Exploring Discount Usability Methods to Assess the Suitability of Online Course Delivery Products

Increasingly, universities are providing instruction supported by or entirely delivered through the World Wide Web. Numerous applications are available for the development and delivery of online course materials and learning environments. Typically, when choosing which of these products to use, the decisions have been based on the technical specifications and features that the products offer. The author makes the argument that usability, specifically the attribute of ease of learning, should be a criterion used in the evaluation of online course delivery systems. By using this criterion, universities can better determine which application meets the concern of faculty regarding the length of time and the amount of training and support needed to move their classes to the Web. A usability evaluation of two applications, WebCT and Web-Course-in-a-Box was conducted as a way of demonstrating that discount usability is an accessible methodology that can yield valuable information about the usability of a product.