| This study examined usability and its effects on user preference and user satisfaction for multiple interface designs (frames, textual, graphical, and traditional). Objective measures included counting the number of unnecessary mouse clicks made while searching for target answers, and accuracy of the answers. Subjective measures included user satisfaction questionnaires for each interface design, and preference ranks for the four designs, as well as for header and text font combinations. Participants were categorized into a young or older category, and used either an Ethernet or modem connection type when viewing the interface designs. The addition of computer and internet experience as covariates influenced the effects of age and connection type. Although the correlations between experience and age were expected, the correlations between experience and connection type were not anticipated. Participants were expected to make fewer extra mouse clicks and have higher accuracy scores on the frames interface design. However, there was only a trend for participants to make fewer extra mouse clicks on the frames interface. For the dependent variable of accuracy, there was no significant difference, probably due to the presence of large ceiling effects. As hypothesized, the frames design yielded the highest user satisfaction scores and rankings, while the textual design yielded the second highest user satisfaction scores and rankings. The traditional design was ranked as the least preferred design, while the graphical design also had a high frequency of being chosen as the least preferred design. For the font preference rankings, the data strongly supported the hypothesis that users would prefer the header-text font combinations consisting of Verdana-Georgia and Georgia-Verdana fonts. These findings are highly relevant in the human factors field of usability testing, especially in the initial development process of constructing an interface design. |
