Evaluation of an e-Advising System: User Experience

Introduction

Modern technology has moved academic advising away from in-person meetings in offices dedicated to student services, where students could access advisers and tools to help them optimize their academic choices (Noaman & Ahmed, 2015). An absence of effective academic advising leads students to make decisions regarding the course of their academic career that adversely affect their goals and prospects. Therefore, there is a pressing need to ensure that students can make informed decisions regarding their academic plans that support their professional aspirations. Electronic advising (e-advising) systems support college administrations and enhance student performance (Alkhoori, Kuhail, & Alkhoori, 2020; Karrolla, 2017). Therefore, the key features of these systems responsible for their success must be identified, which requires appropriate usability evaluation criteria. Usability is a measure to evaluate whether and to what extent a system, product, or service can be used by specified users to achieve defined goals effectively and efficiently within a specified context. According to Preece, Rogers, and Sharp (2015), usability includes factors that ensure a system is efficient, easy to use, and pleasant from the user's perspective. Recently, the concept of user experience (UX) has gained considerable attention in academia and industry and become a key figure that represents a crucial aspect of the success of systems or products (Hinderks, Schrepp, Mayoa, Escalona, & Thomaschewski, 2019).

While the literature contains studies that evaluate the UXs of many different types of information systems, no studies investigate the systems designed to support academic services (Demirkola & Seneler, 2019). Usable academic advising systems are essential; however, little research was conducted on this topic, especially at Arab Universities, particularly in the State of Kuwait. In addition, some usability studies fail to consider UX in the analysis and development of such systems. To fill this gap, this study uses an adapted version of the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) to assess the UX of an e-advising system within this specific academic and cultural context (User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ)) available at www.ueq-online.org. Hinderks et al. (2019) determined that the UEQ reliably depicts six dimensions of UX including Attractiveness "the product should look attractive, enjoyable, friendly and pleasant"; Efficiency "the user should perform tasks with the product fast, efficient and in a pragmatic way"; Perspicuity "the product should be easy to understand, clear, simple, and easy to learn"; Dependability "the interaction with the product should be predictable, secure and meets my expectations"; Stimulation "using the product should be interesting, exciting and motivating"; and Novelty "the product should be innovative, inventive and creatively designed". This adapted questionnaire was used to elucidate students' perceptions and UX of the e-advising system used at the five colleges of the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), a higher education (HE) institute in Kuwait. PAAET developed and implemented an e-advising system (e-Advisor) that works together with traditional, paper-based, face-to-face academic advising. This system was implemented in 2016 and, in the four years since then, over 40,000 students have used e-Advisor. This pioneer study investigates the application of an e-advisory system within the unexplored context of Kuwait, where the little research that has been conducted focuses largely on gender differences UX. The findings from this study can inform system developers of relevant growth opportunities that can improve future versions of e-Advisor. These improvements will not only enhance the efficiency and attractiveness of e-advising systems but also improve users' interactions with the system and enhance their perceptions of its associated functions (Morville, 2014).