Usability and UX of Learning Management Systems

Abstract

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are widely used in higher education. Eye-tracking technology is one technology that could help objectively evaluate the influence of familiarity with an LMS on the usability and user experience (UX) of the LMS. This study utilized such technology to measure user efficiency, user effectiveness, eye-movement patterns, and the quantitative area of interest (AOI) metrics of eye-movement patterns that show how fast the correct area for the task is located. Six students participated in an experiment, whereby they were asked to accomplish ten tasks in the usability testing of a popular open-source LMS called Moodle. The results showed that those who were familiar with the course performed about half of the tasks more efficiently and had better AOI metrics. Additionally, it was found that the participants' eye movement patterns tended to be correlated with their AOI metrics, efficiency and effectiveness of accomplishing the tasks in the usability tests. However, the correlations were not absolute. We found different eye-movement patterns among participants regarding some user interface elements, such as text hyperlinks or images.