Abstract

The results of a usability evaluation of an e-learning course are presented in this thesis equivalent. The main goal of the study was to evaluate the usability of the Siebel Basic Navigation e-learning course. A secondary goal was to explore the eventual impact of e-learning course usability on student performance. The Siebel Basic Navigation course was designed for one of the major Canadian pharmaceutical companies. This course had five modules and a test at the end. The primary purpose of this course was to introduce a new Siebel application upgrade, since this company had just upgraded from a desktop-based Siebel application to a Web-based Siebel application. Major improvements and changes needed to be introduced to the users. The secondary purpose of this course was to introduce new hires, who would not have had prior experience with Siebel, to the Siebel application. The participants, seven health care and banking professionals, completed the Siebel Basic Navigation e-learning course, and filled out the usability questionnaire. The usability evaluation was based on the Generic User Interface Questionnaire developed by Chin, Diehl, & Norman, (1988). The distribution of the scores were calculated and high median (the middle value of a set of data), and high range were identified. In addition to the descriptive statistics, correlations between the software usability and student test performance emerged, underlining the importance of usability evaluation of systems supporting on-line learning.