U SABILITY OF THE U NIVERSITY OF E DUCATION, W INNEBA W EBSITE August 28, 2012

P RESENTATION O UTLINE Introduction Website UEW Site How the University of Education, Winneba Site ranks Statement of the problem Purpose of the study Relevance of the study

Review of Literature – Web design decisions – The web design teams – Usability of a website Methodology – Population – Data collection – Items Results Discussion Conclusion and Recommendation

A website is a group of pages on the World Wide Web devoted to a topic or related topics or a connected group of pages on the World Wide Web regarding a single entity, usually maintained by one person or an organization.

T HE U NIVERSITY W EBSITE Designed in 2004 by a private company Vitalinfonet

P HASES OF THE U NIVERSITY S ITE Starting 2009

C URRENT

R ANKING OF U NIVERSITIES S ITES IN THE W ORLD

O UT OF 50 INSTITUTION SITES IN G HANA

O UT OF 34 SITES IN G HANA

T HE P ROBLEM Challenges with people ability to locate an information or the other suggests: there is a problem with its usability

R ESEARCH Q UESTIONS how easily were patrons of the University site able to find their way around? how long did it take for the site to load? did the site treat users as unique individuals? and at the end of using the site, were patrons persuaded to identify with the culture of UEW?

P URPOSE OF THE S TUDY The purpose of the study is to determine how usable the university site is to its patrons

R ELEVANCE OF THE STUDY It was hoped that the study will inform work at the web development unit to improve on the usability of the University of Education, Winneba website.

R EVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE

The truth is that, “ No one wants to create bad web design. However, a number of factors, from opinionated clients to aging technology, show why it can happen. ” ( Smiley Cat, 2011).

Literature on decisions one need to make before designing a website and website usability were reviewed. Good usability means: Easy to learn Efficient to use Easy to remember Error tolerant Subjectively pleasing

M ETHODOLOGY Population – all users of the University Site Data Collection – Survey used to collect data Instrument – a five (5pt) Likert scale questionnaire which scored as follows; strongly agree (5pts) agree (4pts) neutral (3pts) disagree (2pts) and strongly disagree (1pt) was used to collect views on positive statements on the website.

Items The questionnaire items were grouped under four broad headings: Ease-of-Navigation, Speed, Interactivity and Attitude

M EAN OF INDIVIDUAL ITEMS IN T HEMES Item w1aw1bw1cw1d Mean Theme 1: how easily were patrons of the University site able to find their way around? Mean =

Item w2aw2bw2cw2d Mean Theme 2: how long did it take for the site to load? Mean =

Item w3aw3bw3cw3d Mean Theme 3: did the site treat users as unique individuals? Mean = 2.445

Item w4aw4bw4c Mean Theme 4: at the end of using the site, were patrons persuaded to identify with the culture of UEW? Mean = 2.653

M EAN OF MEANS FOR ITEMS IN BROAD THEMES Usability of the University of Education, Winneba Website Ease-of- Navigation SpeedInteractivityAttitude W1a =2.77W2a = 2.91W3a = 2.38W4a = 2.67 W1b =2.96W2b = 2.89W3b = 2.40W4b = 2.60 W1c =2.88W2c = 2.89W3c = 2.40W4c = 2.69 W1d =3.26W2d = 2.86W3d = 2.60 Group Mean ( ) ~ ~ ~ ~ 3.0 Mean of Group Means ( ) / 4 = 2.75

C ONCLUSION

Even though the University of Education, Winneba website seem to be doing well in recent ranking of institutional websites, a mean score of 2.75 from the survey on people perception of its usability suggests that, there is a gap between its strong showing on web-ranking results and end users ability to get what they want from it

R ECOMMENDATIONS

From Cats’ account on what can lead to a very bad website it is recommended that, Graphic artists, editors and content creators be made to assist the webmaster in his work, some of whom should be posted to the satellite campuses of the University. Additionally, the web-development unit should be equipped with computers, scanners, digital and video cameras for effective work. Then the general University community should be involved in creating and editing of content to the site

Thank You