Qualitative findings of an evaluation of the usability of OLAT 10

The Learning Management System of the University of Zurich, OLAT, offers a plethora of features and thus gives lecturers a wide range of options of how to engage their students. However, it has been noticed that only few lecturers know how to use and benefit from this assortment of choices effectively due to lacking explanatory guidance by the system. This usability study focuses on the lecturers' side of OLAT – as opposed to the students' side – and aims to analyse what barriers and hurdles the three different experimental groups – novices (N = 4), intermediates (N = 6), experts (N = 6) – encounter. This study makes use of qualitative questionnaires, eye tracking and "cued retrospective thinking aloud" as research methods. A set of 13 main usability issues have been identified. The cause of several issues is a lacking clarity and description of what functions do. Providing better feedback makes OLAT less resembling a black box and gives the user the notion that their actions have an effect and that they are in control of the system, instead of the system controlling them.

Organisation by SWITCH

This webinar was organised by SWITCH.