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An empirical study of web site navigation structures' impacts on web site usability
Abstract
Web sites are intended to facilitate knowledge acquisition, often in the interest of supporting decision making. Based on a taxonomy of factors influencing Web site usability, hypotheses are developed about usability of alternative navigation structures. These hypotheses are tested via experiments that measure user performance in accomplishing knowledge acquisition tasks and user perceptions of usability. Two rounds of experimentation are performed for both simple and relatively complex task sets. Results show that a usage-oriented hierarchy or a combined hierarchy is a navigation structure associated with significantly higher usability than subject-oriented hierarchies, for both simple and relatively complex knowledge acquisition tasks.
... Because Google Classroom is primarily designed to support the education process, it offers many benefits for educational institutions (Almishiki, 2017;Fang & Holsapple, 2007). The homework function, which allows teachers to give homework/assignments to students, evaluate their work, and provide immediate feedback, is one of the strengths of Google Classroom (Alqahtani, 2019). ...
... The homework function, which allows teachers to give homework/assignments to students, evaluate their work, and provide immediate feedback, is one of the strengths of Google Classroom (Alqahtani, 2019). Previous research also highlighted the necessity of addressing students' requirements and maximizing the benefits of cloud applications such as Google Classroom, which offers positive interactions that boost students' interests in learning and exploration (Fang & Holsapple, 2007). ...
This article reports key findings of a study that investigated Cambodian-readiness in using Google Classroom. The study employed a closed-ended questionnaire as a data collection instrument to explore different dimensions of e-readiness. The results revealed that most of the Cambodian undergraduate students who participated in the survey (n = 110) were moderately ready for Google Classroom; however, some of them were concerned about whether their qualifications obtained from online learning via Google Classroom would be recognized. The study suggested that Cambodian undergraduate students need more exposure to Google Classroom to take advantage of its various features. Future studies should extend the scope of the current study and examine the technology acceptance of Cambodian students from different universities to understand how they navigate the challenges and opportunities of online learning.
... Because Google Classroom is primarily designed to support the education process, it offers many benefits for educational institutions (Almishiki, 2017;Fang & Holsapple, 2007). The homework function, which allows teachers to give homework/assignments to students, evaluate their work, and provide immediate feedback, is one of the strengths of Google Classroom (Alqahtani, 2019). ...
... The homework function, which allows teachers to give homework/assignments to students, evaluate their work, and provide immediate feedback, is one of the strengths of Google Classroom (Alqahtani, 2019). Previous research also highlighted the necessity of addressing students' requirements and maximizing the benefits of cloud applications such as Google Classroom, which offers positive interactions that boost students' interests in learning and exploration (Fang & Holsapple, 2007). ...
This short article presents an investigation of e-readiness of Cambodian
undergraduate students in using Google Classroom to pursue online learning. A
summary of key findings presented in this article is based on the author's
master's research paper exploring Cambodian university students’ e-readiness in
using Google Classroom (Kassy, 2019).
... Because Google Classroom is primarily designed to support the education process, it offers many benefits for educational institutions (Almishiki, 2017;Fang & Holsapple, 2007). The homework function, which allows teachers to give homework/assignments to students, evaluate their work, and provide immediate feedback, is one of the strengths of Google Classroom (Alqahtani, 2019). ...
... The homework function, which allows teachers to give homework/assignments to students, evaluate their work, and provide immediate feedback, is one of the strengths of Google Classroom (Alqahtani, 2019). Previous research also highlighted the necessity of addressing students' requirements and maximizing the benefits of cloud applications such as Google Classroom, which offers positive interactions that boost students' interests in learning and exploration (Fang & Holsapple, 2007). ...
The Cambodian Journal of Educational Research (CJER) is a peer-reviewed academic journal initiated and managed by the Cambodian Education Forum (CEF). The journal was launched on September 9, 2021. It publishes English manuscripts in the field of education, which would be of interest to Cambodian or regional readership. All manuscripts must be original and have not been published or currently submitted for publication consideration elsewhere. All manuscripts submitted to CJER will go through an initial screening by the CJER editorial board. The editorial board will then decide whether or not to send a manuscript for a blind peer review by two invited reviewers.
CJER publishes two issues annually (the first issue will be published in June and the second issue in December). Submissions to CJER can be made throughout the year following the CJER submission guidelines. Accepted manuscripts will be published online first and will later be included in one of the two issues.
... Before being considered as a communication or a retailing channel, each website was examined for its primary function: "to facilitate knowledge acquisition" (Fang & Holsapple, 2007). With this initial approach, the website is analysed as a "system of inter-related components working together to identify, capture, organize and transfer knowledge between recipients and providers" (Fang & Holsapple, 2007). ...
... Before being considered as a communication or a retailing channel, each website was examined for its primary function: "to facilitate knowledge acquisition" (Fang & Holsapple, 2007). With this initial approach, the website is analysed as a "system of inter-related components working together to identify, capture, organize and transfer knowledge between recipients and providers" (Fang & Holsapple, 2007). In this case, the aim is mostly to analyze the navigation conditions which optimize the rapid adoption of the new technological interface. ...
Online shopping phenomena become the latest trend among youth because of its convenience. Most of the retailers focus their business on online shopping due to the large market potential of online shopping. Therefore, the present study tries to identify impact of perceived benefits, perceived trust, perceived usefulness and perceived quality factors on consumer buying intention. College students aged between 18 and 30 who pursue their studies in Ahmedabad were selected as the subjects of analysis. A Likert scale based structured questionnaire was used to collect the responses. Out of 670 youth respondents age groups between 18 to 30 targeted across the urban population of India and 648 valid Responses considered. Data analysis performs with smart PLS 3 software, in this research researcher validate the structural model with path analysis and significances derive through the bootstrapping. The researcher establishes the direct relationship as well as indirect relationship with mediating variables. Results show positive impact of perceived benefits, perceived trust, perceived usefulness and perceived quality factors on consumer buying intention.
... Vieni iš svarbiausių interneto svetainės kokybės kriterijų -patogumas, aiškumas ir paprastumas lemia lengvą orientaciją, valdymą ir greitą informacijos paiešką svetainėje. Šiandien, siekiant pritraukti lankytojus ir patenkinti jų informacinius poreikius, intensyviai sprendžiami klausimai susiję su tinklalapių navigacinės sistemos, informacijos pateikimo ir paieškos tobulinimu [4,6, 2]. ...
... Efektyvios navigacijos kriterijai nusako bendrus bruožus lemiančius navigacijos funkcionalumą bei informatyvumą [4,7]. Tai nėra taisyklės nurodančios navigacijos konstrukcijos projektavimą, tačiau nusako jų svarbą konkrečioje situacijoje. ...
The paper discusses an effective web site navigation development principles, the effectiveness of navigation, the navigation elements of visual clarity, feedback realization. Outlining the main elements constituting an effective navigation: site orientation, site management, navigational facilities, visual design, navigation efficiency. For the purposes of the checklist approach, carried Lithuanian university Web navigation efficiency analysis.
... There are empirical studies on: usability evaluation and inspection techniques [13,32,56], the use of special-purpose tools to evaluate usability [66,77], the validation of usability in particular application types, like mobile applications [33], domain-specific languages [58] and security libraries [5], and problems with the use of interface design patterns [60]. There are also empirical studies focusing on web sites These studies evaluate the usability of different navigation designs [14,18] or gather empirical evidence on the relationship between web site usability and brand perception [11]. ...
... These studies report experiments on usability inspection, including, for example, an experiment comparing design process inspection techniques [32], an experiment exploring how novice evaluators' perceptions of usability heuristics affect their later use [56], a study of the adoption of usability evaluation activities using agile development techniques [66] or an experiment on interface design pattern applicability factors [60]. Other studies focus on web sites and applications and evaluate different user interface issues like navigation design [14,18] or interface element structures [40]. ...
Context
As a software quality characteristic, usability includes the attributes of efficiency, effectiveness and user satisfaction. There are several recommendations in the literature on how to build usable software systems, but there are not very many empirical studies that provide evidence about their impact.
Objective
We report an experiment carried out with users to understand the effect of three usability mechanisms —Abort Operation, Progress Feedback and Preferences— on efficiency, effectiveness and user satisfaction. Usability mechanisms are functionalities that should, according to the HCI community, be implemented within a software system to increase its usability.
Method
The experiment was conducted with 168 users divided into 24 experimental groups. Each group performs three online shopping tasks. We measure efficiency variables (number of clicks and time taken), effectiveness (percentage of task completion) and user satisfaction gathered from a questionnaire.
Results
The adoption of Abort Operation has a significantly positive effect on efficiency (time taken), effectiveness and user satisfaction. The adoption of Progress Feedback does not appear to have any impact on any of the variables. The adoption of Preferences has a significantly positive effect on effectiveness and user satisfaction but no influence on efficiency.
Conclusions
We provide relevant evidence of the impact of the three usability mechanisms on efficiency, effectiveness and user satisfaction. In no case do the usability mechanisms degrade user performance. The effort to adopt Abort Operation and Preferences appears to be justified by the benefits in terms of effectiveness and user satisfaction. Also Abort Operation enables the user to be more productive. We believe that the effects on efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction depend not only on mechanism functionality but also on the problem domain. The impact of a mechanism in other contexts could differ. Therefore, we need to conduct further experiments to gather more evidence and confirm these results.
... The features include the presence of animation, frames, graphics, sounds, and video (Evans and King, 1999;Robbins and Stylianou, 2003;Bilgihan and Bujisic, 2015). Navigation features will make visitors to have easier access to information (Fang and Holsapple, 2007;Bilgihan and Bujisic, 2015). Navigation features include hyperlinks to other sites (Fang and Holsapple, 2007), search engine, and site map (Merwe and Bekker, 2003;Robbins and Stylianou, 2003;Leung, Law and Lee, 2016). ...
... Navigation features will make visitors to have easier access to information (Fang and Holsapple, 2007;Bilgihan and Bujisic, 2015). Navigation features include hyperlinks to other sites (Fang and Holsapple, 2007), search engine, and site map (Merwe and Bekker, 2003;Robbins and Stylianou, 2003;Leung, Law and Lee, 2016). The security issue relates to the secure access used by the website. ...
