USABILITY AND ONLINE TRAINING SYSTEMS

1. USABILITY AND ONLINE TRAINING SYSTEMS Patrick Williams LIS 385T Software Usability Engineering February 20, 2003

2. Usability and Online Training Systems • Plenty of Instructional Design Literature • Very little academic literature • Primarily professional notes and briefings • Few experiment reports • Random suspect claim I encountered: • 60% of men lie about the size of their email inbox (Waller, 2001)

3. How Usability is Different for Training • primary "use" is not directly utilitarian • endeavors to facilitate learning, which is neither concrete nor standard among learners • engaging the learner in a meaningful way should be the goal • user satisfaction: affect, control, helpfulness, and quality of engagement (Technologies for Training).

4. Benefits of Online Training Systems • allow learners to decide own pace, consistency of presentation (Waller, 2001) • eye appeal, personalized interactivity (Hall, in InfoWorld, 1998) • measurability, ability to link concepts (Technology for Training) • implicit scalability (Shepard 2003a) • options for accessibility (Shepard 2003b)

5. Usability Recommendations • Familiarity is the most important resource to leverage both for the benefit of reduced cost and overall program effectiveness. • Collis, Peters, and Pals observe that "problems relating to lack of fit with one's usual ways of working may be the major barriers to network use in education, not problems relating to technology use itself" (2000, p. 108). • Crisp Learning models their training systems to fit seamlessly within a companies pre-existing materials (Barbarian, 2002). • Training for Technology's Briefing on Usability of Training Software states that "if users have extensive experience of using windows-based software, the courseware should be consistent with the conventions of this software."

6. Usability Recommendations • User motivation may be the most powerful determinant of the success of a technology-based training program. • "In general the virtual classroom session and its peculiar technological and organizational features seemed so satisfying for the users that they considered the experimented configurations very usable" (Gnici, et al.,1999, p. 438). • Technology For Training's Usability Briefing Number 6 states, "poorly motivated learners do not use courseware to best effect." • "…any training succeeds when the trainees actually want to do it, it is available to them when they are able to do it and when it helps them to do the job that they need to do" (Waller 2001).

7. Conclusions • In terms of training, usability depends first and foremost on the context of the learning environment (Technologies for Training; Gnici et al., 1999; Waller, 2001). • User motivation and engagement drives training success, not mere material or presentation. Successful systems seek to engage, and even connect, users (InfoWorld, 1998; Shepard 2003a; Gnici et al, 1999). • System familiarity can be an untapped asset for effective training (Collis et al.; InfoWorld, 1998; Technology for Training).

8. Conclusions • Accessibility is the (only) rule, not the exception (Shepard, 2003b; Nielsen, 1996). • Effective training programs fully exploit their medium's capabilities and leave that which falls outside these capabilities (and direct users) to other media (Waller 2001; Barbarian, 2001; Technology for Training).

9. References Barbarian, Jeff. (2002) No-tech still matters. Training 39(2). Collis, Betty, Peters, Oscar and Pals, Niko. (2000.) Influences on the educational use of the WWW, email, and videoconferencing. Innovations in Education and Training 37(2), pp. 108-119. Gagne, Robert M., Briggs, Leslie J., and Wager, Walter W. (1992.) Principles of Instructional Design (4th ed.) Orlando, Florida: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Gnici, Augusto, Papa, Filomena, and Spedaletti, Sandra. (1999.) Usability aspects, socio-relational context and learning performance in the virtual classroom: a laboratory experiment. Behaviour & Information Technology 18(2)6, pp. 431-443. Henneman, R. L. (1999.) Design for usability. Information Knowledge Systems Management 1, pp. 133-144. Keirns, Johanna L. (1999.) Designs for self-instruction: principles, processes, and issues in developing self-directed learning. Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon. Kemp, Jerrold E., Morrison, Gary R., and Ross, Steven M. (1998.) Designing Effective Instruction (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill.

10. References Ledford, Bruce R. and Sleeman, Phillip J. (2000.) Instructional design: a primer. Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing. Nielsen, Jakob. (1996.) Accessible design for users with disabilities. Retrieved February 14, 2003 from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9610.html Shepard, Clive. (2003a.) Back to basics- e-learning in 2003. Retrieved February 14, 2003 from http://www.fastrak-consulting.co.uk/tactix/Features/basics.htm Shepard, Clive. (2003b.) Open access- your flexible friend. Back to basics- e-learning in 2003. Retrieved February 14, 2003 from http://www.fastrak-consulting.co.uk/tactix/Features/accessibility.htm The ABCs of building a web-based training solution. (1998, November 23.) InfoWorld. Technologies for Training. Usability of Training Software. Briefing Number 6. (n.d.) Retrieved February 14, 2003 from http://www.tft.co.uk/briefing/note06.html Waller, Vaughan. (2001.) Online learning—is it just hype? in Axiom, People and business in the legal profession. Retrieved February 14, 2003 from the eLearningNetwork website: http://www.tact.org.uk/ Ward, Janet. (1995.) Computers and Classroom Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. West, Charles K., Farmer, James A., and Wolff, Phillip M. (1991.) Instructional Design: implications from cognitive science. Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.