Greg Scowen

Increased Website Popularity Through Compliance with Usability Guidelines: is Usability Awareness the Next Big Traffic Driver? Greg Scowen

To create more interest is usability awareness in website development, further benefits of usability need to be introduced and examined. This work attempts to identify and measure a positive correlation between compliance with usability guidelines and the popularity of a website. There is a gap of knowledge in this area and this study is intended to create a foundation for future research into this issue. To identify and measure this relationship, a sample of E-learning websites were reviewed and their usability scored using a web-based evaluation system developed during the study. This usability score was then tested against five different ranking systems using Spearman's Rank correlation method. The results of these tests show a strong correlation between compliance with usability guidelines and website popularity. The five ranking systems also showed positive correlations to each-other and to the usability of the sites. The conclusion drawn from these results is that compliance with usability guidelines could be a way to achieve higher website popularity and visitor numbers.