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the hotels website design of two culturally discrete countries. Indonesian hotels website represents the eastern countries that have high-context culture, while Germany hotel websites represent low-context culture. This study evaluates the website of both countries to seek differences in terms of design elements. This study used samples from 30 five-star hotels in Indonesia and 30 five-star hotels in Germany. Content analysis was used to evaluate the website design, the Mann-Whitney U test was performed to compare the differences between Indonesia and German hotel website design. The results of this study found that there is a significant difference in hotel website design between Indonesia and the German in terms of website presentation and navigation. The results proved that that hotel website from the high-context culture has lower quality than the hotel websites which have a low-context culture. Future research can be conduct by adding more samples to provide better statistical results as well as to add more hotel categories based on the classification.
... On the other hand, several studies and extensive research have examined the relationship between the patterns and variables of Web-based learning design and their usability, including the works of Carmel and John (2009), Khamis andAlmuatasim (2011), andHolsapple (2007). Furthermore, Van and Ling (2008) investigated the impact of the interaction between the design of the elements on a website interface and usability in terms of the ease of navigation for the user and rapid access to its portals. ...
... These authors concluded the existence of effectiveness when designing learning elements across websites, as well as an increase in usability because of the easy navigation for the user and rapid access to the desired section of the website. Previous studies also reported on the importance of meeting the students' needs and making the most of the benefits of Internet cloud applications, particularly if these environments provide active effects and interactions that increase students' interest (Alon & Herath, 2014;Fang & Holsapple, 2007). ...
Modern information and communication technologies affect all areas of life significantly, including education and learning. Cloud storage tools are one of the forms of modern information technologies that are employed to serve the educational process. The current research aims to study the use of Google cloud applications (Google Classroom, Google Plus and Google Drive) in education and to determine the most appropriate web-based training environment in view of the level of usability. The experimental method was applied in this study using a sample of 200 students from Imam Abdul Rahman bin Faisal University. The current research found that there was some convergence in the usability of the three environments. Based on the results of the study, it was found that the environment of Google Classroom has the highest usability value (86.45), and also showed statistically significant differences in scholastic achievement in the application the service of Google Classroom in the educational process.
... As the literature suggests, the core of user interaction relies heavily on effective navigation, which significantly influences the speed and ease of achieving user objectives. As Fang and Holsapple (2007) indicate, an optimally designed navigation system reduces the steps needed for user-system interaction. From our results, the concept extends beyond the basic hierarchical layout of web pages, involving strategic categorization and material accessibility, balancing between the necessity of additional clicks for a quick preview (e.g., demo preview) and the evaluation of interactive online versus downloadable offline content. ...
The increase of digital health solutions to mitigate work-related mental health issues has been marked, and the COVID-19 pandemic has further reinforced this trend. This paper evaluates the usability and acceptability of a digital platform developed to provide tools and resources to support key organizational stakeholders. Through semi-structured interviews with think-aloud and cognitive walkthrough techniques, 31 potential end-users identified critical factors influencing the usability and acceptability of the platform. Key usability themes included the perceived intuitive-ness of the system, clarity of information, and users' emotional response to the platform tools, namely perceived enjoyment. Acceptability themes included performance expectancy, trust, and facilitating conditions. The findings provide insights for both research and practice, enriching the understanding of the usability and acceptability of digital health platforms from the perspectives of different organizational stakeholders. This knowledge can also guide designers and developers of eHealth applications in the workplace.
... As the literature suggests, the core of user interaction relies heavily on effective navigation, which significantly influences the speed and ease of achieving user objectives. As Fang and Holsapple (2007) indicate, an optimally designed navigation system reduces the steps needed for user-system interaction. From our results, the concept extends beyond the basic hierarchical layout of web pages, involving strategic categorization and material accessibility, balancing between the necessity of additional clicks for a quick preview (e.g., demo preview) and the evaluation of interactive online versus downloadable offline content. ...
Nell’attuale periodo di profonde trasformazioni tecnologiche dei contesti lavorativi, è fondamentale dotare i manager delle piccole e medie imprese e del settore pubblico, di strumenti di supporto decisionale e benchmarking dedicati al benessere organizzativo. Questo può migliorare l’adattamento ai cambiamenti, promuovere un clima lavorativo positivo e costruire organizzazioni resilienti. In risposta a questa sfida, è stata sviluppata una piattaforma digitale interattiva, la Mental Health at Work Platform (www.mentalhealth-atwork.eu), come parte del progetto europeo H-WORK. La piattaforma fornisce strumenti di analisi, intervento e supporto decisionale a responsabili delle risorse umane, professionisti della salute e sicurezza lavorativa, e consulenti aziendali. Il presente studio mirava a valutare l’usabilità e l’accettabilità della piattaforma da parte dei potenziali utenti finali, elementi cruciali per l’adozione e l’utilizzo delle nuove tecnologie. Un’intervista semi-strutturata con 31 partecipanti provenienti da 13 paesi diversi e appartenenti a organizzazioni pubbliche e private in 12 settori industriali, prevedeva l’esplorazione della piattaforma attraverso le tecniche del “cognitive walkthrough” e “thinking aloud”. Un’analisi tematica delle trascrizioni è stata condotta mediante il software MAXQDA 2020 per identificare e categorizzare la user experience. Cinque temi principali sono stati identificati: “Usabilità e facilità d'uso”, “Accettabilità”, “Applicabilità e rilevanza lavorativa”, “Impatto sulla salute mentale” e “Barriere”. I partecipanti hanno apprezzato il design dell'interfaccia e suggerito varie soluzioni per l’integrazione della piattaforma nel proprio lavoro e nei processi della propria organizzazione. Le principali difficoltà riscontrate riguardano la lingua inglese e la mancanza di competenza sulla salute mentale a lavoro. Possibili ostacoli all’adozione della piataforma sono la resistenza al cambiamento, la necessità di formazione all’uso, e la mancanza di personalizzazione e contestualizzazione rispetto alle specifiche necessità di ciascuna organizzazione.
Implicazioni. La piattaforma, liberamente accessibile, offre alle organizzazioni una gamma di strumenti per intervenire sulla salute mentale a livello individuale, di team e di leadership.
... A number of performance problems in e-commerce have been observed, due to heavier than anticipated loads and the inability to satisfy customer needs. Customers who have experienced a high level of service will visit that e-commerce website repeatedly and the financial success of these companies will be enhanced by high service quality (Kim and Lee, 2002;Fang and Holsapple, 2007). Business individuals need to focus on the users' perceptions by improving site security, in order to maintain long-term customer relationships. ...
The main objective of this study is to identify opportunities for improving processes specific to e-commerce firms. Identifying opportunities for improving business processes within e-commerce companies is critical for staying competitive in today’s market. With the rapid growth of e-commerce, companies must constantly strive to optimize their processes to remain efficient and effective. By identifying areas where processes can be improved, companies can reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, and enhance their overall competitiveness. This study utilized the focus group methodology as a means to gain a better understanding of the opinions, perceptions, and experiences of the participants, and to enrich the overall research findings. Thus, using a semi-structured question guide, two focus group discussions were held, consisting of four men and six women. Participants had experience ranging from three to ten years in e-commerce companies. The results of this study revealed many interesting aspects about the opportunities to improve processes specific to e-commerce companies in terms of order fulfillment, supply, returns, customer support and product listing.
... They include visibility, functionality, aesthetics, feedback and assistance, mistake prevention, memory, course management, interactivity, flexibility, consistency, efficiency, mitigation, contraction, and accessibility. While researching the criteria of evaluating the usability of the electronic educational system, Fang and Holsapple [11] highlighted system navigation, performance system, visual design, information quality, instructive assessment, and system interactivity. Following the results of their research, information quality is the most important criterion; navigation in the system of electronic education takes the second place. ...
This article delves into the crucial issue of effectively implementing usability principles in educational internet resources. By engaging with the latest research in the field, we investigate the influential factors shaping the outcomes of online education. Through a comprehensive analysis, we identify and examine six well-established criteria of usability design: Information Quality, System Navigation, System Learnability, Visual Design, Instructional Assessment, and System Interactivity. Additionally, we propose the existence of a seventh criterion termed Responsiveness.To shed light on the practical application of usability principles, we focus on the open platform "Higher School Mathematics Teacher" as a case study. Through a survey administered to 203 respondents, comprising both teachers and students, we sought to gather their valuable perspectives as the initial users of the platform. The insights gained from this study provide guidance for the implementation of usability criteria on the platform, particularly during the development of online courses.The findings strongly suggest that all seven subcategories of usability are pivotal in the design of online courses on the platform. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse on usability implementation in educational technology, offering valuable insights for developers, educators, and researchers alike. By recognizing the significance of these criteria, educational internet resources can be enhanced to create more engaging, accessible, and effective learning environments.
... Bu durumda İBE alanının iş yükü daha da artmakta, ziyaretlerin amacına ulaşabilmesi, ziyaret edilen sanal mekânların ziyaretçiler tarafından anlaşılabilir olması için sanal ziyaret sitelerinin kullanılabilirliğinin değerlendirilmesi gibi durumlar ortaya çıkmaktadır. Tasarlanan sitelerde bilginin sunumu ve bilginin değerlendirilme aşamasında da dikkat edilmesi gereken noktalar bulunmaktadır (Fang & Holsapple, 2007 ...
Bu çalışmada Sağlık Bakanlığı tarafından Covid-19 aşısı bilgilendirme platformu üzerinden halka yönelik olarak yayınlanan videolar ele alınmıştır. Çalışmada bu videolardan ünlü isimlerden sizlere mesaj var başlığı altında hazırlanan ve 25.06.2021 tarihi öncesinde yayınlanan 9 video göz izleme cihazı ile incelenerek katılımcılar tarafından en çok odaklanılan bölümlerin nereler olduğu, hangi videonun daha çok akılda kaldığı durumlarının tespit edilmesi amaçlanmıştır. Araştırma durum çalışmasına örnek olarak tasarlanmıştır. Çalışmanın katılımcılarını Bartın Üniversitesi’nde görev yapan 6’sı erkek, 6’sı kadın olmak üzere 12 akademisyen oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmada göz izleme tekniği kullanılarak videoların odak noktaları bulunmuş ve en fazla akılda kalan videonun “Şener Şen’den sizlere mesaj var. #COVID19Aşısı” isimli video olduğu görülmüştür. “Candan Erçetin’den sizlere mesaj var. #COVID19Aşısı” ve “Dr. Mehmet Öz’den sizlere mesaj var. #COVID19Aşısı” isimli videoların hatırlanma oranı ise en düşük seviyededir. Bilgilendirme amaçlı videolarda ünlü isimlerin kullanılması mesajların akılda kalıcılığı açısından etkili olmuştur. Göz sıçrama hareketi az olan videoların akılda kalıcılığı yüksek iken, göz sıçrama hareketi fazla olan videolarda mesajlar daha çabuk unutulmuştur.
