End-User Quality of Experience Layer for Adaptive Hypermedia Systems
Cristina Hava Muntean, Jennifer McManis · 2004
In the context of new devices and the variety of network technologies that allow access to the Internet, the deployers of Web applications need to ensure that end-users have a positive experience using new applications and they will be willing to re-use them. User experience is dependent not only on the content served to them, but also on the performance of that service. This paper explores a new dimension of individual differences between Web users: end-user Quality of Experience (QoE). It proposes a solution on how to provide satisfactory end-user QoE in the field of educational adaptive hypermedia. A new QoE layer for Adaptive Hypermedia is introduced that attempts to take into account multiple factors affecting Quality of Experience, which might arise from a wide range of Web components (e.g. text, images, video, audio). Usability evaluation based on comparison of a classic adaptive e-learning system with a QoE-aware one has shown that students considered the QoE-aware system significantly more usable than the classic system. Learning performance tests indicated that the changes made by the QoE-aware system did not affect the learning capabilities offered by the classic system.