Assessing Interactive Web-Based Systems Using Behavioral Measurement Techniques

Considering the importance associated with e-commerce website accessibility and usability, a study on one of the most relevant Portuguese e-commerce websites has been performed using both automatic and manual assessment procedures. In an initial stage, we evaluated the chosen website with a Web accessibility and usability automatic tool called SortSite; after that, we performed a manual evaluation to verify each previously detected error and present possible solutions to overcome those faults. In a third phase, three usability specialists have been used to perform a heuristic evaluation of the chosen website. Finally, user tests with blind people were carried out in order to fully assess the compliance with accessibility and usability guidelines and standards. The results showed that the platform had a good score regarding the automatic evaluation; however, when the heuristic and manual evaluations were performed, some accessibility and usability problems were discovered. Moreover, the user test results showed bad marks regarding efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction by the group of participants. As a conclusion, we highlight user interaction problems and propose seven recommendations focused on enhancing accessibility and usability of not only the evaluated e-commerce website, but also of other similar ones.

The complexity of an electronic medication administration record (eMAR) has been underestimated by most designers in the past. Usability issues, such as poorly designed user application flow in eMAR, are therefore of vital importance, since they can have a negative impact on nursing activities and result in poor outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usability of an eMAR application during its development. A usability evaluation was conducted during the development of the eMAR application. Two usability methods were used: a heuristic evaluation complemented by usability testing. Each eMAR application version provided by the vendor was evaluated by 2 hospital pharmacists, who applied the heuristic method. They reviewed the eMAR tasks, detected usability problems and their heuristic violations, and rated the severity of the usability problems. Usability testing was used to assess the final application version by observing how 3 nurses interacted with the application. Thirty-four versions were assessed before the eMAR application was considered usable. During the heuristic evaluation, the usability problems decreased from 46 unique usability problems in version 1 (V1) to 9 in version 34 (V34). In V1, usability problems were categorized into 154 heuristic violations, which decreased to 27 in V34. The average severity rating also decreased from major usability problem (2.96) to no problem (0.23). During usability testing, the 3 nurses did not encounter new usability problems. A thorough heuristic evaluation is a good method for obtaining a usable eMAR application. This evaluation points key areas for improvement and decreases usability problems and their severity.

The importance of evaluating the usability of e-commerce websites is well recognised. User testing and heuristic evaluation methods are commonly used to evaluate the usability of such sites, but just how effective are these for identifying specific problems? This article describes an evaluation of these methods by comparing the number, severity and type of usability problems identified by each one. The cost of employing these methods is also considered. The findings highlight the number and severity level of 44 specific usability problem areas which were uniquely identified by either user testing or heuristic evaluation methods, common problems that were identified by both methods, and problems that were missed by each method. The results show that user testing uniquely identified major problems related to four specific areas and minor problems related to one area. Conversely, the heuristic evaluation uniquely identified minor problems in eight specific areas and major problems in three areas.

Combined Expert and User-Driven Usability Assessment of Trauma Decision Support Systems Improves User-Centered Design

Usability issues are vital components for online-based businesses. With Nigeria integrating electronic payment into its financial system coupled with rising internet penetration in the country, several businesses have created an online presence and are cashing in on the opportunities. This has created a form of online competition among e-commerce businesses. This study employs the user test method to test the usability issues associated with E-commerce websites in Nigeria and how this affects the success of e-commerce businesses. We find several usability issues with all e-commerce websites tested and a general need for user-focused improvement on all the websites. We also find the issues of security and trust as salient to expand the e-commerce business in Nigerians. Based on the result and analysis, recommendations on usability, data policy, security, registration and other vital issues are offered.