... Seffah, Donyaee, Kline and Padda [22] stated usability can be measured by effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, satisfaction, learning, safety, belief, accessibility, universality, and usefulness. Fang and Holsapple [23] developed factors influencing website usability. Byun and Finnie [24] derived usability criteria for websites, which include: attractiveness, ease of use, well-designed pages, readability, privacy, security, and error recovery. ...
... There are no conclusive results. On the contrary, the number of experiment study results have been diluted by the type of experiment task and task complexity [14,29,35]. ...
There has been a rapid increase in ‘In-vehicle touchscreens’ usage over the last decade, particularly for information and entertainment functions. And because of the dynamic interface functionality, the touchscreen becomes a major attraction for the automobile industry. As a result, today most car manufacturer uses touchscreen instead of static push buttons. For display screen locations, there have been two legacy display locations in the car. One is a ‘Head-up display’ and ‘Head-down display’. The head-up display is similar to jet plans mounted on top of the instrument panel board and head-down display - located on the car console. However, the HUD position won't work for touchscreen devices since the touchscreen required direct touch input from the driver for which the HUD location either blocks the road view or is out of the driver's reach. Besides, there are numbers of possibilities for HDD locations to enhance driver’s interaction and driving experience. In the research study, we are evaluating 8 different possible “in-vehicle touch-screen designs”. (2 HDD locations for touch screen display- Top & Middle, 2 different main menu layouts- Horizontal & Vertical, 2 screen mount positions- Fixed screen vs Tilted screen according to user preference). The study focused on assessing possibilities for different HDD locations within proximity of the driver. This experiment aims to find the most effective and efficient touchscreen position with the least possible discomfort and distraction. Participants were instructed to perform a series of different Music, A/C, Seat control tasks on the developed In-vehicle infotainment prototype in the experiment. The experiment tasks were focused on controlled and real-life task-based scenarios.
... They include visibility, functionality, aesthetics, feedback and assistance, mistake prevention, memory, course management, interactivity, flexibility, consistency, efficiency, mitigation, contraction, and accessibility. While researching the criteria of evaluating the usability of the electronic educational system, Fang and Holsapple (Fang and Holsapple, 2007) highlighted system navigation, performance system, visual design, information quality, instructive assessment, and system interactivity. Following the results of their research, information quality is the most important criterion; navigation in the system of electronic education takes the second place. ...
The article addresses the issue of implementing the usability principles of educational internet resources. The paper debates the latest researches on the question concerning the search for the factors that influence the results of online education. The analysis, which we carried out, allowed us to focus on such known six criteria of usability design as Information Quality, System Navigation, System Learnability, Visual Design, Instructional Assessment, and System Interactivity and suggest the existence of the seventh criterion named Responsiveness. The research considers the principles of usability implementation following the example of the open platform of online education “Higher School Mathematics Teacher”. The answers given by 203 respondents during the survey allowed defining the direction of implementing the usability criteria on the platform. We were eager to know the opinion of teachers and students who became the first users of the platform. The article discusses the criteria implementation while developing online courses on the platform. There was ground to conclude that when designing online platform courses, all seven usability subcategories are important.
... Service quality refers to how good the service supplied by an information service provider is, in terms of the internal organization, external provider and third parties. In the e-commerce context, customers who have experienced a high level of quality and efficiency in the service will visit that website repeatedly, and the financial success of these companies will be enhanced [19] [20]. ...
Trust in computational systems and online applications depends on technical, social and personal aspects. The technical (e.g., computational infrastructure, network bandwidth, storage space) and social ones (e.g., runtime security, data privacy) have been largely studied. However, there are few studies about personal aspects that impact the sense of trust regarding user experience when interacting with those systems. In order to have a starting point for a survey, this paper provides an overview of tools, techniques and methodologies for measure trustworthiness through user experience in the context of e-commerce. Also, it addresses the major challenges about measuring trustworthiness in those systems: how users can know if the e-commerce they are using are trustworthy? Identifying the level of trust from the user perspective is particularly difficult because it depends on several factors that varies from person to person, such as the level of the experience of the user, the system structure, usability, among others.
... An effective NS indicates where users are and where they can proceed next (Chen et al., 2006). Several studies have explored the effects of NS on desktop usability (Fang and Holsapple, 2007). Fang and Holsapple (2011) confirmed that for both simple and relatively complex knowledge acquisition tasks, a usage-oriented hierarchy or a combined hierarchy has significantly higher performance than a subjectoriented hierarchy. ...
Mobile devices are becoming an indispensable part of the daily lives and learning habits of older adults with the easy access of the Internet. It enhances the connection between old users and online education, which supplies an approach to cultivate them with innovative concepts and entrepreneurship of education. However, the complicated navigation of information systems (IS) confuses older adults, and gets them disoriented in searches of information, in addition, to influencing online activities for older adults. This study aims to investigate what kind of navigation of IS is suitable for older adults. A 2 × 2 (2 factors, 2 levels) mixed experimental design was employed. The two factors were, respectively, cognitive load (CL) and navigation structure (NS). A sample of 40 older participants (mean age = 64.37, SD = 4.03) performed online learning tasks in terms of innovative concept using linear hierarchical or mixed NSs under different time pressures. The results showed that linear hierarchical navigation is more appropriate for the elderly when learning and generating innovative concepts on smartphones, as the interaction between CL and NS exists. Overall, the findings combined suggest that the linear hierarchical NS, compared to mixed hierarchical navigation, obtained better usability in terms of task efficiency, CL, and subjective ratings. The findings can provide theoretical support for designers to design and develop mobile websites for older adults.
... An example of a navigational problem is that navigation with the game is unclear, and the user uses nongaming elements to navigate between the different screens (data set 1, usability problem number 30). Good navigation allows for efficient user-system interaction, that is, it takes less time to complete tasks, and it is easily understood how to perform the tasks [47]. Although system structure is often mentioned as a basic concept that users should be able to understand while using a system [48,49], there is little clarity with regard to the meaning of this concept. ...
Background
Usability tests can be either formative (where the aim is to detect usability problems) or summative (where the aim is to benchmark usability). There are ample formative methods that consider user characteristics and contexts (ie, cognitive walkthroughs, interviews, and verbal protocols). This is especially valuable for eHealth applications, as health conditions can influence user-system interactions. However, most summative usability tests do not consider eHealth-specific factors that could potentially affect the usability of a system. One of the reasons for this is the lack of fine-grained frameworks or models of usability factors that are unique to the eHealth domain.
Objective
In this study, we aim to develop an ontology of usability problems, specifically for eHealth applications, with patients as primary end users.
Methods
We analyzed 8 data sets containing the results of 8 formative usability tests for eHealth applications. These data sets contained 400 usability problems that could be used for analysis. Both inductive and deductive coding were used to create an ontology from 6 data sets, and 2 data sets were used to validate the framework by assessing the intercoder agreement.
Results
We identified 8 main categories of usability factors, including basic system performance, task-technology fit, accessibility, interface design, navigation and structure, information and terminology, guidance and support, and satisfaction. These 8 categories contained a total of 21 factors: 14 general usability factors and 7 eHealth-specific factors. Cohen κ was calculated for 2 data sets on both the category and factor levels, and all Cohen κ values were between 0.62 and 0.67, which is acceptable. Descriptive analysis revealed that approximately 69.5% (278/400) of the usability problems can be considered as general usability factors and 30.5% (122/400) as eHealth-specific usability factors.
Conclusions
Our ontology provides a detailed overview of the usability factors for eHealth applications. Current usability benchmarking instruments include only a subset of the factors that emerged from our study and are therefore not fully suited for summative evaluations of eHealth applications. Our findings support the development of new usability benchmarking tools for the eHealth domain.
... Evett and Brown (2005) examined the effect of font types used in web pages and their functionality through a comparative theoretical study and determined what type of fonts should be used in designing functional web pages. Fang and Holsapple (2007) researched the effects of website navigation structures on functionality with seven basic features (interface, functionality, content, coordination, physical, control, customization) and found that website navigation structure affects the functionality of a web page to a great extent. Huizingh (2000) looked at 651 websites related to different fields in terms of content and design. ...
... The proposed solutions define the space of products, and the customer tries to refine this space, depending on his/her expectations and available budget (Engel et al, 1973). With the digital technologies, the space of products is now proposed very quickly, and the consumer evaluates and compares products using visual information and cognitive integration processes (Fang and Holsapple, 2007;Stenger, 2006). A part of this visual information comes from the layout of the website (Ladwein, 2000). ...
In this article, we assess the emotional value of the chairs from the collections design, objects and furniture of the museum of modern and contemporary art in Saint-Etienne. The aim of this research is to study emotional responses to visual perception of chairs from declarative measurements based on: 1) emotional measurements made using the circumplex model which collects valence and arousal; 2) the evaluation of six appearance descriptors which describe aesthetics, safety and comfort. Using a mathematical model based on a neural network, an 'estimated valence' is then derived from the evaluation of these emotional descriptors. This 'estimated valence' is finally compared to the 'verbalised valence'. The results show that there is a significant correlation between verbalised and 'estimated valence'. These results attest that the evaluation of the six proposed descriptors could predict the emotional value of the chairs.
... Before being considered as a communication or a retailing channel, each website was examined for its primary function: "to facilitate knowledge acquisition" (Fang and Holsapple, 2007). With this initial approach, usefulness is defined as with the use of technological advancement system, there is improvisation in task performance (Doll, W.J. and Torkzadeh, G. (1988)). ...
Online shopping becomes a trending phenomenon in the various customers due to the convenience and various benefits. The profiles of an average online shopper are changing with the passage of the days. Most of the retailers focus their business on online shopping due to the large market potential of online shopping. While purchasing online, customers have to think on various factors like psychological, technological and many more. Therefore, the present study tries to identify various factors influencing consumers' online buying behaviour. A Likert scale-based structure questionnaire was used on the responses which live in Ahmedabad area of Gujarat. Out of 750 respondents, 720 valid responses were analyzed using factor analysis. The result identified perceived risk, perceived trust, perceived usefulness, perceived benefit, perceived ease of use, perceived shopping attribute, and perceived Webstore atmosphere are the important factors which affects online consumer buying behaviour
... This hierarchical organization of the content is coherent with the approach typically followed in the website navigation, where users start with the homepage or a Web page found through a search engine or linked from another website. They then use the navigation systems 1 provided by the website to find the desired information [7]. ...
