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The importance of electronic systems has increased due to COVID-19 because of the mobility constraints which stimulates businesses to look for remote work supporting systems. So, businesses either rapidly adopted off-the shelf software or demanded the development of new software solutions. This causes usability concerns including new difficulties to businesses because of the low usability of the off-the shelf systems that were not designed to address the challenges during the pandemic. Also, the development of new software usually requires much time and may not produce usable software if all requirements are not sufficiently addressed. Furthermore, the factors affecting usability after the COVID-19 have not been identified in related studies. Therefore, this research empirically investigates the usability of software by developing a mobile accounting system and conducting qualitative analyses to evaluate the system and identify the usability factors in the post COVID-19 era. This research contributes the Rapid Application Participatory Development (RAPD) method which is used to develop the system because this method enables rapid development, sufficient requirements elicitation by allowing users to participate in the design process, and usability testing during the development. The results show that the RAPD method can be used to develop usable software and mobile applications. Also, in addition to the traditional usability factors, COVID-19 has created new usability factors including remote work, user experience, security, privacy, artificial intelligence and internet speed. © 2023 Little Lion Scientific.
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COVID-19 has transformed face-to-face learning interactions and forced children to stay home and connect through online education. During COVID-19, the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia established the Madrasty platform as the new gateway for distance teaching and learning for the 1st to 12th grade for the 2020–2021 school year. However, students have faced many issues with the platform related to usability and features. This paper aims to improve the design of the Madrasty website educational in Saudi Arabia during online education through applying the Design Thinking approach as a foundation to extract the requirement set for a design prototype with complete features options to support remote learning. In addition to investigating the level of depression between the physical school attendance and remote school attendance in Saudi Arabia, this comparison is to consider adding the feature of mental health states to the educational website for remote learning. The authors studied the issues in Madrasty and proposed the newly updated platform, including a set of new features to resolve the problems in the existing platform. Usability testing was conducted with two types of users- teachers and students. The usability testing consists of two phases: 1) a list of tasks to measure features' usability, and 2) a post-test questionnaire to measure users' level of satisfaction. The result shows an excellent rate in the number of participants in both groups regarding the number of clicks and time to perform the tasks. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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With the rapid adoption of digital transformation, the Saudi government launched several applications to provide many online services for citizens, especially under the circumstances imposed by COVID-19. As those applications were designed to service a wide spectrum of users, it is expected that some groups of users may face challenges regarding the usability of the applications. In particular, elderly users are expected to have difficulties while interacting with m-government applications due to the limitations imposed by the aging process, culture, and familiarity with technology. In the literature, there are some usability guidelines that describe how to design usable mobile applications for the elderly. Still, they rarely address differences in culture, cognitive and psychological abilities of the elderly, and the criticality of context in which a mobile application is used. Hence, in this paper, we propose a set of usability guidelines that are expected to enhance the usability of m-government applications for the elderly. The guidelines, called UsAge, cover three major aspects, which are elderly characteristics, culture, and context, that affect the usability of mobile applications. The guidelines were driven by conducting three usability evaluation methods on an m-government application: usability testing with users, cognitive walkthrough, and heuristics evaluation. In addition, interviews with Saudi elderly individuals were conducted to extract their characteristics and define their limitations in using such applications. These characteristics are utilized to customize existing m-government application guidelines. The guidelines emerging from the two phases were combined and validated by experts, who found them feasible, correct, comprehensive, and understandable. In addition, they found that they are unique and do not overlap with existing guidelines. The outcome of this paper is the UsAge guidelines, which are a set of 28 new guidelines that are incorporated into existing m-government application usability guidelines. © 2022 The Author(s)
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In Saudi Arabia, several mitigating measures were implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the creation of COVID-19 mobile applications (apps) for public use. The Saudi government has made the use of these apps mandatory for its citizens and residents. However, it is essential to explore the perception that common users have regarding using these apps in terms of usability and user experience. Therefore, this paper assesses user experience in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction with the usability of the Saudi COVID-19 apps. The reviews of five mobile apps launched by the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) and the Ministry of Health in the Apple Store were extracted using an online tool and analyzed using the content analysis method. The number of collected reviews was 29 for Sehha, 406 for Sehhaty, 442 for Mawid, 107 for Tabaud, and 1338 for Tawakkalna. The results of the study showed that Mawid (82%) and Tabaud (81%) had the highest usability of all the apps studied. Sehha (-138%) and Sehhaty (-107%) received the lowest usability scores, followed by Tawakkalna (-22%). Based on these results, we identified several usability issues with each app. Some of the main problems reported by users were increased battery drain, lack of privacy, and technical issues.