Introduction Usability evaluation is essential to make sure that software products newly released are easy to use, efficient, and effective to reach goals, and satisfactory to users. For example, when a software company wants to develop and sell a new product, the company needs to evaluate usability of the new product before launching it at a market to avoid the possibility that the new product may contain usability problems, which span from cosmetic problems to severe functional problems. Three widely used methods for usability evaluation are Think Aloud (TA), Heuristic Evaluation (HE) and Cognitive Walkthrough (CW). TA method is commonly employed with a lab-based user testing, while there are variants of TA methods, including thinking out aloud at user's workplace instead of at labs. What we discuss here is the TA method that is combined with a lab-based user testing, in which test users use products while simultaneously and continuously thinking out aloud, and experimenters record users' behaviors and verbal protocols in the laboratory. HE is a usability inspection method, in which a small number of evaluators find usability problems in a user interface design by examining an interface and judging its compliance with well-known usability principles, called heuristics. CW is a theory-based method, in which evaluators evaluate every step necessary to perform a scenario-based task, and look for usability problems that would interfere with learning by exploration. These three methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. For instance, TA method provides good qualitative data from a small number of test users, but laboratory environment may influence test user's behaviors. HE is a cheap, fast and easy-to-use method, while it often finds too specific and low-priority usability problems, including even not real problems. CW helps find mismatches between users' and designers' conceptualization of a task, but it needs extensive knowledge of cognitive psychology and technical details to apply. However, even though these advantages and disadvantages show overall characteristics of three major usability evaluation methods, we cannot compare them quantitatively and see their efficiency clearly. Because one of reasons why so-called discounted methods, such as HE and CW, were developed is to save costs of usability evaluation, cost-related criteria for comparing usability evaluation are meaningful to usability practitioners as well as usability researchers. One of the most disputable issues related to cost of usability evaluation is sample size. That is, how many users or evaluators are needed to achieve a targeted usability evaluation performance, for example, 80% of overall discovery rate? The sample size of usability evaluation is known to depend on an estimate of problem discovery rate across participants. The overall discovery rate is a common quantitative measure that is used to show the effectiveness of a specific usability evaluation method in most of usability evaluation studies. It is also called overall detection rate or thoroughness measure, which is the ratio of 'the sum of unique usability problems detected by all experiment participants' against 'the number of usability problems that exist in the evaluated systems', ranging between 0 and 1. The overall discovery rates were reported more than any other criterion measure in the usability evaluation experiments and also a key component for projecting required sample size for usability evaluation study. Thus, how many test users or evaluators participate in the usability evaluation is a critical issue, considering its cost-effectiveness.

This conceptual research paper aims to explore the integration of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and User Experience (UX) design in the context of website usability. With the increasing importance of websites in attracting and engaging users, understanding the relationship between SEO practices and UX design principles becomes crucial. This paper examines the potential benefits and challenges associated with integrating SEO and UX design, proposing a framework for optimizing website usability while enhancing search engine visibility. The conceptual exploration emphasizes the need to strike a balance between SEO and UX design to create user-centered websites that achieve high rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Visual clarity checking is one of the criteria to assess when performing heuristic evaluation (HE). HE, as we already aware, is a practice where the usability experts use their expertise and knowledge in assessing websites or systems. Whilst the practice is commonly performed manually, using tools in HE would theoretically assist the experts, but to what extent? This paper attempts to answer the posed question by performing a comparison study of a paired t-test or repeated measure t-test (within subject) between heuristic experts. They performed a HE on an e-commerce website under two conditions: normal HE method, and, HE assisted with Visual Clarity Checker (VC2) tool. The results of the experiment, shows the use of VC2 was helpful in issues compilation; as it does help the experts to at least find issues that are explicitly related to visual clarity of images and categorized them accordingly. But not all issues are incorporated in the final HE report, as the consideration is made by the experts. The feedback about the usage of the tool however are mixed, as the experts found it as time consuming to analyze the VC2 results.

Usability testing, part of the human-computer interaction problem, is a method commonly used to evaluate the performance of a website interface. Today's study of human-computer interaction is important. It is now developed into UI UX (User Interface / User Experience). The website interface can affect user satisfaction and is a principal factor in a website being liked by users and meeting user needs. When a website is first developed, it can be difficult for a developer to understand the need for a website interface that matches the user persona of that website. Therefore, this research is important as an evaluation material for websites that are developed in the context of a website interface to provide a satisfactory appearance according to user personas. This study evaluates a website by conducting a usability test using the ISO-9241 aspect and getting an average result of 50,967, which is categorized as a bad website is taken from all users in the experiment. This study can also prove the psychological factors of users that influence usability testing, namely differences in the perceptions of website ratings between users with normal and (mild, moderate, severe, too severe) psychological stress levels. Users with normal stress levels will have better usability test results than users with stress levels. This study shows better results than user ratings with a normal stress level of 73,750, so it is categorized as a reliable website.

An alternative solution for Indosport, considering the increasingly advanced smartphone development and also followed by the rapid growth of its users in Indonesia. The purpose of this study project is to produce a product in the form of a user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design in helping to realize targeted mobile applications and not forgetting to apply the principles of visual communication design namely unity and variety, hierarchy, contrast, proportion and balance. The UI and UX design methods go through several stages of work in sequence: pre-production process, production process, and post-production. This design results in UI and UX designs that are equipped with user flow, interface designs, illustrations and prototypes. The main page of the Indosport mobile application is News, Activity, Calendar, and Profile which later on these pages there are several features that are different from the previous page. The making of this UI uses several visual languages such as medium close up, full shot, long shot, close up and medium long shot in the image section contained in the article as well as the depiction of field styles used to almost all visual UI elements. Using several principles in design, namely time to learn, speed of performance, rate of errors by users, retention over time, and subjective satisfaction. The resulting design forms will be distributed directly to the Research and Development division and the IT division from Indosport to be made a native.

