“Stickiness”, i.e. HCI guidelines, largely ignored when developing web sites in the GCC

This is the 1^st part of a study on the evaluation of the Web sites of companies in the GCC (Gulf Council Countries). It attempts to suggest whether the web solutions under examination follow the commonly accepted as standard guidelines of how a well-designed site should be as far as human computer interaction is concerned which in this, like in other studies, is referred to as “stickiness”. A total number of 129 web sites from companies in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates were evaluated. The table 1, i.e. on “stickiness”, from the WSEI (Web Site Evaluation Index) was applied during the evaluation. The results of the evaluation show a clear lack of any type of marketing and/or branding strategy and interest in deploying a friendly and informative web site experience to the visitors. It seems that they are just created before some time, maybe years, and then completely abandoned not caring, even barely, for basic updates and maintenance.