A Comparative Usability Study of Blackboard and Desire2Learn: Students’ Perspective

Abstract

Educational institutions currently favor the adoption and use of modern information and communication technology for teaching and learning. As a result, many Learning Management Systems (LMS), which are online, content-management systems specifically designed to fulfil this function, have been developed over the few years and established in education systems. This paper reports the results of a study that experimentally compared the usability of two LMSs: Blackboard (BB) and Desire2Learn (D2L), at Umm Al-Qura University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The comparison involved four points: the quantity and quality of usability problems discovered, effectiveness of the targeted systems, their efficiency, and users’ satisfaction. The results of the study revealed that there are significant differences between the two systems. The evaluation discovered a higher number of major usability problems on BB. Participants were also significantly faster in completing their tasks on D2L, made fewer errors and mouse clicks, and visited fewer pages to achieve the task on D2L than on BB. However, interestingly no difference was found between the two systems in terms of users’ satisfaction. Taken together, the findings suggest that appropriate customization of Blackboard should be considered in order to enhance its usability and meet the specific requirements of its end users at the current institution.