The Importance of Users’ Emotional Factors Related to Design of E-Learning Interface Using Kansei Analysis

Abstract

E-Learning is a popular information system used to facilitate learning activities without borders of time and place. Students, as users, play an important role in determining the design of an e-Learning system; incorporating the users’ emotional requirements into e-Learning development is therefore crucial. A user interface is a critical software component that acts as a bridge to facilitate interaction between users and the system. The design of the user interface must consider the users’ emotions in order to create a positive experience during the running of a software system. Kansei engineering is a methodology utilized to analyze users’ feelings towards the software user interface. The goals of this research are to implement Kansei engineering with coefficient correlation analysis in order to analyze and explore students’ emotional experiences in higher learning institutions and to identify the emotional factors related to the appearance of an e-Learning interface based on students’ learning experiences. Most e-Learning is considered based on its functional aspect, but this paper attempts to explore e-Learning based on its emotional aspect by discovering the relationship between the user interface and students’ emotional experience in e-Learning. The results found that Kansei was “excellent” for exploring students’ most critical emotional factors, which could have a significant impact on designing and implementing an e-Learning system using open-source software. The result could also be used as a recommendation for educational institutions when selecting an open-source learning management system as a platform for e-Learning.