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Background: SARS-CoV-2 screening is one of the pillars of non-pharmaceutical preventive strategies to early identify and isolate infected individuals and therefore decrease community incidence. Methods: We assessed the feasibility of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 self-testing with antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests in attendees of educational settings. Results: A total of 305 students (88.15%) and 41 staff (11.85%) from 9 to 56 years old participated in the self-testing procedure and answered the survey at the end of the study. 91.3% (n = 313) did not need help, 96.1% of participants reported the same outcome as the healthcare workers. 94.5% strongly or slightly agree with the statement "I would repeat the experience". Conclusion: The study demonstrates that self-testing is acceptable and usable in children, adolescents and adults when the epidemiological situation may require a systematic screening of these populations, although supervision by health care or previously trained personnel is recommended for younger age groups.
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The development of today's digital world has been running more rapidly at the time of the presence of covid-19 pandemics, in which all aspects of life are very dependent on digitalization that time, and companies keep doing the work of enhancing innovation in their businesses, which is the developing of IT such as mobile application. PT XYZ is one of the companies engaged in printing and digital services. PT XYZ uses the mobile application IT Support to assist technicians in completing reports of printer damage experienced by consumers. During the order services process, users oftenly feel that menu on mobile application IT Support not effective and efficient yet on helping them to process order service, the elements in the mobile application are inconsistent so it complicated the user. To improve and finding the usability problem specifically needed the process user experience evaluation mobile application with system usability scale (SUS) and retrospective think aloud (RTA). Total sample used in the research was 52 respondents from active user IT Support using purposive sampling technique. The SUS score result is 50.77 in grade D. The less satisfied, because the SUS score is still smaller than 68. Retrospective Think Aloud (RTA) results with 11 respondents showed problems with usability and needed recommendations for interface improvements. The result of user experience evaluation is user interface recommendation to enhance the technician's performance to be more optimal. () © 2022 IEEE.
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Background: Technology acceptance comprises cognitive and psychological elements about using technology. Objectives: This descriptive study evaluated the feasibility and applicability of the LMS acceptance questionnaire in medical sciences students using native LMS during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This study was conducted to assess LMS acceptance and the validity of the questionnaires in Iranian society. Ten faculty members and ten students reviewed and evaluated the questionnaires for the validity of translation (content validity). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis methods were used for questionnaire items to determine the constructive validity. Moreover, a technology acceptance questionnaire was distributed among 200 users to determine the convergence validity. Finally, the reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by 30 people before, after, and simultaneously. Results: The results of this descriptive study showed that the average scores of people in finding helpful content for lessons, having a support system for problem-solving, and being convenient to use were high. In another part, confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the criteria and items by four factors. Test reliability on 30 students before and after showed that the questionnaire has good reliability in all factors. Convergence validity with the technology acceptance questionnaire showed that there was a direct and positive relationship. Conclusion: The four factors questionnaire, which comprised performance expectations, effort expectations, facilitative situations, and social influence, with feasibility, and usability, can be used as a valid questionnaire in an Iranian population. © 2022, Strides in Development of Medical Education is Published by Kerman University of Medical Science.
