A Study of the Influences of Application Interfaces on End User Training Outcomes
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Public Management
School
School of Business
RAS ID
355
Abstract
Effective and efficient training is a key factor in determining the success of end user computing (EUC) activities in organisations. This study examines the influences of two application interfaces, namely icons and menus, on training outcomes. Training outcomes were measured in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and perceived ease of use. Effectiveness included the keystrokes used to accomplish tasks, the accuracy of correct keystrokes, backtracks and errors committed. Efficiency included the time taken to accomplish the given tasks. Perceived ease of use rates the ease of the training environment including training materials, operating system, application software and associated resources provided to users. To measure training outcomes, an experiment was conducted with 159 users. The study found that icon interfaces were more efficient and effective for end user training and menu interfaces were more easy to use in the given training environment. The findings appear to indicate that when the tasks become complicated, icons are limited in representing this complexity and menus appear to be providing better solutions for tasks accomplishments. There is a need for training designers to consider application interfaces when designing EUC training programmes.
Comments
Gururajan, R., & Fink, D. (2002). A study of influences of application interfaces on end user training outcomes. http://www. informingscience. org/proceedings/IS2002Proceedings/pa pers/Guruj098Study. pdf,[May 17, 2011].