Examining the Usability of the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Office of the Registrar Website

The rapid evolution of technology has increased the demand for universities to provide easily accessible information to students, alumni, faculty, and staff through various means of communication. One such mean is the university website that serves as the virtual face of the institution as well as an important resource for all users. At the University of Hawaii at Manoa, current and previous students heavily rely on the Office of the Registrar’s website to obtain accessible information regarding important documents such as transcripts, diplomas, graduation requirements, personal information changes, and more. Anecdotal feedback gained from frustrated customers included the lack of information, difficulty navigating the website, outdated aesthetic features, and more. As such, the purpose of this usability study was to analyze the navigational efficiency, organizational content, and user satisfaction for UH Manoa’s Office of the Registrar website. Based on feedback it appeared users favored aesthetically appealing webpages that incorporated eye-catching pictures and graphics, simplified information, menu bars, easily accessible links, and downloadable forms. Changes were made to the original website to address these preferences in order to improve the website as a whole. Original Module Website for 1st Round: http://justinla.wix.com/records Adjusted Module URL for 2nd Round: http://justinla.wix.com/registrars-offic

But is it Useful? Website Usability Testing of the UH STEM Education Website

This paper was presented at the Learning Design & Technology's TCC online conference in April 2016.The digital age has ushered in a time where users are instantaneously and continuously connected to the world at the touch of a screen. Having an online presence is the lifeline of an institution. It is therefore imperative that an institution’s website be easy to use, provide reliable information and be aesthetically pleasing to the user. Upon the creation of the new Office of STEM Education at the University of Hawai‘i, a website was immediately launched to provide information. However, as the office grew the website remained stagnant. Feedback from constituents focused on the lack of current and relevant information. The purpose of this usability study was to analyze, develop and evaluate the content, navigation and user satisfaction of the Office STEM Education website and to improve its efficiency for faculty and students at the University of Hawai‘i. Based on such feedback in the rapid prototyping and usability study changes were implemented on the website to improve the overall design and navigability

Design standards for icons: The independent role of aesthetics, visual complexity and concreteness in icon design and icon understanding

Icons play an important role in modern interfaces and therefore recent empirical research has focused on enhancing icon processing — that is, icon perception and icon function understanding. However, in existing sets, icons vary simultaneously across different icon characteristics, confusing the contribution of each to icon processing. We developed icon design principles for aesthetics, complexity, and concreteness, and used them to create 64 icons that varied independently along each characteristic. Participants reported the icon function and rated each icon in terms of aesthetics, complexity and concreteness. The manipulated characteristics had independent effects on icon processing, with two exceptions, for which we propose evidence-based solutions. Based on these findings we propose guidelines for designing icons for research purposes

Experimental Investigation on the Effects of Website Aesthetics on User Performance in Different Virtual Tasks

In Human-Computer Interaction research, the positive effect of aesthetics on users\u27 subjective impressions and reactions is well-accepted. However, results regarding the influence of interface aesthetics on a user\u27s individual performance as an objective outcome are very mixed, yet of urgent interest due to the proceeding of digitalization. In this web-based experiment (N = 331), the effect of interface aesthetics on individual performance considering three different types of tasks (search, creative, and transfer tasks) is investigated. The tasks were presented on an either aesthetic or unaesthetic website, which differed significantly in subjective aesthetics. Goal orientation (learning versus performance goals) was included as a possible moderator variable, which was manipulated by using different task instructions. Both aesthetics and goal orientation were a between-subject factor, leading to a 2 x 2 between subject design. Manipulation checks were highly significant. Yet the results show neither significant main effects of aesthetics and goal orientation on performance regarding both accuracy and response times in each of the three tasks, nor significant interaction effects. Nevertheless, from a practical perspective aesthetics still should be considered due to its positive effects on subjective perceptions of users, even as no substantial effects on user performance occurred in the present experiment

Design standards for icons: The independent role of aesthetics, visual complexity and concreteness in icon design and icon understanding

Icons play an important role in modern interfaces and therefore recent empirical research has focused on enhancing icon processing — that is, icon perception and icon function understanding. However, in existing sets, icons vary simultaneously across different icon characteristics, confusing the contribution of each to icon processing. We developed icon design principles for aesthetics, complexity, and concreteness, and used them to create 64 icons that varied independently along each characteristic. Participants reported the icon function and rated each icon in terms of aesthetics, complexity and concreteness. The manipulated characteristics had independent effects on icon processing, with two exceptions, for which we propose evidence-based solutions. Based on these findings we propose guidelines for designing icons for research purposes

