Literature Review

The success of a charity website depends upon multiple factors. Previous researches have
revealed that there is peculiar behaviour of the website visitors that eventually converts to the
donation. Such factors are broadly categorised into two variables i.e. information quality and
system quality (Cyr et al. 2009). Both of these variables are formed by different items. The work
of previous researchers in the light of these variables is discussed below:
Information Quality
According to McKinney et al. (2012) and Saxton and Guo (2011), information quality (IQ) of a
website is defined as perception of a website visitor that the website has disclosed complete,
accurate, timely and relevant information regarding performance, donation assistance and
finance. Studies have found that information quality is significantly important for risk reduction,
trust development, loyalty and satisfaction (Cyr 2008; McKinney et al. 2002; Nicolaou and
McKnight 2006; Song and Zahedi 2007).
Mission Information
Mission statement is the simplest mean for the donors to search and determine the type of
charity. Several incidents of misusing the funds by charitable organisations has resulted in
demanding for the mission statements of charities so that the donors may know their actions and
intensions and to add credibility and transparency in the raised funds (Waters, 2007). The
summaries of projects and mission statements along with vision, goals, objectives and values
trigger positive attitude in visitors towards charity websites. Non profit literature clearly states
that mission statements and project summaries form an important aspect for credibility of
charities (Brinkerhoff 2001; Saxton and Guo 2011). The potential donors primarily concern for

the mission statement, goals and values of the charity; hence, mission information serves as the
foundation for attracting donors. Disclosing such information like mission statement, vision
statement, goals, objectives and project summaries and future projections on the website helps to
create repute and trust with the donors and it should also reveal the compliance with financial
law and regulations (Brinkerhoff, 2001).
Financial Information
Financial information needs to be disclosed on the charity website in order to attain the
credibility and to display financial accountability. The financial information should comprise of
reports on budgeting, accounting, utilisation of financial resources, disbursement and allocation
of funds (Brinkerhoff, 2001). Hence, provision of timely, related and accurate financial
information like audited financial statements, recent annual reports and IRS Form 990 along with
disclosed rich information may result in triggering positive behaviour towards the charity
websites (Saxton and Guo, 2011). Palmer (2002) also argued that disclosure of financial
information on the charity website has a dominating impact over disclosing other information
like performance, etc.
Openly shared financial information generates a perception in mind of website visitors that the
charity operates honestly and it does not hide anything (Sargeant et al. 2007). Transparency
serves as a mean to develop trust with the website visitors that will eventually convert into
donations. It is also important to not only state figures like how much funds had been raised or
spent rather those figures should be linked to the tangible outcomes so that visitors are inspired
by the charity actions (Wells et al. 2011).
Performance Information

Historical information regarding performance of the charity is an important factor that can create
positive experience. Such information may include positive impacts generated by the projects,
summaries of those projects, graphical representation of periodic growth, etc (Loiacono et al.
2007).
Donation Assistance Information
The key function of a charity website is to aid the potential donors in making donations. The
information about donation assistance can facilitate the donations made by visitors of charity
website. Such information also presents the systematic mechanism of the charity organisation
(Sargeant et al. 2007). The major purpose of charity website is to let the donors better decide in
favour of donating time, money or other resources. If there is lack of proper information about
how to donate can lead to problems that donor may face while choosing the donation method.
There are other concerns in this context as well. For example, there is always tax deduction in
the donation amount that donors are not fully aware of it. There must be donation assistance tool
in the charity website that may help the donors to know about the value added tax and should
conform to the new IRS requirements while donating money (Palmer, 2002). In case of donating
stuff other than money, there needs to be proper valuation of the donated item. Third party
valuation may also be applied on the website in order to keep compliant by the IRS requirements
as those third party entities are legally meant to valuate several household and other items. This
can also be helpful in the process of audit as non-cash contributions will be thoroughly recorded
and presented according to the legal requirements (Kim et al. 2010).
System Quality

System Quality is defined as the perception of website visitors about a website that it offers the
desired web system through certain characteristics (DeLone and McLean 2003). The System
Quality perception includes several dimensions like security, visual aesthetics, response time and
navigability (Loiacono et al. 2007; Palmer 2002; Wells et al. 2011).
Security and Privacy
A website is perceived as more credible and reliable if it assures and verifies through all of its
processes that it is not a spoofed website. Since charity website is aimed at collecting donations
that requires making online financial transactions; thus it is significant for the charity website to
disclose privacy statement and cookies policy in order to assure the donors that their privacy is
not breached or sold (Kim and Lennon, 2008). Moreover, it is important for the charity website
to keep five security seals on the website to develop trust. The charity website must also assure
that it is systematically sound enough to avoid phishing attacks (Cyr et al. 2009). According to
Kim et al. (2010), perceived level of security significantly influences the visitors to trust the
website.
Visual Aesthetics
Websites with effective visual designs augment cognitive response of the web visitors. As per
visual rhetoric, it is found out that images of humans attract web visitors and they perceive it as
emotionally appealing (Cyr et al. 2009). According to Deng and Poole (2010), emotional
responses like pleasantness or arousal occur due to the visual aesthetic features of the website.
According to Lee et al. (2012), heightened enjoyment, temporal dissociation and focused
immersion are result of relevant static and motion images that are used as fillers on the website.
Therefore, such visitors that have hedonic dispositions are tilted towards evaluating the aesthetic

facets of the charity websites like colours, background, images and font and as a result such
donors feel motivated to donate to the charity. The extent of success of a charity website depends
upon the positive experience of the web visitors and the information that they tend to see on the
website (Wakefield, Stocks, & Wilder, 2004). Literature indicates that there are four dimensions
of design that significantly dominate the web success. Those dimensions are visual aesthetics,
transactional design, information content and navigation (Lavie & Tractinsky, 2004; Liu &
Arnett, 2000; Ranganathan & Ganapathy, 2002). Websites that execute such elements of design
are more likely to capture attention of the web visitors and eventually seek their loyalty,
continued patronage, satisfaction and donation (Bauer, Falk, & Hammerschmidt, 2006;
Bhattacherjee, 2002; Kim & Lennon, 2008; Lavie & Tractinsky, 2004). However, according to
Ranganathan and Ganapathy (2002), the relationship between behavioural outcomes and visual
designs are disproportionate in the context of cognitive perspectives.
Download Delay
The load time of websites is recognised as a significant factor to perceive the performance of a
website. The patience level of users has readily reduced due to the deluge of information over
internet. Hence, the trend among web users is to look for or demand fast downloading pages. The
loss of web visitors for the charity websites may result in loss of potential donations as well
(Deng and Poole, 2010). Many web analytic tools like Google Analytics or conversion rate tools
also reveal low performance and search engine visibility due to download delay. Researchers
have found out that long response time or download delay may provoke dissatisfaction,
unpleasant experience, anxiety and dislike (Lee et al. 2012; Rose et al. 2005). Thus, those web
users that have hedonic disposition will evaluate the web features and may never return if there is
absence of fine system quality.

Navigability
Navigability plays significant role in creating positive experience for the web users. Like,
interactive human animations, e.g. full body avatars, talking heads, etc have appealing effect
because such human like cues enhance the social interaction of the website (Hassanein and Head,
2006). The application of visual artistic schemes and the existence of embodied talking agent on
the website are positively correlated to the moods and feelings of the web visitors while
navigating the site. Navigability is an atmospheric variable that contributes to creating positive
feelings and experience about the website (Menon and Kahn, 2002).

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