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Touchless interfaces allow surgeons to control medical imaging systems autonomously while maintaining total asepsis in the Operating Room. This is specially relevant as it applies to the recent outbreak of COVID-19 disease. The choice of best gestures/commands for such interfaces is a critical step that determines the overall efficiency of surgeon-computer interaction. In this regard, usability metrics such as task completion time, memorability and error rate have a long-standing as potential entities in determining the best gestures. In addition, previous works concerned with this problem utilized qualitative measures to identify the best gestures. In this work, we hypothesize that there is a correlation between gestures' qualitative properties and their usability metrics. In this regard, we conducted a user experiment with language experts to quantify gestures' properties (v). Next, we developed a gesture-based system that facilitates surgeons to control the medical imaging software in a touchless manner. Next, a usability study was conducted with neurosurgeons and the standard usability metrics (u) were measured in a systematic manner. Lastly, multi-variate correlation analysis was used to find the relations between u and v. Statistical analysis showed that the v scores were significantly correlated with the usability metrics with an and p < 0.05. Once the correlation is established, we can utilize either gestures' qualitative properties or usability metrics to identify the best set of gestures.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the way people work, forcing people to reduce physical contact with other people. So, legalizing documents by adding a signature and stamp in PT RST now requires a new method. Electronic documents with the legalization using digital products become legal for use. Digital products for legalization include electronic stamps, signatures and seal stamps. Adding a digital product to a document is done on a web application that provides document legalization services. Currently adding digital products to web applications is only for one or two products, for example electronic stamps, so to be able to add 3 products we have to use 3 different web applications. This method makes the process of adding digital products done in many stages. Therefore, it is necessary to create a web application portal that combines all services such as e-stamp, e-sign and e-seal stamp in one application. The web-based portal is developed using agile software development methods. The development process is done iteratively in 3 iterations. The result of this research is a web-based portal that can provide services for adding e-materai, e-stamp and e-sign for oneself, other people and collaborate with several people. Furthermore, user satisfaction was measured with the SUS questionnaire and the usability measurement result was 80.3. This score is in the 'Acceptable' acceptability range, acceptable with efficient use, easy to understand, and has a simple user interface. The signer portal development process for PT RST can be a reference for other industries to implement similar products in their organization, both in terms of technology and business processes. © 2022 IEEE.
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Objectives: To identify the usability of telehealth services and barriers during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic among healthcare providers in Nineveh Governorate-Iraq. Study design: This was a multicenter cross-sectional survey. Methods: We collected the required data from April to July 2022 using self-administered open-ended questionnaires. The healthcare providers were physicians, pharmacists, and nurses with at least six months of services at hospitals. A modified form of the Telehealth Usability Questionnaire (TUQ) was used to assess the usability of telehealth services. Results: There were 460 healthcare providers, of which 269/460 (58.5%) were users of telehealth services. These were mostly physicians (n = 167/269, 62.1%), nurses (52/269, 19.3%), and pharmacists (n = 50/269, 18.6%), with a p-value of 0.001. During the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians (n = 100/167, 60.0%) and pharmacists (n = 28/50, 56.0%) increased their provision of telehealth services. Approximately 60% of physicians and nurses preferred to provide telehealth services in a synchronized manner. The participants mostly used smartphones to provide telehealth services through Messenger/Facebook and WhatsApp applications, specifically utilizing voice and/or video messages. There was some agreement among the participants (n = 269) regarding the usability of telehealth services. The overall mean score (±SD) was 4.8 (±0.88). The most reported barriers to telehealth services were poor Internet services, the presence of specific diseases, lack of technical comprehension, and insufficient time allocated to the service. Conclusion: Healthcare providers demonstrated a tendency towards the usability of telehealth services. Despite the available barriers, triage collaborations among patients, healthcare providers, and healthcare institutions are needed to achieve more successful adoption of these services.
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BACKGROUND: Telehealth has emerged as an alternative to conventional, face-to-face visits, and the COVID pandemic has hastened its introduction. Telephone appointments make use of an easy-to-use and accessible technology. AIM: To investigate the usability of telephone-based telehealth in a women's health outpatient clinic and whether this may be affected by the severity of the COVID pandemic. METHOD: A telephone survey was prepared to explore two usability domains: interaction quality (4 items) and satisfaction, preference and future use (6 items). Women were selected from two periods during the COVID pandemic when the infection rates were high and low. RESULTS: The survey was completed by 106 women (60 when the prevalence of COVID was high, mean age 53.58 years, and 46 when it was low, mean age 48.59 years) out of the 153 women who had a telephone appointment. The severity of the COVID pandemic showed an effect on responses. Women were less enthusiastic about using the telephone during the period of low COVID prevalence, as shown by lower scores on 3 of the 4 items of the first domain [I had enough time; I would have understood better in person; I would have expressed myself better in person (p < 0.001 for comparison between groups on each of the 3 items)], and on 4 of the 6 items in the second domain [satisfied with quality of care (p < 0.001), or with the information received (p = 0.018); use of telephone in future (p < 0.001); preference to try other technologies in future (p < 0.001)]. Overall, women expressed a preference for in-person visits regardless of COVID prevalence rates. CONCLUSION: Telephone calls were a feasible alternative to face-to-face visits in a women's health outpatient clinic, but the pandemic pressure modified usability parameters. Respondents preferred in-person visits at any pandemic stage.