A sitemap represents an explicit specification of the design concept and knowledge organization of a website and is therefore considered as the website’s basic ontology. It not only presents the main usage flows for users, but also hierarchically organizes concepts of the website. Typically, sitemaps are defined by webmasters in the very early stages of the website design. However, during their life websites significantly change their structure, their content and their possible navigation paths. Even if this is not the case, webmasters can fail to either define sitemaps that reflect the actual website content or, vice versa, to define the actual organization of pages and links which do not reflect the intended organization of the content coded in the sitemaps. In this paper we propose an approach which automatically generates sitemaps. Contrary to other approaches proposed in the literature, which mainly generate sitemaps from the textual content of the pages, in this work sitemaps are generated by analyzing the Web graph of a website. This allows us to: i) automatically generate a sitemap on the basis of possible navigation paths, ii) compare the generated sitemaps with either the sitemap provided by the Web designer or with the intended sitemap of the website and, consequently, iii) plan possible website re-organization. The solution we propose is based on closed frequent sequence extraction and only concentrates on hyperlinks organized in “Web lists”, which are logical lists embedded in the pages. These “Web lists” are typically used for supporting users in Web site navigation and they include menus, navbars and content tables. Experiments performed on three real datasets show that the extracted sitemaps are much more similar to those defined by website curators than those obtained by competitor algorithms.
... The proposed solutions define the space of products, and the customer tries to refine this space, depending on his/her expectations and available budget (Engel et al, 1973). With the digital technologies, the space of products is now proposed very quickly, and the consumer evaluates and compares products using visual information and cognitive integration processes (Fang and Holsapple, 2007;Stenger, 2006). A part of this visual information comes from the layout of the website (Ladwein, 2000). ...
... Navigation through a large web site for finding relevant information can be tedious and frustrating. Previous studies on website has focused on a variety of issues, such as understanding web structures [1], finding relevant pages of a given page [2], mining informative structure of a news website [3] and extracting template from web pages [4]. Our work, on the other hand is closely related to the literature that examines how to improve website navigability through the use of user navigation data. ...
Website navigation has become one of the most important design features across many domains, including finance, ecommerce, entertainment, education, government, and medical. A main reason is that the web developers understanding of how a website should be structured can be significantly different from that of the users. Various methods have been proposed to relink Web Pages to improve navigability using user navigation data. The proposed k-means clustering algorithm reorganizes accessing methodology that can avoid unpredictability in terms of reloading time. The proposed method takes less time when compared to the existing algorithms.
... Previous studies found the evidence that one of the strategies to satisfy and retain the customers is by offering good e-commerce services (Yakov et al, 2005, Fang andHolsapple, 2007). Therefore, this paper attempts to identify the factors affecting the customer satisfaction of the e-commerce website in Malaysia. ...
As an important profit driver for business, e-commerce gives various opportunities to small and huge companies to sustain. Customer will visit e-commerce repeatedly when they feel satisfy with e-commerce services. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impacts of service quality on e-commerce context. Information quality, e-service quality, security and usefulness were predicted to have positive relationship with the customers’ satisfaction. Using purposive sampling techniques, 388 questionnaires were collected from the customers who had experienced in using Lazada and Shopee e-commerce website. PLS-SEM was used to analyse the collected data and test the proposed research hypotheses. The results indicate that information quality, e-service quality and security have positive relationship with user satisfaction, while usefulness is not significant. This finding could be used as a guideline for the companies to improve their e-commerce services.
... They include visibility, functionality, aesthetics, feedback and assistance, mistakes prevention, memory, course management, interactivity, flexibility, consistency, efficiency, mitigation, contraction, and accessibility. While researching the criteria of evaluating the usability of the electronic education system, X. Fang and C. W. Holsapple [21] highlighted system navigation, performance system, visual design, information quality, instructive evaluation, and system interactivity. Following the results of their research, information quality is the most important criterion; navigation in the system of electronic education takes second place. ...
The article addresses the issue of implementing the usability principles of educational internet resources. The paper debates the latest researches on the question concerning the search for the factors that influence the results of online education. The analysis, which we carried out, allowed us to focus on such known six criteria of usability design as Information Quality, System Navigation, System Learnability, Visual Design, Instructional Assessment, and System Interactivity and suggest the existence of the seventh criterion named Responsiveness. The research considers the principles of usability implementation following the example of the open platform of online education “Higher School Mathematics Teacher”. The answers given by 203 respondents during the survey allowed defining the direction of implementing the usability criteria on the platform. We were eager to know the opinion of teachers and students, who became the first users of the platform. The article discusses the criteria implementation while developing online courses on the platform. There was ground to conclude that when designing on-line platform courses, all seven usability subcategories are important.
... Quantum computer systems construct at the concepts of quantum mechanics were proposed in 1980s. Lively studies considering that then has tested that algorithms designed for quantum computers are more effective for fixing complicated issues than traditional algorithms designed for digital computers [10,11]. ...
This paper describes the importance of quantum inspired evolutionary algorithm for web document retrieval. As size of web increases day by day the popular methods for web document retrieval are taking much time thereby making users concerned about it. Our approach takes inspiration from evolutionary algorithms to model a mechanism which returns experimental results with acceptable accuracy. We have seen from trial results that after some time the general capacity of proposed strategy is superior to the best two most well known methods of web document retrieval. The primary bit of leeway of utilizing our proposed calculation is that its presentation doesn’t debase regardless of whether the search space is variable. Irrespective of whether search space is expanding or diminishing the exhibition doesn’t drop for our proposed procedure. We discuss comparative performance of the proposed technique with other popular techniques in this area and conclude the paper with future scope of fine tuning the performance of the proposed mechanism with addition other parameters effecting the performance in the mechanism. In future we intend to refine the propose system to suit diverse web prerequisites like customized web search and furthermore for web document retrieval from centralized server databases as well.
... In order to make the content published on the websites meaningful and usable, it can be said that it should be short, easy to review and aim-oriented, and users should have a simple and easy to understand language . Fang & Holsapple (2007) says that the major function of a website is to serve as a platform for companies and for users to gain information. ...
... In a dual study that evaluated e-learning systems' usability, this attribute was found to be the major obstacle that distracts students from achieving their goals (Guo, Wang, Moore, Liu, & Chen, 2009;Tee, Wook, & Zainudin, 2013). There is a direct link between the ease of navigation and the success of use of any website (Fang & Holsapple, 2007;Oztekin et al., 2009). Effectively navigating the architecture of an e-learning system is viewed as a vital condition that students encounter when they set out to accomplish learning tasks (Koohang & Du Plessis, 2004;Triacca, Bolchini, Botturi, & Inversini, 2004;Van Nuland, Eagleson, & Rogers, 2017). ...
This study considers the interaction between an e-learning system, the Blackboard system, and the students who use it in Saudi Arabia. While previous work exists, there is limited consideration of the assessment of the preferences of e-learning system usability variables based on students’ perspectives, especially in developing countries such as Saudi Arabia. This paper attempts to fill the gap by investigating the relative importance of the design criteria developed for e-learning system usability evaluation from the students’ perspective in Saudi tertiary education. Based on reviewed literature, a set of usability principles was developed that have had an influence in the students’ learning process and use of the e-learning system. The list includes system navigation, system learnability, visual design, information quality, instructional assessment and system interactivity. An exploratory study was carried out to identify the most important usability design characteristics from a student’s perspective and then evaluate the overall usability of the current e-learning system, based on this subset. A quantitative approach was adopted to weigh usability design characteristics, based on 181 learners’ perceptions. The sample consists of undergraduates who are users of a web-based e-learning system in a university in Saudi Arabia. The research instrument was tested for construct validity and reliability. The analysed results have shown that information quality is the most important dimension followed by the navigation of the e-learning system. The study has also revealed that the system learnability and visual design came third and fourth in order of importance of e-learning system usability assessment. Finally, the least important design categories that influenced the e-learning system usability assessment were instructional assessment and system interactivity. The empirical results of this study may help to provide insights for designers and evaluators leading to a more effective approach to improve the usability and uptake of the e-learning system.
... This may be because older adults typically have difficulty in finding navigation items (Etcheverry, Baccino, Terrier, Marquié, & Mojahid, 2012). Furthermore, previous studies have shown that older adults can maintain strong crystallized intelligence, causing them to focus more on the semantic meanings of content-oriented objects rather than on navigation items Fang & Holsapple, 2007). They can perform as well as younger users can regarding content-oriented searching. ...
... Kurumların kendi web sitelerinden bilgi edinmek isteyen kullanıcılara yüksek derecede kullanılabilirlik düzeyine sahip web siteleri tasarlayıp sunmaları etkin bir kullanım sağlanması açısından önemlidir (Fang & Holsapple, 2007). Eğitim kurumları geniş kullanıcı kitlelerine sahiptirler. ...
... Nesse sentido, segundo Aladwani & Palvia (2002), a construção de medidas de qualidade no contexto de websites é uma tarefa desafiadora, por ser um conceito complexo e de natureza multidimensional. A maioria dos estudos envolve características técnicas tais como velocidade de download (Palmer, 2002;Galletta et al., 2004;Gata & Gilang, 2017), segurança Braz et al., 2007), usabilidade (Bangor et al., 2008;Fang & Holsapple, 2007;Singh et al., 2016), qualidade do conteúdo (Agarwal & Venkatesh, 2002;Goldberg & Allen, 2008;Stoyanov et al., 2015) e características não técnicas, como estética (Pandir & Knight, 2006;Lindgaard et al., 2006;Stoyanov et al., 2015), confiabilidade (Seffah et al., 2006; e apelo visual (Kulviwat et al., 2007;Lindgaard, 2007). Entretanto, poucos estudos têm explorado a hierarquia das dimensões desses elementos, de modo que pouco se sabe sobre as relações entre as diversas escalas ou a construção global de uma escala para medir qualidade do website. ...
