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Abstract
This study examines the relationship between perceived usability before actual use and task completion time, and the effect of usability on user preference for web sites. Nine online bookstore web sites were used by ten participants. Results indicated: (1) pre-use usability and post-use usability were positively correlated; and (2) the relationship between pre-use usability and preference was greater than that of post-use usability and preference. These findings can be used as the bases for constructing a conceptual framework to understand user preferences on web sites.
Keywords
Perceived usability, user performance, task completion time, user preference, web sites
1. Introduction
In designing web sites, to know users means to understand how they make their preferences. User preference can be defined as a user's belief based on his or her individual opinion that one thing is better than another. Preference reflects a user's feeling and attitude for the interface and functional design of a web site, and thus needs to be considered as his or her decision for a final behavior such as revisiting a web site with pleasantness. Criteria for user preference include usability, performance, aesthetics, price, information quality, brand, and so on [1]. Users consciously or subconsciously assign different weights on these factors in making their preferences.
What constitutes a successful web site has been traditionally explained by relating it to user and usability. According to the International Standard Organization (ISO) [2], usability is defined as an outcome, "the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use". A preferable web site generally refers to one with high usability, which is user-friendly and user-centered in visual and functional aspects. Several researchers (e.g. [2-5]) suggested guidelines to help design a better web site. Their focuses mainly lie in usability, although a few guidelines include aesthetic aspects. They presented that the creation of web sites with a high level of usability can be achieved by abiding by these web design guidelines. It was expected that those web sites, naturally and inversely, have the positive features and effects described in the guidelines. However, these guidelines are generally abstractive, having limitations in being applied to a specific case.
In addition,...