Abstract
AbstractWeb usability is a crucial feature of a website, allowing users to easily find information in a short time. Eye tracking data registered during the execution of tasks allow to measure web usability in a more objective way compared to questionnaires. In this work, we evaluated the web usability of the website of the University of Cagliari through the analysis of eye tracking data with qualitative and quantitative methods. Performances of two groups of students (i.e., high school and university students) across 10 different tasks were compared in terms of time to completion, number of fixations and difficulty ratio. Transitions between different areas of interest (AOI) were analyzed in the two groups using Markov chain. For the majority of tasks, we did not observe significant differences in the performances of the two groups, suggesting that the information needed to complete the tasks could easily be retrieved by students with little previous experience in using the website. For a specific task, high school students showed a worse performance based on the number of fixations and a different Markov chain stationary distribution compared to university students. These results allowed to highlight elements of the pages that can be modified to improve web usability.
Highlights
The usability of a website is crucial for its success
The lack of differences between performances of high school and university students was confirmed through the analysis of sequences of fixations in the main areas of interest (AOI) of the home page using Markov chain
Some tasks completed in a less efficient way by high school compared to university students point to specific pages that might benefit of some changes to make them easier to browse for users with no or little knowledge of the website
Summary
The usability of a website is crucial for its success. Every public or private institution needs a well-designed website to offer information and services to its users. When we think about the design of such websites, the ease of use should be one of the main features. The website should contain every useful information that a user might want to find, but it is important for this information to be arranged in an orderly and consistent manner. A good level of web usability allows a user who is browsing the web portal to find the information needed as quickly as possible. To assess if the interface of a website is intuitive and easy to use, many studies rely upon a measure defined as web usability, which is often evaluated only using ques-
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