Resumo O presente artigo propõe um modelo multidimensional para medir a qualidade de websites comerciais com uso da Teoria da Resposta ao Item (TRI). A qualidade de um website engloba características técnicas (usabilidade/navegabilidade, apresentação da informação e interatividade) e não técnicas (design, estética, apelo visual, confiabilidade, hedonismo, imagem), configurando-se, teoricamente, como contexto multidimensional. As suposições iniciais das dimensões e elaboração dos itens foram baseadas em análise bibliográfica sobre o tema qualidade em websites de e-commerce. Um conjunto de 75 itens foi elaborado e uma amostra de 441 websites de e-commerce dos mais variados setores foi a ele submetido. O tratamento e análise dos dados foram feitos utilizando-se a TRI. Nessa etapa, foram discutidas questões referentes à dimensionalidade e à escolha do modelo mais adequado. Por fim, um modelo multidimensional com quatro dimensões foi ajustado contemplando as dimensões navegabilidade ou condução/orientação do usuário, acessibilidade e confiabilidade do sistema, interatividade e apresentação da informação.
Context: The usability software quality attribute aims to improve system user performance. In a previous study, we found evidence of the impact of a set of usability characteristics from the viewpoint of users in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. However, the impact level appears to depend on the usability feature and suggest priorities with respect to their implementation depending on how they promote user performance. Objectives: We use a family of three experiments to increase the precision and generalization of the results in the baseline experiment and provide findings on the impact on user performance of the Abort Operation, Progress Feedback and Preferences usability mechanisms. Method: We conduct two replications of the baseline experiment in academic settings. We analyse the data of 367 experimental subjects and apply aggregation (meta-analysis) procedures. Results: We find that the Abort Operation and Preferences usability mechanisms appear to improve system usability a great deal with respect to efficiency, effectiveness and user satisfaction. Conclusions: We find that the family of experiments further corroborates the results of the baseline experiment. Most of the results are statistically significant, and, because of the large number of experimental subjects, the evidence that we gathered in the replications is sufficient to outweigh other experiments.
Purpose
This study aims to evaluate the usability of Google Drive (GD) in addition to measuring the effectiveness of GD and the challenges faced while using this cloud storage application among public library users of Lahore.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a sequential explanatory mixed method design comprising the quantitative (QUAN) and qualitative (QUAL) parts. For the QUAN phase, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 384 users of public libraries through purposive sampling. For the QUAL phase, the think aloud technique was performed on several tasks during experiments and verbalized their thoughts and experiences while interacting with the system. The cloud usability model (CUM) was used to measure the “usability” of GD.
Findings
Findings indicated that most users were satisfied with GD's obvious features and inherent functions. QUAL results indicated that respondents did most tasks easily, whereas only some could complete the task.
Research limitations/implications
The study is valuable as it is the first time used CUM to measure the perceived usability of GD. Second, the study used a mixed method study to get insights into perceived usability, effectiveness and challenges while using GD. The findings might be helpful for cloud support teams, including GD, as they can enhance certain features of usability, which lead to increased usage among users.
Originality/value
This research work is based on MPhil thesis.
This study aims to examine the effect of trust, ease of use, and consumer shopping satisfaction on the repurchase intention of Shopee users in Indonesia. The data analysis technique in this study was the Structural Equation Model (SEM) using Amos software version 26. The sampling technique used purposive sampling method with 200 respondents. Data collection was carried out by distributing online questionnaires using the Google form. The results of this study indicate that there is a positive influence of trust, ease of use, and consumer shopping satisfaction on repurchasing intention. Ease of use also has a positive and significant influence on consumer trust and shopping satisfaction at Shopee e-commerce.
Using a unique triangulation of a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative and observational techniques, this research investigated international student perceptions of the usability, interactivity and inclusiveness of a university website. The research was guided by the activity theory. Qualitative data were analysed to understand international student perceptions of usability and interactivity in relation to their intentions to use the university website. Additionally, findings established the significance of making university websites more inclusive as international students continue to face increasing uncertainties owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and racial inequalities in the USA and worldwide. Observational methods provided methodological and data triangulation. This research offers guidance for future research on higher education digital learning tools based on integrated theoretical mixed methods and also provides managerial implications for academic institutions in the design of student-centred and inclusive websites.
Bu çalışmada Türkiye kaynaklı edebiyat sitelerinin değişik parametreler çerçevesinde değerlendirilmesi amaçlanmaktadır. Çalışmanın bütüncesi, Google arama motoru üzerinden edebiyat, edebiyat siteleri, Türkçe edebiyat siteleri ve benzeri farklı anahtar kelimeler aracılığıyla yapılan taramalar neticesinde bu bağlamda tasarlanmış ve ücretsiz ulaşılabilinen 14 etkileşimli edebiyat sitesinin derlenmesi yoluyla oluşturulmuş ve ardından söz edilen bütün siteler sırasıyla genel görünümleri, ağırlıklı yazın ve içerik türleri, site kurucuları, doküman türleri, site içi etkileşimleri, yardımcı araçlar ve ticari etkileşimleri bakımından olmak üzere 7 (yedi) farklı başlık altında incelenerek değerlendirilmeye çalışılmıştır. İnceleme neticesinde sitelerin; öncelikle görünüm olarak genellikle çağdaş bir arayüze sahip oldukları ve ağırlıklı yazın türü olarak da şiir ve öykülere yer verdikleri tespit edilmiştir. Bunun yanı sıra, sitelerin genellikle şahıs veya ekipler tarafından ya da anonim olarak kurulabildiği görülmekte, doküman türü olarak da tamamında metinlerin yer aldığı dikkat çekmektedir. Edebiyat sitelerinde yer alan yardımcı araçlar incelendiğinde ise “arama motoru” ve “üç adımda bulma” seçeneklerinin ise kullanıcılara hızlı erişim sağlaması bakımından sitelerin tamamında varlığı tespit edilmiştir. Son olarak, yine sitelerin tümünde günümüzde sıkça kullanılan sosyal medya etkileşimi ve sitelerin çoğunda ise ticari etkileşim özelliklerinin bulunduğu saptanmıştır.
Context: The usability software quality characteristic aims to improve system user performance. In a previous study, we found evidence of the impact of a set of usability features from the viewpoint of users in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. However, the impact level appears to depend on the usability feature and suggest priorities with respect to their implementation depending on how they promote user performance. Objectives: We use a family of three experiments to increase the precision and generalization of the results in the baseline experiment and provide findings regarding the impact on user performance of the Abort Operation, Progress Feedback and Preferences usability mechanisms. Method: We conduct two replications of the baseline experiment in academic settings. We analyse the data of 366 experimental subjects and apply aggregation (meta-analysis) procedures. Results: We find that the Abort Operation and Preferences usability mechanisms appear to improve system usability a great deal with respect to efficiency, effectiveness and user satisfaction. Conclusions: We find that the family of experiments further corroborates the results of the baseline experiment. Most of the results are statistically significant, and, because of the large number of experimental subjects, the evidence that we gathered in the replications is sufficient to outweigh other experiments.
An organization's website is a gateway to its information, products, and services. As such, it should be a reflection of the needs of the clients that it serves. Unfortunately, website design and development is often driven by technology or organizational structure or business objectives, rather than user needs. Since higher educational institutions have started to use their websites as a means of recruiting students, an effective website design emerged as a critical factor in attracting students. The usability factor is an extremely important aspect in an individual website as it ensures the survival of each institution in digital environment. In addition to the importance of website usability, the COVID-19 virus significantly increased the importance of websites, especially university websites. Website users and designers accept usability as major criteria in developing websites. If any institution website has poor usability, it is difficult to use, and visitors may turn to other institutions' websites.
There has been a rapid increase in ‘In-vehicle touchscreens’ usage over the last decade, particularly for information and entertainment functions. And because of the dynamic interface functionality, the touchscreen becomes a major attraction for the automobile industry. As a result, today most of the car manufacturer uses touchscreen instead of static push buttons. For display screen locations, there have been two legacy display locations in the car. One is a ‘Head-up display’ and ‘Head-down display’. Head- up display is similar to jet plans mounted on top of the instrument panel board and head- down display - located on the car console. However, the HUD position won't work for touchscreen devices since the touchscreen required direct touch input from the driver for which HUD location either blocking the road view or out of the driver's reach. Besides, there are numbers of possibilities for HDD locations to enhance driver’s interaction and driving experience.
In the research study, we are evaluating 8 different possible “in-vehicle touch-screen designs”. (2 HDD locations for touch screen display- Top & Middle, 2 different main menu layouts- Horizontal & Vertical, 2 screen mount positions- Fixed screen vs Tilted screen according to user preference). The study focused on assessing possibilities for different HDD locations within proximity of the driver. This experiment aims to find the
most effective and efficient touchscreen position with the least possible discomfort and distraction. Participants were instructed to perform a series of different Music, A/C, Seat control tasks on the developed In-vehicle infotainment prototype in the experiment. The experiment tasks were focused on controlled and real-life task-based scenarios.
Government websites are intended to provide government services to every citizen of the country; therefore, these websites should be easily usable, readable, and equally accessible on desktop and mobile devices to all. The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the usability, accessibility, and mobile readiness of Indian government websites. The analysis covered 164 government websites listed by government ministries for the delivery of e-services. Usability evaluation of websites was done on various quality parameters using automatic online tools. Compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.0 was evaluated using the online tool TAW. Further, the mobile readiness of the websites was investigated using the MobileOK online tool. The results indicate that many government service websites had low usability, the majority of the website does not follow WCAG 2.0 accessibility guidelines, while none was usable and fully accessible on mobile devices.
