20100922 - Fu, Usability Evaluation of Web Page Design

Usability evaluation of Web page design by Fu, Limin Paul, Ph.D., Purdue University, 1999 , 196 pages; AAT 9951955 My Interest: (1) Usability Evaluation conceptual model. (2) User Satisfaction conceptual model. (3) 3 or 5 Hypotheses – how to conclude "Supported" or "Not Supported." (4) Explore relationships of DV & IV. Action: To download the entire Dissertation from Proquest. Low priority – read specific parts of Dissertation in future. Usability Evaluation Conceptual Model Based on World Wide Web users' characteristics, a usability evaluation conceptual model for Web page design was proposed. The two dimensions of the model are usability evaluation methods and user's performance level. User Satisfaction Conceptual Model Based on the task characteristics on the World Wide Web and the usability components, a conceptual model for user's satisfaction was proposed. The three dimensions of the model are user's satisfaction, task type, and usability components. Hypotheses & Experimental Design Three hypotheses were proposed to test the conceptual models and three experiments were conducted with a total 102 subjects to test the models. The dependent variables in experiments were the number of usability problems identified, performance time, error rate, and questionnaire score of Usability for Web Page Design, satisfaction scores, and number of item in shopping cart. The independent variables were the usability evaluation method, interface type, apparent usability, inherent usability, and task type. Results Discussion The hypothesis that heuristic evaluation method is more effective than user testing in identifying usability problems associated with rule-based level of performance was supported, and for the skill-based level it was suggestively significant. The hypothesis that user testing is more effective than heuristic evaluation method in identifying usability problems associated with knowledge-based level of performance was supported. The hypothesis that the questionnaire of usability evaluation for Web page design has similar reliability and validity as the other usability questionnaires was not supported. The hypothesis that in searching task inherent usability is the main factor contributes to user's satisfaction was supported. The hypothesis that in browsing task apparent usability is the main factor contributes to user's satisfaction was not supported. Inherent usability was the main factor contributed to user's satisfaction in both searching and browsing task. Apparent usability has a suggestively significant contribution to user's satisfaction. Comments: It is acceptable that our research prediction/hypotheses is proven untrue or "not supported." Note: I have missed downloading the entire Dissertation.