Supporting Informal Learning Using a Cloud Tool: An Empirical Usability Study
Abstract: We report empirical data on a usability study of a collaborative tool (cloud) to improve the group practice of educational communities, support sharing of best practices, a research in line with CSCW research. This work utilizes a cloud tool to share all types of educational material analogous to Blackboard for college groups. To collect empirical data, we deployed and redesigned a cloud tool, developed a minimalist tutorial, and a task list for conducting usability and acceptance test utilizing standardized surveys and observations. On a likert rating scale with strongly agree coded as a 5 and strongly disagree coded as a 1, likening a cloud experience to a real world 3.88 (SD 0.62), as a diverse and interesting 4.13 (SD 0.72), great opportunity 3.81 (SD 0.75) and Confusing 1.94 (SD 0.68). On user performance, we had an average of 26.18 minutes per 4 tasks and a 2.18 error rate per task below the research target of 40 minutes and 8 errors per task respectively