Web sitelerinin kullanılabilirliği, kurumun imaj ve kalitesi için vazgeçilmez unsurdur. Tasarım ve içerik açısından web sitelerinin kullanıcıların ilgisini çekmesi önemlidir. Kullanıcı deneyimleri ve yorumlarıyla birlikte web sitelerindeki eksiklerin fark edilmesi ve buna yönelik iyileştirmelerinin yapılması gerekmektedir. Bu çalışmada, İçişleri Bakanlığı Göç İdaresi Genel Müdürlüğü E-İkamet web sitesinin yabancı uyruklu öğrencilerin kullanımı açısından kullanılabilirliğinin tespiti amaçlanmıştır. Araştırma, nicel araştırma yöntemlerinden tarama araştırmasına göre desenlenmiştir. Araştırmanın evrenini Kocaeli ve İstanbul’da eğitim görmekte olan yabancı uyruklu öğrenciler oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmanın örneklemini ise kolay ulaşılabilir örnekleme yöntemi ile seçilen 307 yabancı uyruklu oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada veri toplama aracı olarak Vildan ve Karaca tarafından Türkçeye tercümesi yapılıp geçerlilik güvenirliği yapılmış 5’li likert tipinde 20 sorudan oluşan “Website Analysis and Measurement Inventory” anketi kullanılmıştır. Ölçeğin alpha güvenirlik katsayısı 0.72 olup bu araştırmada 0.80 çıkmıştır. Verilerin analizinde
öğrencilerin kişisel bilgilerini belirlemede betimsel istatistik yüzdelik frekansı, Web sitesi kullanılabilirliği maddeleri açısında betimsel istatistikten aritmetik ortalama ve standart sapma, cinsiyete göre farklılığı belirlemek için bağımsız örneklem t-test, eğitim durumu ve Türkiye’de kalma durumuna göre farklılığı belirlemek için tek yönlü varyans analizi (ANOVA) kullanılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda web sitesinde gezinmenin zor, sitenin yavaş ve kullanıcıyı rahatsız edecek bazı özelliklere sahip olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Değişkenler açısından bakıldığında, cinsiyete göre anlamlı fark çıkmamıştır. Eğitim durumu açısından doktora ve yüksek lisans eğitimi alan öğrencilerin Türkçe hazırlık okuyan öğrencilere göre web sitesini daha iyi kullandıkları sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Türkiye’de ikamet etme süresi açısından bakıldığında 0-1yıl, 2-4yıl, 5-8yıl arası Türkiye’de ikamet eden öğrencilerin 9 yıl ve üstü Türkiye’de ikamet eden öğrencilere göre siteyi daha etkin kullandıkları görülmüştür.
Purpose
Online cart abandonment is a severe issue posing challenges to e-commerce growth. Emerging economies such as India fascinates global marketing practitioners because of favorable demographics and high levels of internet penetration. This study aims to consider the role of certain exogenous factors in developing shopping motivations that sequentially mediate to online purchase completion through impulsiveness under risk perceptions. The primary motivation behind this study is to understand the mental mechanism among online customers that develop purchase completion intentions, which prevent cart abandonment significantly.
Design/methodology/approach
Impact of e-commerce exogenous factors related to e-commerce such as website attributes, product features, promotional excellence and decision-making easiness on shopping motivations, impulsiveness and purchase completions intentions under the moderating effect of risk was estimated from the perceptions of Indian online customers ( n = 243) using variance-based structural equation modeling and SPSS process macro v.3.0.
Findings
The most important exogenous variable that can influence purchase completion directly, sequentially through shopping motivations is decision easiness and promotions. Even though utility motivations are dominant in purchase completion intentions, hedonistic aspects are more critical in developing impulsiveness. The translation of impulsiveness to purchase completion is happening, but risk perception significantly moderates impulsiveness formation.
Research limitations/implications
Theoretically, this study examined online purchase completions being the most sought response by a customer to various stimuli in e-commerce. The study adopted a moderated mediation analysis in which shopping motivations and impulsiveness were mediators and risk as moderator. The interaction effect of risk on purchase completions was significant even when the mediating effects were prominent.
Practical implications
Contributes to the current knowledge-related online buying behavior in virtual retail formats and helps marketers in streamlining their focus in using impulsiveness as a strategic tool in reducing cart abandonment.
Originality/value
This study helps in understanding emerging trends in online buying behavior in India.
Competition has been significantly increasing in all the fields of business due to globalization. As the internet has become one of the preferred information and communication technologies, presence of companies on the internet has become increasingly important. In particular, web presence for banking industry is extremely significant. Although website usability for banking industry has been commonly examined, there are no studies comparing design performance of banking websites with respect to functional requirements which must be satisfied. For this purpose, axiomatic design method is used to analyze design characteristics of banking websites. Axiomatic design differs from the other multi-criteria decision making techniques in such a way that it takes both what designers want to achieve and what the system can offer into account to evaluate the probability of success of a design. The main advantage of utilizing Pythagorean fuzzy sets is that it enables decision makers to have more freedom for assigning membership and non-membership values. Therefore, Pythagorean fuzzy sets extension of axiomatic design is utilized in this study. In the application section, the website designs of Turkey’s leading banks is analysed. This study shows that none of them, except for the second alternative, satisfy all functional requirements.
Through a literature review, this paper proposes an assessment framework to evaluate environmental open data in urban platforms under the data life cycle approach. For this purpose, a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators has been defined for each of the stages of the data life cycle: acquisition, access, analysis, and application. As confirmation of the capabilities of this approach, we illustrate the results of its application in six data portals along with analyses, comparisons, and conclusions regarding the results. The cases reveal that an interest exists in providing environmental information, but the capability to transform the data information into knowledge relevant for cities is rather low.
This study examined undergraduate students’ satisfaction with the access to the University Library Websites. Through a survey research approach, the study distributed questionnaire to a sample of 54 final-year Library and Information Science undergraduate students selected from two Library schools in two different universities. Five research questions were answered and the results demonstrated that respondents are satisfied with the University Library Website, particularly the output (contents) followed by the accuracy of information on the Websites; respondents were mostly satisfied with the layout and design, and ease of navigation while mostly dissatisfied with the esthetic interface. Undergraduates visit their University Library Websites because they find it interesting relating with the librarians on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linkdl), accessed e-resources, and information related to their disciplines. University Library Website is useful as it provides help line, information/news that is enlighten and educating, for downloading material and for having frequently asked questions. Respondents most likely want to see being added to the Websites Information on scholarship, grants and sponsorship locally and internationally, resources, and referrals specific to relevant situations. The study recommended improvement of the esthetic interface of the University Library Websites to increase the level of satisfaction of the undergraduates with the Websites.
Design Based learning (DBL) as an educational approach which is emerging in primary education. Because of the limited availability of prescribed teaching materials for DR, learning activities are often developed by instructors themselves. However, it is often difficult for teachers to develop DBL activities. The paper investigates how primary school teachers can be supported in developing successful DR learning activities, in which pupils can develop both core curriculum objectives and 21st century skills. The research questions are: How can teachers be supported in the design of DBL activities aimed at concrete learning objectives? Are teachers able to apply the DBL creation tool as intended; to follow the design strategy offered, to reflect on the DBL activities using the tool and to improve the design iteratively? Are teachers able to successfully develop DBL learning activities using the tool?
Purpose
Online search effort is routinely measured by the duration of visit at the website as obtained from clicksream data or surveys. Measuring search effort by the time spent at a website assumes that all consumers who search for the same duration obtain the same amount of information. This would be acceptable if all consumers possessed the same navigational ability. In practice, different consumers have different levels of ability to navigate a website. The purpose of this study is to find whether an individual’s navigational ability has an influence on visit duration and purchase likelihood.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use visit duration data from a real website which makes it possible to partition the visit duration into the times spent on relevant and irrelevant pages. The data were collected through an experimental study. The authors develop an empirical model, comprising hazard and choice models, to assess the relationship between navigational ability and elements of website usage.
Findings
A consumer with poor navigational ability spends more time searching on the Web and has lower purchase probability compared to a consumer with superior ability.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited to one data.
Practical implications
This research has managerial implications for website design, such as link-structure, appearance, size and the number of graphics.
Originality/value
This is the first study to research navigational ability’s influence on online consumer behavior.
As a website evolves to align with users' changing information needs and interests, its structure can outgrow the original design, accumulating links and pages in unanticipated places. This increases complexity to both web pages and the navigation structure, which could cause difficulty in locating relevant links and information. Though the increasing complexity of website and its impact on users' psychological perception have been anecdotally well-recognized, the need to address it with a formal and rigorous method is understudied in the literature. This paper is one of the first studies to examine how to streamline website structures to enhance user navigation. We use a widely used metric in the literature - a page's outdegree (the number of links in a page) - as the measurement for complexity, because it not only serves as a good proximity for page complexity but also has a significant implication on website structure. We propose a method based on mathematical programming (MP) model that can significantly reduce users' cognitive load by effectively eliminating appropriate links from pages with high complexity. We have performed extensive experiments on both a real dataset and very large synthetic datasets with statistical similarities to the real dataset. The results indicate that our method not only significantly reduces web page and structure complexity with very small impact to user navigation, but also can be effectively solved and scales up remarkably well, suggesting it is useful for website maintenance on a progressive basis. In addition, we conduct a study to evaluate the performance of streamlined website structures using the real dataset and the results confirm the validity of our method.
This paper presents a virtual classroom laboratory experiment involving real users. The main aim was to test the effects of two multimedia system configurations with a different degree of interactivity on usability aspects, socio-relational context and learning performance. Results confirm the effectiveness of the multimedia system both in terms of technical and psychological features. No difference between the two configurations was detected for usability and socio-relational factors while learning performance increased in the less interactive configuration. This suggests that for a specific task and for specific learners, less interactive configurations are preferable as they require less technological and training resources. Results are also discussed in terms of the implications for the basic features of multimedia systems used in the virtual classroom and on the correct procedures for training teachers and learners in the use of the equipment.
The theory of interface involvement is used to analyze the influence of physical-medium and content-presentation interfaces on consumer response. Consumer responses to print and Web-based catalog stimuli are examined. The results support interface-involvement theory, which holds that a print physical-medium interface is more effective than a Web-based physical-medium interface in stimulating consumer involvement with retailer offerings and a positive consumer response. They also indicate that media vividness and other elements of the content-presentation interface employable on a Web site stimulate higher levels of consumer involvement with retailer offerings and a more positive consumer response than a content-presentation interface of direct on-line replication of printed material. The implications for academics and practitioners are discussed.
Bodies such as the World Wide Web Consortium and the US Congress have advanced recommendations intended to make Information Technology more accessible to impaired users. These include guidelines specifically intended for the cognitively challenged, such as people with Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, there is little research evidence to date demonstrating the value of complying with these guidelines. In this paper, we introduce a four-element, theoretical framework and outline a research agenda that identifies important considerations for developers of website interfaces for those with AD. This Website Accessibility Framework may be used as the basis for investigating the impacts of interfaces with differing degrees of guideline compliance, ranging from no compliance to full compliance, on people with AD.
