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Makale Özeti:
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World changes, so do people. From the time that man-computer symbiosis began, both of them have unrecognizably changed. Who could have guessed that the ideas that rooted in 1930s, 1940s and 1960s would blossom as today’s technology. Who could have guessed that, when Nelson (Baecker. et al., 1995) first coined the term ‘hypertext’, it would be the key that opens up gates of the “Wide World of Wonders”? As one can predict, the bricks that are used to build the new fantastic places of this world are very important. That is why what was once shaped in the hands of the designer, is now sculptured according to users. That is why ‘usability’ is now recognized as a vital determining factor in the success of any new computer system or computer-based service (Carvalho, 2001).
Since building a website, whether for distribution over the Internet or over an intranet, can and should be viewed as a major software development effort and one of the factors that affect the acceptability of software is its usability, it is obvious that usability does matter. Moreover, educational researchers should not overlook usability testing, if they want to develop educational software that is efficient, effective and satisfactory for the user. For achieving such specific, aims it is worthwhile to know about usability methods, techniques, evaluators, when to apply usability tests, and how to plan and conduct a test, as well as the usability itself.
However, this study focuses on one particular aspect of usability, namely, user satisfaction, for an educational website used as a supportive tool for various courses by employing only one specific usability testing technique, a questionnaire.
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