Usability testing of conferences websites: A case study of practical teaching

Abstract

Usability testing is a key activity of the user interface design (UID) process and software development. The paper presents the results of evaluating the usability of international scientific conference website using heuristics evaluation proposed by Nielson. The selected website for scientific conference was a successful example of a case study that used in Human Computer Interface (HCI) course. Seven participants (i.e. students) registered in the HCI course were involved in this study and asked to play the expert’s role. The case study results show that UID is given less importance by website developers and designers. This study also resulted in a greater appreciation of UID from the students, as they presumed that designers implicitly apply heuristics and guidelines as a premise, which, in reality, is overlooked as resulted in this study. For practical implications, this study emphasizes that instructors need to incorporate real life examples in the classroom when teaching HCI course material in order to put the theoretical concepts into real practice. In addition, it asserts that applying heuristics and other UID guidelines should be applied as a core element of website development process. Furthermore, it provides directions to improve the usability of the conference website by solving the identified problems.