Internet and World Wide Web technologies provide the infrastructure for the Electronic Commerce (e-Commerce) revolution now taking place. As a result of these technologies, even the smallest organization can afford to market its wares to hundreds of millions of potential e-Consumers. However, these technologies also pose threats to the very electronic commerce which they enable. For managers to strategize and implement e-Commerce effectively in their organizations, these impediments need to be recognized and understood. While hundreds of articles identify problems with Internet computing or conducting e-Commerce, no unified framework of technological impediments specific to e-Commerce yet exists. Communications of AIS Volume 1, Article 16 3 Current Technological Impediments to B2C Electronic Commerce by Rose, Khoo, and Straub The goal of this paper is to identify the primary technological impediments to e-Commerce. Six categories of technological impediments have been identified. Those which appear to pose the greatest threats to the development of e-Commerce are: (1) download delays, (2) limitations in the interface, (3) search problems, (4) inadequate measurement of Web application success, (5) security (real and perceived) weaknesses, and (6) a lack of Internet standards. Associated costs, threats, and limitations specific to e-Commerce are also identified and implications explored. The paper concludes with an assessment of ways to mitigate these obstacles, including design choices, workarounds, and emerging technological solutions. A bibliography of 296 relevant trade press articles is included following the references.
Despite the increasing popularity of electronic commerce, there appears to be little evidence of the methodical evaluation of the usability of commercial web sites. The usability of a web site defines how well and how easily a visitor, without formal training, can interact with the site. This paper reports the results of a research project, which applies a systematic qualitative technique known as protocol analysis or think aloud method, to examine the usability of a commercial web site. About 15 usability principles and 3 evaluation parameters (content, navigation and interactivity) were used as a framework to analyze the verbal protocols of a sample of users interacting with a greeting card web site. The protocols provided evidence of usability problems caused by crowded content, poor navigation and cumbersome interactivity. These results underscore the importance of two crucial usability goals for commercial web sites: clear path to products and transparency of the ordering process.
A general theoretical model of tasks is presented in which the three essential components of all tasks are products, (required) acts, and information cues. These components are defined and are then used to derive three analytical dimensions of task complexity: component complexity, coordinative complexity, and dynamic complexity. Various indexes which can be used in the quantification of these constructs are also presented. Two examples which illustrate the calculation of some of the indexes for a relatively simple task and a relatively complex task are presented and the relationship between task complexity and task performance is briefly discussed.
Most research on information presentation is based on the rational approach to display design. This approach assumes that the quality of displays is determined by their relative efficacy to provide the relevant information for the viewer, as assessed through variables such as response latency, accuracy, or decision quality. However, presentations often are intended to convince viewers and create desired impressions. These considerations may lead to the choice of displays that differ from those prescribed by the rational approach. Three experiments addressed the degree to which the presenter's objectives and the desirability of the presented information affect presenters' preferences for display formats. Presenters exhibited different preferences when they tried to create a favorable impression compared to when they tried to reach optimal decisions or provide information for optimal decision making by others. There was an increased use of depth in graphic displays when impressions were crucial, and this tendency was particularly strong when the presented information was undesirable for the presenter. The results demonstrate the importance of understanding the social circumstances of information presentation when evaluating the adequacy of display formats.
In 1992, DeLone and McLean suggested that the dependent variable for information systems (IS) research is IS Success. Their research resulted in the widely cited DeLone and McLean (D&M) IS Success Model, in which System Quality, Information Quality, Use, User Satisfaction, Individual Impact, and Organizational Impact are distinct, but related dimensions of IS success. Since the original IS Success Model was published, research has developed a better understanding of IS success. Meanwhile, comprehensive and integrative research on the variables that influence IS success has been lacking. Therefore, we examine the literature on the independent variables that affect IS success. After examining over 600 articles, we focused our attention on integrating the findings of over 140 studies. In this research, we identify 43 specific variables posited to influence the different dimensions of IS success, and we organize these success factors into five categories based on the Leavitt Diamond of Organizational Change: task characteristics, user characteristics, social characteristics, project characteristics, and organizational characteristics. Next, we identify 15 success factors that have consistently been found to influence IS success: Enjoyment, Trust, User Expectations, Extrinsic Motivation, IT Infrastructure, Task Compatibility, Task Difficulty, Attitudes Toward Technology, Organizational Role, User Involvement, Relationship with Developers, Domain Expert Knowledge, Management Support, Management Processes, and Organizational Competence. Finally, we highlight gaps in our knowledge of success factors and propose a road map for future research.
In the usability testing of Web sites, thinking aloud is a
frequently-used method. A fundamental discussion, however, about the
relation between the use of different variants of thinking aloud and the
evaluation goals for this specific medium is still lacking. To lay a
foundation for this discussion, I analyzed the results of three
usability studies in which different thinking-aloud tasks were used: a
simple searching task, an application task and a prediction task. In the
task setting, the profile of the Web surfer, the communication goal of
the Web site and other quality aspects are taken into account. The
qualitative analysis of these studies shows that the task variation has
some influence on the results of usability testing and that,
consequently, tasks should be matched with the evaluation goals put
forward
Due to the development of Web technology and interdependency between organizations and customers, organizations are using Web sites as a mechanism to enable and facilitate knowledge acquisition (KA). A user can acquire knowledge that a sponsor offers via a Web site. Conversely, s sponsor can acquire knowledge that a user offers via a Web site. This paper introduces a set of propositions that can underlie efforts to develop a KA framework for guiding and studying Web site design. The propositions identify four major elements (user features, sponsor features, system features, and environmental features) as the main determinants of a Web site’s usability for KA.
A number of proposals have been advanced in recent years for the development of “general systems theory” which, abstracting from properties peculiar to physical, biological, or social systems, would be applicable to all of them. We might well feel that, while the goal is laudable, systems of such diverse kinds could hardly be expected to have any nontrivial properties in common. Metaphor and analogy can be helpful, or they can be misleading. All depends on whether the similarities the metaphor captures are significant or superficial.
Hypertext documents are unlike traditional text for not only do they represent a computer-based medium, but also readers can process the hypertext in a nonlinear, random access fashion. The ability to navigate through hypertext sometimes presents individuals with difficulty perhaps because these readers do not possess adequate domain knowledge or interest in the topics encountered. This study was designed to inspect the navigational profiles of participants as they process a hypertext document. Using cluster analysis, three performance profiles emerged: 1) knowledge seekers, 2) feature explorers, and, 3) apathetic hypertext users. Analyses demonstrated that domain knowledge seems to differentiate among the cluster groups. Results indicated that students who are interested in computers and hypertext but who do not possess relevant amounts of domain knowledge aligned with the text material experienced difficulty when trying to comprehend hypertext. Implications for learning, assessment, and teaching are discussed.
The controversy over using college students as subjects in applied research has been a topic of philosophical discourse and empirical investigation. Thirty-two studies are reviewed in which students and nonstudents participated as subjects under identical conditions. In studies reporting statistical tests of between-group differences, the preponderance of findings indicated that the experimental results differed in the two samples. By contrast, no major differences associated with the type of subject were reported in the majority of studies which did not employ statistical procedures to compare the findings in the two samples. Explanations for differences in the sample are offered, and serve as a basis for recommendations for future research.
Hypertext systems parse documents into components connected by machine-supported links. This study investigated several usability issues relating to linking configurations in an information retrieval application. A HyperCardTM-based geography data base was used as the information domain. Linear, hierarchical, network, and combination hierarchical/network linking were of particular interest. In addition, the number of required links (two, four, or six links to reach the answer) and task type were the task variables studied. Task type refers to expert programmers' judgments as to whether a task is best suited to a hierarchical or network linking configuration. The intention was to identify the task situations under which each linking structure excels. Results indicated that users of the hierarchical linking structure performed significantly better than those using network linking (on average requiring 49 s less per task). Subjects using the combination condition performed no worse than those using the hierarchical condition, yet the combination condition provided no consistent advantages. Hence, for novice users of a system, no performance gain results from the inclusion of network links (in isolation or in combination with hierarchical).
Presents evaluation criteria for Internet and World Wide Web resources. Scope, content, graphic and multimedia design, purpose and audience, reviews, workability, and cost are discussed; criteria used by Internet evaluation sites are listed; and an annotated list of 10 evaluation sites on the Web is appended. (LRW)
Describes a study of college freshmen that investigated the effects of navigation maps and learner cognitive styles on performance in searches for information, on cognitive map development, and on attitudes, within a hypertext learning system. Results indicate map type has significant effects on students' search steps, efficiency, and development of cognitive maps. (Author/LRW)
A general formula (α) of which a special case is the Kuder-Richardson coefficient of equivalence is shown to be the mean of
all split-half coefficients resulting from different splittings of a test. α is therefore an estimate of the correlation between
two random samples of items from a universe of items like those in the test. α is found to be an appropriate index of equivalence
and, except for very short tests, of the first-factor concentration in the test. Tests divisible into distinct subtests should
be so divided before using the formula. The index
[`(r)]ij\bar r_{ij}
, derived from α, is shown to be an index of inter-item homogeneity. Comparison is made to the Guttman and Loevinger approaches.
Parallel split coefficients are shown to be unnecessary for tests of common types. In designing tests, maximum interpretability
of scores is obtained by increasing the first-factor concentration in any separately-scored subtest and avoiding substantial
group-factor clusters within a subtest. Scalability is not a requisite.
Knowledge-based organizations are hosts for multitudes of knowledge management (KM) episodes. Each episode is triggered by a knowledge need and culminates with the satisfaction of that need (or its abandonment). Within an episode, one or more of the organization’ processors (human and/or computer-based) manipulate knowledge resources in various ways in an effort to meet the need. This paper identifies and characterizes a generic set of elemental knowledge manipulation activities that can be arranged in a variety of patterns within KM episodes. It also indicates possible knowledge flows that can occur among the activities. This descriptive framework was developed using conceptual synthesis and a Delphi methodology involving an international panel of researchers and practitioners in the KM field. The framework can serve as a common language for discourse about knowledge manipulation. For researchers, it suggests issues that deserve investigation and concepts that must be considered in explorations of KM episodes. For practitioners, the framework provides a perspective on activities that need to be considered in the design, measurement, control, coordination, and support of an organization’ KM episodes.
When people try to understand complex physical devices (e.g., a sewing machine), they proceed in an iterative fashion. They seem to reach several points at which they claim to “understand” the device. Each point of understanding is incomplete and requires a new level of understanding. As a result, they cycle between understanding and non-understanding as they traverse different levels. The present study provides a framework to capture the iterative nature of understanding. These points are discussed and illustrated through observations of three pairs of people constructively interacting to understand how a sewing machine works. In addition to the iterative search for understanding, the conceptual point in space from which the speaker appeared to be viewing the machine was important. This conceptual point of view (C-POV) was reflected in their use of language. The C-POV appeared to be stable during points of understanding and to shift frequently at points of non-understanding.