Recent research comparing usability assessment methods has been interpreted by some to imply that usability heuristic evaluation is no longer necessary because other techniques such as usability testing can find some usability problems more easily and cost-effective than heuristic evaluation. Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. Student portal service provides users with channels of information and resources needed for their studies this includes access to library service, course information, and materials. However, there are challenges that come with this development such as lack of effectiveness, efficiency, accuracy, and performance of the student portal service. This article provides information on usability assessment and testing on the student portal of University Utara Malaysia. The study was conducted using a l7 item questionnaire based on efficiency, effectiveness, performance, and accuracy of the student portal service. The result shows that more than 70% of the users are satisfied with student portal service and also agree to its efficiency and performance. This article will impact the designers and system developers by informing them about the views of a user on a performance of the portal and also give them the window for improvement.

Specific user interface guidelines are described to increase the usability of airline travel e-commerce Web sites. Although previous guidelines address the usability issue from the perspective of the sale of tangible products that can be described and depicted, less attention has been given to the usability issues for the sale of services. Service industries have different requirements for communicating with customers, specifically regarding their product offerings. This is prominent in the air travel industy, where Web site usability is known to be poor. We examine how the current guidelines are inadequate for Web sites providing air travel information. We propose specific guidelines for those sites that will enhance their usability.

Programing plays an important role in Computer Science (CS) students during their degrees. The study was conducted to evaluate the Microsoft visual studio programming tool to find out usability issues and provides the recommendations. The main goal of this research was to initiate dialog in the CS community to address usability issues can provide better interface to improve the usability of such kind of programming framework. It has been examined by evaluating qualitatively and quantitatively the interface with novice and expert users. Quantitative assessment is done in university with the help of usability testing in order to explore the usability problems of programming tool Visual Studio with the help of quantitative evaluation where satisfaction level is measured. System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire and After Scenario Questionnaire (ASQ) is used for the opinion of the participants after usability testing that help to improve the interface of the tool. Qualitative evaluation-usability inspection technique termed as heuristic evaluation is used by Nielson heuristics to improve the usability of the interface. Experiment was conducting at Bahria University Lahore campus in programing course lab under controlled environment. Overall SUS score was 48% of first semester bachelors of information technology (BSIT) students that is below the threshold satisfaction value which recommends that usability issues should be identified. Experts evaluated the interface by 10 Nielson heuristics and highlighted major and, minor issues. Proper interface was suggested by the experts to produce better result.

Despite the increased focus on usability and on the processes and methods used to increase usability, a substantial amount of software is unusable and poorly designed. Much of this is attributable to the lack of cost-effective usability evaluation tools that provide an interaction-based framework for identifying problems. We developed the user action framework and a corresponding evaluation tool, the usability problem inspector (UPI), to help organize usability concepts and issues into a knowledge base. We conducted a comprehensive comparison study to determine if our theory-based framework and tool could be effectively used to find important usability problems in an interface design, relative to two other established inspection methods (heuristic evaluation and cognitive walkthrough). Results showed that the UPI scored higher than heuristic evaluation in terms of thoroughness, validity, and effectiveness and was consistent with cognitive walkthrough for these same measures. We also discuss other potential advantages of the UPI over heuristic evaluation and cognitive walkthrough when applied in practice. Potential applications of this work include a cost-effective alternative or supplement to lab-based formative usability evaluation during any stage of development.

Heuristic evaluation is an informal method used to analyze the presentation of an interface design to several evaluators. Heuristic evaluation is done by conducting several interface tests and analyzing the interpretation of the interface. English Kids Talk application is an English learning application for elementary school children. Based on the test results on the initial version of the English Kids Talk Application, user interface improvements are essential. English Kids Talk (Ekids) application development of the Ekids application still does not pay attention to UX. However, User Experience improvements are also necessary, minimizing disruption to the comfort and loyalty of users English Kids Talk application. In this paper, we propose prototype recommendations with a low evaluation value that improving User Experience. A prototype recommendation will be generated that suits the user's needs. The result is usability testing and an interaction cost between the initial version of the English Kids Talk Application and the new version. The result shows higher interaction costs from the new English Kids Talk application than the old one. Usability testing of the new English Kids Talk application is better than the old one.