. T. & Hirschfeld, G. (2020).In der Kürze liegt die Würze: Der Web-CLIC short zur Bewertung digitaler Inhalte.In: Hansen, C., Nürnberger, A. & Preim, B. (Hrsg.), Mensch und Computer 2020 – Workshopband. Bonn: Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. 

PDF

Materials for Web-CLIC and Web-CLIC-S

The following supplementary materials are available for the Web-CLIC:

 

FAQ

You are welcome to use Web-CLIC or Web-CLIC-S to test your own website! We would be particularly pleased if you could tell us about your experiences afterwards or even provide us with anonymised test data for our benchmarking. In this case, or if you would like to use Web-CLIC / Web-CLIC-S in another way, simply contact us at thielsch[at]uni-muenster.de.

Important: If you use the Web-CLIC, please always cite us accordingly - i.e. in project reports or publications according to the above citations, in the test itself with a short reference to www.WebCLIC.de and "Thielsch & Hirschfeld (2019)" for the full version, or "Thielsch & Hirschfeld, in press" for the short version, thank you!

As scientists, we are delighted when our tools are used in practice - which is why the use of Web-CLIC and Web-CLIC-S is free of charge. However, the currency of science is citations. Therefore, please cite the instruments in your reports as described above.

The Web-CLIC consists of only 12 questions, which should take about 2 minutes to answer. However, additional time is required for test persons to familiarise themselves with the target website. If you want to go even faster, simply use the short version Web-CLIC-S.

 

For each scale you calculate the mean value of the three items, for the total value the mean value of all items, detailed information can be found in Thielsch & Hirschfeld (2019).

Thielsch & Hirschfeld (2019) provides benchmarks for ten different website categories. Ideally, you can compare your test value with such a reference value or with other comparative values, such as a previous evaluation of your website. For completely new websites, we have defined critical threshold values in our publication on the Web CLIC, for example 4.58 for the overall value - if this is exceeded, a website is more likely to be rated positively. You can find more information on this in Thielsch & Hirschfeld (2019). Special benchmarks and threshold values for the e-health sector can be found here.

There are also interpretation aids for the short version Web-CLIC-S: Benchmarks are available for a total of 12 website categories and critical thresholds for 11 website categories. The optimal threshold value across all categories is 4.66. Detailed information can be found in Thielsch & Hirschfeld (in press).

Currently in German and English, as soon as other language versions have been translated and checked, you will find them on this website. If you are planning to create a translation yourself, we will be happy to support you with additional information to ensure comparability.

Yes, you can find a lot of information on this in Thielsch & Hirschfeld (2019). The same applies to the short version Web-CLIC-S.

The Web-CLIC is the result of a co-operation between two researchers, Meinald Thielsch and Gerrit Hirschfeld. Both are psychologists and have been involved in the evaluation of websites and the construction of questionnaires for many years. You will find them at the University of Münster and the University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld respectively:

Prof Dr Meinald Thielsch
Chair of Occupational and Environmental Psychology
University of Wuppertal

Prof Dr Gerrit Hirschfeld
Faculty of Business and Health
Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences