Assessing effectiveness of the cognitive abilities and individual differences on e-learning portal usability evaluation

In this paper, we are investigating relationships between end users’ cognitive abilities, individual differences, and e-learning portal usability to create an indicator between individual differences and software usability. The usability of http://elearning. bahcesehir.edu.tr that has intellectual content including a web portal is evaluated in design and development phases by 116 (72 male, 46 female) subjects who are registered to “HUM1005 History of Civilization I” general elective course. They completed four different surveys respectively: an IQ survey, a personality survey, motivation survey and software usability measurement inventory (SUMI). SUMI is used to assess the evaluations of the subjects to the web site. This research compares intelligence, personal factors, and motivation factors against the personal software usability results, in order to determine the correlations and associations between the usability of software and end users’ individual differences. Finally, the assumption, “the usability of any software does not only depend on the requirements of the users, but also, cognitive abilities and personality factors of the end users”, is overlapped with our findings. Noteworthy correlation (Rho=0.57, p<0.01) found between GPA and usability score.