Heuristic evaluation of learning object repository interfaces

Abstract

A Learning Object Repository (LOR) is a concept of storage, reuse, and sharing of learning objects in the educational sector among students and educators. It requires an interface to allow interactions between users and applications. One of the elements that distinguishes the quality of an LOR is interface usability. Usability is critical for the success of an application to help users with their objectives. Only a few previous studies have highlighted problems in the usability of LORs. In addition, currently available LOR interfaces often do not help users achieve the objectives of their assignments. Hence, a heuristic study on interface usability was conducted on three chosen LORs. This study aims to achieve two objectives, which are identifying usability problems in current LORs, and suggesting areas of improvement in the current LOR interface. The methodology of this study involves constructing a heuristics questionnaire and obtaining the mean results for each heuristic element of each LOR. Results of analysis have been used to describe the problems of current LORs. Final results showed that there were significant shortcomings in some parts of the LOR interface usability after the study started. Several recommendations are made in this paper to improve the usability of contemporary LORs.