Determination of Salient Design Elements Through Eye Movements, Aesthetics, and Usability

The goal of study 1 was to use a remote eye tracker to understand how eye movements change with 7 geometrically varied remote controls to determine design element saliency. 20 participants were used to measure the following eye metrics: number of fixations prior to first fixation of any AOI, time to first fixation of an AOI, number of fixations on an AOI, dwell time of the first fixation on an AOI, total dwell time of an AOI, and the percentage of time spent on an AOI. The results of the study showed that all participants spent between 75-85% of their time fixated on the button layout which was not defined as an AOI. No statistical differences were found in the values measured for all eye tracking metrics across similarly defined AOIs. In study 2, the objective was to determine attitudes towards appearance and usability of the 7 remote control designs using the participants from study 1. Participants were asked to rate their attitudes and preferences, using a Likert-based questionnaire, about the qualities of appearance and usability for the attributes of proportion, shape, and configuration. They were asked open-ended questions about their likes and dislikes regarding the qualities of appearance and usability. Lastly, participants were given a pairwise comparison survey where they chose their preferred remote design, based on appearance, for 10 paired sets of contrasting remote designs. The hourglass subjacent and hourglass round designs were rated highest for appearance and usability from the Likert questionnaire. The hourglass round design was ranked highest for the pairwise comparison survey. For study 3, the goal was to determine attitudes towards appearance and usability of the 7 remote designs with online participants. 300 participants were asked to rate their attitudes and preferences using the same Likert-based questionnaire from study 2. They were asked the same open-ended questions and administered the same pairwise comparison survey as in study 2. The results of the Likert questionnaire showed that the hourglass subjacent and hourglass round designs were rated highest for appearance and usability. From the pairwise comparison survey, the hourglass round design was ranked the highest

Product design methodology supporting aesthetic evaluation

Based on the fundamentals of visual art and function, this research has developed a product design methodology capable of quantification of the aesthetic qualities and proposing objective solutions to enhance the appearance related variables and characteristics of a product. The objective evaluation has been done via analysis of involuntary responses using eye-tracking data based on the visual perceiving process of design. The result confirmed the reliability of the methodology by generating constant results and a good match between the measured values and declared preference. In addition, the aesthetic enhancement methods based on quantified metrics with the sample designs have been provided. The result of the research suggests that eye-tracking technology is a reliable tool in aesthetic evaluation and has potential for further development

User judgements of the online world: factors influencing website appeal and user decision-making.

Websites are an integral part of everyday life but we rarely think about how their visual appeal shapes our responses to them. To understand this relationship, research has outlined a number of visual characteristics that may determine appeal. However, previous studies have often used small stimulus sets or made experimental assumptions about critical website characteristics without careful control, making findings difficult to interpret and generalise. Experiment 1 addressed this through creating a corpus of 480 website stimuli containing normative ratings of key characteristics responsible for website appeal. Subsequent studies employed this corpus, providing stimuli that were well controlled but still represented the wider domain. Experiment 2 examined the timescale of appeal judgements and the impact of verbal brand framing messages on these judgements. As expected, participants made rapid, reliable, judgements even when given only 500ms. However, exposure to positive brand framing had a negative effect on appeal ratings. A possible explanation is discussed in terms of brand placement prominence on consumer attitudes. In Experiment 3 participants evaluated the appeal of embedded website advertising in order to examine the impact of visual framing on appeal judgements. Advertisements were deemed more appealing when they appeared on appealing websites, although brand familiarity had a mediating role. Eye movements revealed a complex relationship between website and advertisement appeal and familiarity in determining where participants attended. In Experiment 4, website appeal judgements were compared between typical participants and participants with autism in order to examine the role of individual differences. Interestingly, despite careful manipulations few differences emerged. However, eye tracking data revealed ASD participants attended to detailed content more than their typical counterparts. The implications of this work are discussed and a revision to the model of aesthetic judgement (Leder et al., 2004) is proposed in order to account for the current findings. An information-processing model of website evaluations is presented which outlines the processes involved from making initial judgements of appeal through to later, long-term evaluations of a website