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Today, science and technological developments play a role in the field of sports, as in all domains of life. For this reason, coaches may use technology to improve the technical, tactical, condition, and psychological performance of their athletes. Besides, pandemic conditions such as COVID-19 bring about this obligation. The aim of the present study was to examine the attitudes and levels of use of technology by coaches working in individual and team sports in terms of athlete education. The study group consisted of 205 people accessed by convenience sampling method. The data collection tool, "Teacher Technology Acceptance Measure: T-TAM," which consists of 38 items and 11 sub-dimensions and has a reliability coefficient of [alpha]=0.94 for this study, developed by Ursavas et al. was used by participants using an online questionnaire. The data showed normal distribution, analyses were made using parametric tests. According to the results, it can be suggested that 3rd level coaches use technology more widely in training and competitions than their 1st and 2nd level colleagues. Additionally, there is a statistical difference in the sub-dimensions of compatibility and subjective norms in favor of male coaches compared to female colleagues. Consequently, it can be claim that the coaches have a positive attitude towards using technology and try to use it at the highest level.
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After the exceptional circumstances the whole world has experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students have become digital natives who seek learning that overcomes the barriers of place and time. This mixed-methods study aimed at investigating EFL learners' perceptions regarding the application of Busuu in language learning, by applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The participants were 58 first secondary stage students in a Saudi private school. An online survey and a semi-structured interview were used to collect data. The results revealed that EFL learners have a positive attitude towards Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL). Additionally, according to the TAM, the participants found the language application Busuu useful and easy to use. They also thought of Busuu as a valuable resource for language learning, which increases their motivation to be autonomous learners. However, in addition to the TAM components, the results also showed that affordance and joyfulness could be strong indicators of learners' acceptance of a particular technology. Moreover, the results revealed that mobile applications might be more helpful for beginner learners than advanced ones. On the other hand, the findings also showed that Busuu might distract learners from doing their homework. Besides, the regular use of Busuu might be harmful to their eyes due to the small mobile screen size. For further research, the recommendation includes a large sample size in addition to a long-term study of EFL learners' perception towards Busuu in normal classroom circumstances.
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The research and data aim to (a) examine instructors' evaluation of Microsoft Teams as reflected in their teaching at the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET) and (b) identify significant correlation between three determinants of the Technology Acceptance Model: perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), and attitudes towards use (ATU). The researchers used a self-report survey answered by 230 instructors from multiple departments at the College of Basic Education. Several statistical tools examined mean differences. The research found that the instructors at PAAET highly rate Microsoft Teams. Perceived usefulness directly affected attitudes towards use while perceived ease of use (PEOU) indirectly affected attitudes towards use.
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Mobile learning, which is widely used in educational settings during the COVID-19 pandemic, will continue playing a critical role in learning environments in the future. Since the successful implementation of mobile learning in education is largely based on users' acceptance of these technologies, it is essential to understand the factors affecting learners' acceptance of mobile devices as learning tools. This study investigated Syrian adult refugees' acceptance and use of mobile learning tools. The results revealed that Syrian adult refugees were positive about using mobile devices in learning Turkish as a second/foreign language, and there exists a concrete and significant correlation among all the constructs of the mobile learning tools acceptance like Perceived Ease of Use, Contribution to Foreign Language Learning, Negative Perceptions, and Voluntariness of Use. Factors affecting mobile learning acceptance was also investigated in the study, and the results indicated significant differences among the refugees regarding their characteristics such as age, gender, level of education. The results also revealed that while the refugees did better in the tests over time, mobile learning acceptance had no significant effect on foreign language achievement. Depending on these results, it can be suggested that mobile devices should be integrated into the education system as a component of the curriculum.
