Action-Based Help Technique To Improve Learnability And Understandability Of Web Applications
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Date
2014-02
Authors
Shamsuddin, Nurul Afiqah
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
The emergence of the Internet has created a tremendous demand for Web
applications. Acceptability of Web applications is heavily dependent on its usability
factor. A Web application is one of the platforms where users often experience
frustration. This frustration accumulates once they encounter difficulties to learn and
understand the functions after discovering the functions earlier. Learnability and
understandability are two crucial factors of usability. Thus, it is a challenge for Web
developers and designers to ensure that Web applications will continuously support
users’ understanding and learning processes. This research focuses on improving the
learnability and understandability of Web applications through an Action-Based
Help (ABH) technique. The proposed technique has been designed to capture users’
interactions on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) in order to determine which of the
functions that users require guidance. This technique also provides guidance through
a help system that uses video demonstration and tooltip technology to enhance users
understanding towards the functionality. A controlled experiment has been
conducted to evaluate its effectiveness in enhancing users’ understanding towards
Web functionalities. It was discovered that through the adoption of the proposed
technique, users are able to understand the functions better compared to the textbased
online help. Users also able to complete tasks given in shorter time and
obtained lower frequency in help accesses compared with text-based online help.
Description
Keywords
Learnability , Web Applications