Browsing by Author "SALEH, MUFTAH S. SAIED"
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WEB PRESENCE AND USABILITY OF UNIVERSITY WEBSITE: THE CASE OF LIBYA(2022-02-14) SALEH, MUFTAH S. SAIED; Toker, Sacip; Ertürk, Korhan L.Technology is still experiencing significant development in the area of communications and Internet services. Today’s commercial and educational institutions cannot compete in their field and gain new customers without an adequate online presence and satisfactory usability of their web portfolio. In this highly competitive world, websites are one of the main areas of interest for largescale organizations to increase their level of competitiveness. Some of the most important aspects of commercial websites are their visual esthetics and their usability from an end-user perspective, and therefore both of these aspects are developed and subsequently exploited in order to gain the satisfaction, confidence and ultimately the business of its target users. In the current research, two methods of study were followed: user testing and satisfaction survey. Usability assessment was conducted through interviews held with 61 Libyan students who were assigned to study at Turkish universities. The sample group were divided into two cohorts. Cohort 1 consisted of 31 participants who performed five predefined tasks in order to determine the ease of use and efficiency of Libyan universities’ websites. Analysis was performed of their task success rates, as well as the recording of participants’ observations. Cohort 2 consisted of 30 participants who carried out the same tasks as Cohort 1, but were then asked to complete a satisfaction questionnaire. The study aims to help Libyan universities to improve their web presence and to learn about common issues regarding the advantages and disadvantages found with these university websites in order that they can benefit from each other’s experiences. The choice of websites was based on the global classification of Webometrics. At the 2017 start of this research, four out of the top five universities in Libya, ranked according to the Webometrics ranking system, were selected for evaluation in the current study. So as to make a fair assessment, each participant was assigned five similar tasks to be performed on the Arabic language interfaces of the four selected Libyan universities’ websites. The survey consisted of a set of questions designed to prove the level of each websites’ effectiveness. At the beginning of the survey, the five tasks to be conducted by the participants were described based on the chosen university websites, and then the respondents are asked to complete the survey. Participants in Cohort 1 reported experiencing many problems in the usability of the websites, in addition they stated a failure to meet the end-user requirements, even though the phrases and words on the website were familiar to the participants. On the other hand, according to the participants’ observations and the method that they operated the selected universities’ websites, the participants found the most easy to use websites belonged to Misurata University and to the University of Tripoli, with the most difficult to use websites belonging to the Libyan International Medical University and the University of Benghazi. This result was also noticeable based on the length of time it took the participants to accomplish their tasks on each website. Results from both cohorts highlighted the weakness of presence of the Libyan universities’ websites. Participants in Cohort 2 were reportedly also dissatisfied with the Libyan universities websites as evidenced by their completion of the satisfaction survey.