Consistent user interfaces across applications are thought to facilitate transfer of learning because a user can draw on existing knowledge when using a new application. But despite the interface consistency guidelines and standards that are based on transfer of learning assumptions, few studies have investigated the effects of interface consistency, especially when a user interacts with multiple applications. The user's knowledge of a computer application is often described as a mental model. This study tested whether the consistency of the user interface across applications affects mental-model development when a user learns and uses multiple applications. One hundred and fourteen participants learned two prototype cooperative work applications in a controlled laboratory setting. Interface consistency across applications was manipulated for two attributes commonly referred to in interface design guidelines: the visual appearance of the display screen and the action language syntax. As hypothesized, inconsistent action language syntax across applications resulted in more user actions to complete tasks. Inconsistent visual appearance, however, resulted in greater accuracy, which was surprising. This study provides support for the consistency guideline for action language syntax, but a distinctive visual appearance rather than a consistent one might help the user form more accurate mental models when initially learning multiple applications. Schema theory is used to explain both the expected and the unexpected results. Implications and promising research directions are proposed.
In this study we examined the effects of 3 hypertext topologies—hierarchical, nonlinear, and mixed (hierarchical structure with cross referential links)—on the navigation performance of participants with high and low prior knowledge of the text topic. After reading the text, participants used the document to find the answers to 10 questions. After a filled distraction period, participants returned to the document to answer 10 more questions. The results showed that participants in the mixed condition performed better than those in the other 2 conditions and that the performance of knowledgeable participants was superior to that of nonknowledgeable participants. These results are discussed in relation to the ways in which text structure interacts with background knowledge of the user in enhancing or impeding performance. Actual or potential applications of this research include the design and implementation of hypertext systems for users with different levels of familiarity with the subject matter of the text.
Usability engineering aims at improving interactive systems and their user interfaces, Defined slightly more precisely, usability is a general concept that cannot be measured but is related to several usability parameters that can be measured. The metastudy presented later in this article did find that preference and performance were positively associated in most cases. Even so, most computer professionals probably know of cases where users did not prefer the system that would seem to be better based on the objective performance measures.
In an effort to reduce navigation difficulties, recent research suggests that user characteristics need to be considered when designing a hypertext document. This study evaluated the effects of an individual's cognitive characteristics in conjunction with the nature of the hypertext task. Subjects of varying levels of knowledge and cognitive style, specifically field independence/field dependence, utilized a hypertext document to answer explicitly and inherently structured questions. Among other findings, experienced field‐dependent subjects’ performance was less than that of experienced field‐independent subjects’, specifically when explicit structure was provided. The results suggest that the existing knowledge structure of experienced field‐dependent subjects may conflict with explicitly structured hypertext. Implications for the appropriate design of hypertext systems are discussed.
Information privacy has been called one of the most important ethical issues of the informa-tion age. Public opinion polls show rising levels of concern about privacy among Americans. Against this backdrop, research into issues associated with information privacy is increasing. Based on a number of preliminary studies, it has become apparent that organizational practices, individuals' perceptions of these practices, and societal responses are inextricably linked in many ways. Theories regarding these relationships are slowly emerging. Unfortunately, researchers attempting to examine such relationships through confirmatory empirical approaches may be impeded by the lack of validated instruments for measuring individuals' concerns about organizational information privacy practices. To enable future studies in the information privacy research stream, we developed and validated an instrument that identifies and measures the primary dimensions of individuals' concerns about organizational information privacy practices. The development process included examinations of privacy literature; experience surveys and focus groups; and the use of expert judges. The result was a parsimonious 15-item instrument with four sub-scales tapping into dimensions of individuals' concerns about organizational information privacy practices. The instrument was rigorously tested and validated across several heterogenous populations, providing a high degree of confidence in the scales' validity, reliability, and generalizability.
The abundance of information on the World Wide Web has thrilled some, but frightened others. Improved web site design may increase users' successful experiences and positive attitudes. This review of design issues identifies genres of web sites, goals of designers, communities of users and a spectrum of tasks. Then an Objects/Actions Interface Model is offered as a way to think about designing and evaluating web sites. Finally, search and navigation improvements are described to bring consistency, comprehensibility and user control.
In interacting with the world, people form internal representations or mental models of themselves and the objects with which they interact (Norman, 1983a). According to Norman, mental models provide predictive and explanatory powers for understanding the interaction. More abstractly, Gentner and Stevens (1983) propose that mental models focus on the way people understand a specific knowledge domain. More concretely, Carroll (1984) views mental models as information that is input into cognitive structures and processes. What are mental models? Are they always formed? When formed, what are their characteristics? What are the functional consequences of having no model (if that is possible), an immature model, or a mature model? This paper intends to explore these questions.
Contemporary information technology—(IT)-related research has focused on use or user acceptance as a key dependent measure for valuing IT. By understanding the determinants of IT use, we gain descriptive information about successful IT, and prescriptive information for better deploying IT resources and improving their utility. Although there are several competing theories regarding IT use, research findings often cite their inability to account for temporal changes in usage behaviors. Furthermore, contemporary human–computer interaction perspectives often focus on the robust and growing literature surrounding usability and likeability; however, few studies have provided insight into the components of, or antecedents to, the utility dimension. This research attempts to address these gaps by introducing the construct of users'quality of experience as a potential mediator between the determinants of use and actual usage behaviors and their outcomes. A pilot survey concerning Internet usage generated potentially relevant items which were later refined into a questionnaire assessing each item's relative importance to perceptions of quality of experience. Initial indications suggest 10 of the items represent a temporally stable and unidimensional construct. Findings are also interpreted within the context of IT and cognitive/behavioral science perspectives, further providing for face validity of the quality of experience construct.
Web sites provide the key interface for consumer use of the Internet. This research reports on a series of three studies that developand validate Web site usability, design and performance metrics, including download delay, navigability, site content, interactivity, and responsiveness. The performance metric that was developed includes the subconstructs user satisfaction, the likelihood of return, and the frequency of use.
Data was collected in 1997, 1999, and 2000 from corporate Web sites via three methods, namely, a jury, third-party ratings, and a software agent. Significant associations between Web site design elements and Web site performance indicate that the constructs demonstrate good nomological validity. Together, the three studies provide a set of measures with acceptable validity and reliability. The findings also suggest lack of significant common methods biases across the jury-collected data, third-party data, and agent-collected data.
Results suggest that Web site success is a first-order construct. Moreover, Web site success is significantly associated with Web site download delay (speed of access and display rate within the Web site), navigation (organization, arrangement, layout, and sequencing), content (amount and variety of product information), interactivity (customization and interactivity), and responsiveness (feedback options and FAQs).
Web site usability is a critical metric for assessing the quality of a firm's Web presence. A measure of usability must not only provide a global rating for a specific Web site, ideally it should also illuminate specific strengths and weaknesses associated with site design. In this paper, we describe a heuristic evaluation procedure for examining the usability of Web sites. The procedure utilizes a comprehensive set of usability guidelines developed by Microsoft.
We present the categories and subcategories comprising these guidelines, and 7discuss the development of an instrument that operationalizes the measurement of usability. The proposed instrument was tested in a heuristic evaluation study where 1,475 users rated multiple Web sites from four different industry sectors: airlines, online bookstores, automobile manufacturers, and car rental agencies. To enhance the external validity of the study, users were asked to assume the role of a consumer or an investor when assessing usability. Empirical results suggest that the evaluation procedure, the instrument, as well as the usability metric exhibit good properties. Implications of the findings for researchers, for Web site designers, and for heuristic evaluation methods in usability testing are offered.
The author presents a conceptual framework through which comprehensive taxonomies of systems and systems problems are formulated, along with representative methods for dealing with individual classes of problems. A unique feature of the book is that the concepts, problems, and methods are introduced in the context of an architectural formulation of an expert system - the general system problem solver (GSPS) - designed to provide users of all kinds with computer-based knowledge and methodology. The skeleton of the GSPS taxonomy of systems is a hierarchy of epistemological types of systems. This epistemological hierarchy - a key concept in system science - makes it possible to capture the infinite variety of systems problems by a finite and rather small number of problem categories. The book is suitable as a textbook for a variety of courses dealing with fundamental systems concepts, major categories of systems problems, and selected methods for dealing with these problems at the first-year graduate or upper division undergraduate level. The book is also intended for practicing scientists and professionals in a wide range of disciplines, particularly those involved in multidisciplinary team projects. They will learn about modern developments in systems science, which may be utilized in their own work. In addition, the book should be a useful reference for researchers as well as practitioners in systems science and related fields on the one hand, and the area of expert systems on the other hand. Researchers will find in the book a rich source of underdeveloped research areas; practitioners will find in it some general methodological tools of broad applicability.
Ben Shneiderman again provides a complete, current, and authoritative introduction to user-interface design. Students will learn practical techniques and guidelines needed to develop good systems designs - systems with interfaces the typical user can understand, predict, and control. This third edition features new chapters on the World Wide Web, information visualization, and computer-supported cooperative work. It contains expanded and earlier coverage of development methodologies, evaluation techniques, and user-interface building tools. The author provides provocative discussion of speech input/output, natural-language interaction, anthropomorphic design, virtual environments, and intelligent (software) agents.
An empirical investigation of web site navigation structure, task complexity, and user domain knowl-edge level on web site usability
- X Fang
- C W Holsapple
X. Fang, C.W. Holsapple, An empirical investigation of web site navigation structure, task complexity, and user domain knowl-edge level on web site usability, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Service Operations and Logistics and Informatics, Beijing, Aug. 2005, pp. 10–12.
Web Site Usability, Charles River Media
- M Pearrow
M. Pearrow, Web Site Usability, Charles River Media, Rockland, MA, 2000.
The effect of navigation map types and cognitive styles
- Chou
C. Chou, L. Lin, The effect of navigation map types and cognitive styles, Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia 7 (2/3) (1998) 177–206.
Usability-context, framework, definition, design and evaluation
- Shackle
B. Shackle, Usability-context, framework, definition, design and evaluation, in: B. Shackle, S. Richardson (Eds.), Human factors for Informatics Usability, 1991, pp. 21–37.
Methods for evaluating the usability of web-based systems
- Benbunan-Fitch
R. Benbunan-Fitch, Methods for evaluating the usability of web-based systems, Proceedings of the AIS, Aug. 1999, pp. 868–870.
The Complete Reference for Web Design
- T A Powell
T.A. Powell, The Complete Reference for Web Design, McGraw-Hill, Berkeley, 2000.