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Technology permeates the lives of today's college student like never before, making this generation of students much more technically savvy than previous ones. Nevertheless, college students are not always proficient in computer use as it relates to online learning and the use of course management systems (CMS). The effective use of this technology is critical as online class enrollments continue to grow. In the 2006 fall semester, over 3.5 million college students were enrolled in an online course, increasing 9.7% from the previous year and doubling in just 4 years (Allen & Seaman, 2007). College enrollments in general rose only 1.5% during the same period, which is a trend that is expected to continue (Allen and Seaman, 2007).
Accompanying the increased use of CMS are problems associated with user frustration. The anxiety students experience when problems interfere with attempting to complete online course requirements can have a ripple effect as more serious or ongoing issues reach other stakeholders like faculty, instructional developers, and possibly administrators (Dietz-Uhler, Fisher, & Han, 2007; Nitsch, 2003). The purpose of this study was to explore the value of implementing usability testing within a user-centered design framework to reduce the problems students experienced while interacting with an online course.
Literature Survey
Business and industry are well aware of the consequences of user frustration with products and constantly seek ways to circumvent consumer loss (Badre, 2002; Barnum, 2002b; Nielsen, 1993; Rosson & Carroll, 2002). Numerous approaches have been developed for improving product design. User-centered design (UCD) is touted in the literature as one of the most effective (Badre, 2002; Barnum, 2002b). With UCD, the user becomes central to product design and provides a genuine glimpse of the issues users experience while they interact with a product to improve its usability (Barnum, 2002b, 2007; Nielsen 1993, 1997a; Rubin, 1994).
A key component of the UCD process is usability testing, which has become the industry standard for measuring usability. Studies regarding the implementation of usability testing as part of a UCD framework for improving usability are numerous in the private sector and in some governmental entities, particularly the military (Gould, Boies, & Lewis, 1991; Gould & Lewis, 1985; Nielsen, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2000; Rubin 1994; Schneiderman, 1998). Unfortunately, academia has lagged behind in...