Usability study of MyUPSI portal at Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI) / Noor Wahidah Abdul Wahid

Usability is one of the major factors that determines the successfulness of a website. It is important therefore to have certain measurement methods to access the usability of websites. Usability evaluation method used in evaluating MyUPSI portal is user testing. User testing is one of user-based usability evaluation methods besides think-aloud method, constructive interaction method, questionnaires and interviews method, as well as eye tracking method. It can be defined as the process of collecting information from actual users' action to know whether the product is easy or difficult to be used for them. User testing is considered as the most important and useful evaluation method. What makes it important is the involvement of real users to provide direct information regarding the interface of the product along with problems encountered during the interaction with the product. Based on the interview with Mr. Ridzwan bin Che Rus, senior lecturer at UPSI dated 15th April 2015, there .are two main problems associated with MyUPSI portal which are: the portal is not updated which leads to difficulty to be faced by the lecturers for example during login to the system as well as other parts of the portal and the portal has weakness in terms of efficiency of numerous steps in completing a certain task. The objectives of this study are to investigate the usability problems of MyUPSI portal at Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI) as well as to provide recommendation for improvement of MyUPSI portal. The usability study has been conducted involving four users who are the lecturers at Faculty of Technical and Vocational Education (FPTV) who act as the respondents. The users are asked to perform four specified tasks. The tasks consist of login into MyUPSI portal, search for memo, set 'A To Do Task' through Calendar and also join one of the forum. The tasks covers the important aspects of website usability which are content, organization and readability, navigation and links, user interface design, plus performance and effectiveness. The action of the users as well as their comments and recommendations were recorded and analyzed. All suggestions and recommendations from the users were taken into consideration for future enhancement.