WEB USABILITY STUDY: A REVIEW

摘要

Usability study yields fruitful results. Many researchers have contributed to the various perspectives ofrnusability study on information systems (Dzida, 1996; Fisher, 1999; Huang and Windsor, 1998). Usability isrna field of research that investigates how easy it is to accomplish a variety of tasks with a specific tool or system.rnAs the Web has penetrated into our daily life, Web usability has become a topic of concern. Although usabilityrnstudy on the Web does not have a long history compared to traditional usability study, some insightful andrnuseful findings have been produced in this stream of research.rnUsability study of the Web is essential for business success and Web users’ satisfaction. Because the adequaternamount of Web usability study exists, it allows us to think aloud about what we have learned in Web usability.rnIn this study, we intend to gather articles pertaining to Web usability study in the past several years, synthesizernthem, identify research patterns, and point out gaps which can be used to further our knowledge in Webrnusability study.rnThe study uses two methods to identify studies related to Web usability: abstract scanning and key-worldrnsearch. The collection process is conducted using online journal databases, including ABI Inform, BusinessrnIndex, Academic Index, EBOSCO, Business Search Premier, ACM Digital Library, and independent databasesrnof publishers that publish relevant journals.rnThe first method used to identify Web usability studies was abstract scanning. This is a time-consuming process,rnin which the authors painstakingly scanned every article title in MIS, Web, E-Commerce, Computer Sciences,rnand related journals published since 1997. The year 1997 was used as a cut-off point, because almost nornrelevant studies were found before 1997 in preliminary search of several major journals. The abstract scanningrnprocess involves two steps. The authors first read the title of an article to determine its relevancy. If the titlernseems to be related to Web usability, the abstract of the paper will be retrieved and read by the authors to makerna determination. Due to the possibility that some Web usability studies may appear in journals not selected inrnthe abstract scanning process, the authors also conducted a key word search on all the online databases used.rnAs with any search engines, wording differences in keyword search will result in different outcomes. Thus, thernselection of key words is critical. The initial key words used are obtained from the key word sections of articlesrnidentified using the abstract scanning method. Synonyms of the initial key words were also used.rnAfter articles were identified, we classified articles into the following categories: task, cultural differences, userrnsatisfaction, and social relationships. Specifically, there are twenty articles are relating to the task issue in Webrnusability; eight papers are in the area of cultural difference in Web usability; nine works are devoted to userrnsatisfaction and four papers fall in the category of on social relationship. Key findings in each of the fourrncategories will be reported at the conference.