Evaluating the Web Usability – An Interpretive Study of the Bazar portal in Oslo Public Library, Norway

Abstract

The vast pool of information and the development of technology have given thousands of choices for users when using Internet for searching purposes. With all available websites and the diverse set of user skills, website usability is the factor that motivates users to choose one site over another. Hence, usability is needs to be in consideration when designing the website. Understood that such studies are critical to the success of website, this research focuses on evaluation of the usability of the Bazar portal (the information portal of Oslo public library) by investigating the usability problems of the portal and draw out a recommendation to support the current construction process of Bazar. These sole objectives of this study are to make Bazar most effective to the users. In order to investigate these problems, a task based survey was conducted with 37 participants comprising 2 groups: students and job seekers with different searching experiences. The research indicates that there are numbers of usability problems in Bazar portal. These problems are identified in portal design, organization system, searching system, labeling system and language support. The findings also indicate out that in evaluation by students and job seeker groups resemble each other. Interestingly, the less experienced group and the more experienced group have different points of view in evaluating portal usability. The findings from this study have practical implications for website designers in their process of designing the new version of Bazar. Furthermore, the results indicate that language is an important factor in multilingual portal; therefore more effort should be devoted to this factor in supporting in reading, understanding and using information.