University Website Design: a Case Study of Princess Noura University in Saudi Arabia
Keywords:
Usability, website design, user centred design, design methods, University WebsiteAbstract
Abstract
The usability and satisfaction, of which users can achieve their expectations and needs from the website, are important in establishing a healthy communication between the university and its stakeholders. It is the designers’ role to facilitate the user’s task and ensure that the user is able to use the product as intended and with a minimum effort to learn how to use it. User involvement in the design process could enhance the designer’s understanding of the usability issues. This study presents a case study of Princess Noura University website. It aims to understand the current design practices implemented in the design of Princess Noura University website www.pnu.edu.sa and test its usability from the perspective of the users in order to provide recommendations for developing university websites. Data were collected using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches including:
1)WAMMI (Website Analysis and Measurement Inventory) , which was used as a tool to measure the usability of the website considering the five factors: attractiveness, controllability, elpfulness, efficiency and learn ability;
2)Usability tests of the website were conducted with students and faculty members considering the following factors: efficiency, readability, clarity and ease of use;
3)Semi structured interviews with the university web designers. The quantitative data of the interviews were analysed using NVIVO computed aided data analysis software.
The results revealed that three out of five factors negatively and non-significantly affect the website usability perception of Princes Noura University website users. They are as follows: attractiveness, helpfulness, and controllability. The results also indicated that user’s involvement in the design process of the Princess Noura University website is very poor and the website design is technology and business driven. Furthermore, the study discusses the possibility of enhancing the usability of the university website in terms of satisfying the users’ needs and expectations through the implementation of the user centred design approach.