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It is expected that the field of language education will see an increased need for teachers to accept online teaching. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model, this study examined pre-service EFL teachers' acceptance of online teaching and the factors influencing them. The participants were TESOL majors at three universities in China. The data were collected from a questionnaire survey with 204 participants and semi-structured individual interviews with 12 participants. The study reveals that pre-service English teachers generally accept online teaching after completing one-semester of purely online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results also suggest that participants' enjoyable experiences in using online technologies, perceived usefulness of online teaching, social influences, and technological pedagogical content knowledge influence their acceptance of online teaching.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted higher education in Malaysia that requires the academics to transform their teaching style to online teaching. Hence, it is essential for them to be skillful in using new technology in teaching and learning. In Open and Distance Learning (ODL), the academic staff must learn a new environment of learning technology in terms of giving lectures and managing all related ODL documents. In this perspective, technology readiness of the ODL technology plays an important role to enhance the acceptance of using the latest technology in ODL among them. This study was conducted to test the moderating effect of the Technology Readiness of the academic staff towards their acceptance of ODL technology to manage teaching and learning process such as UFUTURE and Google Classrooms. The research model was developed based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Technology Readiness concept. The online survey was created and then emailed to the academic staff in UiTM Selangor, resulting in 321 responses were received subsequently. The results show that the Technology Readiness factors (Optimism and Innovativeness) strengthen the relationship between Technology Acceptance factors (Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness) and intention behaviour to use the ODL technology. Additionally, the direct effect testing has also shown that the related factors influence the intention of the academic staff to use the ODL technology except Insecurity and Discomfort. Technology readiness does play an important role, therefore, it is essential for the university to train academic staff on new ODL technology and it should be planned accordingly.
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Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs) has helped develop the education sector since the COVID-19 pandemic, though it causes low retention. This study used a systematic literature review method to analyze the factors affecting the retention level of MOOCs participants in developing countries and worldwide. A total of 89 publications in the Scopus journal during 2015-2021 and 26 published in developing countries were examined. The results showed that the factors affecting the retention level of MOOCs' participants include perceived ease of use, usefulness, social influence, and self-efficacy. However, motivation was an insignificant factor in developing countries despite being significant worldwide. Infrastructure was an internal factor for the retention level among participants, though this study can be further expanded using better methods.
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In the light of the accelerating trends in recent years towards the adoption of e-learning and its delivery platforms, e-learning has become a strategic solution to face many challenges, especially those imposed by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The findings of previous studies revealed the effectiveness of e-learning in reducing negative effects resulting from COVID-19. However, those studies emphasized the need for more research on the factors that enhance the effectiveness of e-learning, especially those factors related to instructional design, attractiveness, availability, and usability. Therefore, the study explored the factors that affect the usability of e-learning platforms by developing a predictive model to reveal student satisfaction with the use of e-learning platforms. The model consisted of four predictive factors (learnability, efficiency, effectiveness, and the instructional design of electronic content). In order to achieve the objective of the study, a scale was designed. It included five variables and 36 items. The results concluded that the factors in the scale (learnability, efficiency, effectiveness, and the instructional design of electronic content) contribute to the explanation of 62% of the variance value in the dependent variable (student satisfaction). Also, the factors of the instructional design of electronic content, and the effectiveness of using e-learning platforms showed a high ability to predict usability through the indicator of student satisfaction with the use of e-learning platforms. In addition, the results unveiled that the factors of learnability and efficiency did not show a significant effect in predicting usability. Finally, the prediction model had a moderate degree in predicting the changes that could affect the dependent variable (usability through the indicator of student satisfaction).
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This article is about the challenge of communication via smartphones and tablets by people with intellectual disabilities (ID). We will give special attention to persons that struggle with verbal communication. One of our co-researchers, the fourth author, has a severe ID. She cannot read, write or use voice assisted technology in any functional manner. As a result of many years of collaboration, and the need for solutions in connection with the challenges with COVID-19, she and her family have developed ways of remote communication that can be mastered both by the person with an ID and the majority (those without similar disabilities). We call it "doing and talking." Successful remote communication not only depends on technology and how to use it, but also on communication strategies that both work for the person with an ID and the majority. It is often the case that people with ID are expected to learn the skills necessary to adapt to the majority. We will show that success is just as much a question of the majority learning new skills and strategies that can make real inclusion and collaboration possible.