Yavuz Inal

Flow Experiences of Children in an Interactive Social Game Environment.

This study examines childrens flow experiences in an interactive social game environment. A total of 33 children aged from 7 to 9 years participated in the study for 6 weeks. Data were collected through observations and interviews. In order to measure the flow experiences of the children, items of a flow scale were administered to the children through interviews. Results revealed that flow experiences occur more among boys than girls during gameplay. While ludology had more effect on the flow experiences of boys when compared with the narratology of computer games, narratology had more effect among girls. Challenge and complexity elements of games had more effect on the flow experiences of the children than clear feedback.

Web site accessibility and quality in use: a comparative study of government Web sites in Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkey

Government Web sites aim to provide information to the citizens of the country; therefore, they should be accessible, easy to use and visible via search engines. Based on this assumption, in this paper, the ministry Web sites of four countries namely the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Republic of Turkey were analyzed in terms of accessibility and quality in use. Tests were carried out utilizing online automated tools. Results indicate that the usage rate of Information and Communication Technologies by the government is higher in Turkey, which affects the visibility of government Web sites but not their quality in use. Very few ministry Web sites of the four countries achieved AA conformance level on accessibility, many failed to pass conformance level A and AA checkpoints for accessibility errors. In order to ensure equal access to all their citizens, the countries in this study need to put more emphasis on designing government Web sites to be more accessible.

The Effect of Banner Location on Banner Recognition in a Turkish Government Website: An Eye Tracking Study

This study aims to examine users’ eye movement patterns and their attention to the banner of a Turkish government website. The website was redesigned as two versions in a way that the banner was located on the left (the original site) in one version and on the right in the other version. 14 university students with 9 male and 5 female participated to the study. The heat maps were examined as well as eye movement patterns while performing the given tasks. Results of the study revealed that the banner (including a picture of the head of a public institution) was not directly focused in both groups during the task completion process. Although nearly half of the participants recalled the place of the banner correctly, none of the participants remembered any information about the institution head such as name, picture or social media information.

Accessibility evaluation of top university websites: a comparative study of Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkey

It is important that university websites and services offered through their sites are used effectively, efficiently and satisfactorily by the whole target group of the university, including disabled users. However, universities in many countries are still unable to meet the criteria for web accessibility. This study aimed to test the websites of the top universities in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkey using automated assessment tools. The results showed that university websites are more popular in Turkey, and in Turkish universities developers pay more attention to the performance of websites, followed by websites of Azerbaijani, Kyrgyz and Kazakh universities. The majority of the university websites in the study did not meet the WCAG 2.0 accessibility criteria. Only two Kyrgyz and two Kazakh university websites attained conformance level A, and only three, one Kyrgyz and two Kazakh, achieved accessibility conformance level AAA. Based on the results, it was determined that universities included in the present study need to devote more effort to making their websites more accessible for their users.

University students’ heuristic usability ınspection of the national library of Turkey website

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usability of the National Library of Turkey website developed for all citizens in the country to retrieve information available in a wide range of areas.,The evaluation performed by 57 undergraduate university students involved the identification and analysis of usability problems in the selected website. The assessment process was mainly based on Nielsen’s Heuristics. The data obtained in the evaluation process were enriched using the System Usability Scale (SUS) and the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to conduct a more detailed analysis.,The participants identified many usability problems concerning the evaluated website and considered it as having low usability characteristics. The most violated heuristic item was found to be “consistency and standards” whereas the least violated heuristic item was “match between system and the real world.” The total number of the usability problems in heuristic evaluation correlated significantly and negatively with the SUS and the NPS results indicating that the more participants identified usability problems, the less they considered the website as usable and recommendable.,The participants were not usability experts, however they were selected from among the students who received the Human Computer Interaction course to ensure that they had sufficient information and experience concerning the evaluation of a website with heuristics. Besides, the study was limited to a small number of university students. The implication is that results of this study have potential to guide libraries, which plan to adapt themselves to the digital world by delivering web services, by addressing critical points influencing users’ points of views toward library websites and their usability evaluation result.,Depending on the changes in user habits regarding the retrieval of information, libraries have made considerable investments in web technologies to meet their users’ demands, and recently, digital libraries have begun to take over physical libraries. Users always need to perform tasks efficiently, effectively and satisfactorily when using websites. As one of the most crucial sources of digital materials, library websites are expected to have usable characteristics that satisfactorily meet user requirements. Therefore, the practical implication is that the findings of the study will guide designers, developers and practitioners in the development of library websites.,In the context of usability evaluation of digital libraries, this is the first study to analyze effects of usability problems identified by users during the heuristic inspection on their overall evaluation score and willingness to recommend the website to their friends or colleagues.

Achieving a User Friendly Error Message Design: Understanding the Mindset and Preferences of Turkish Software Developers

This study investigates the preferences of software developers concerning the design of error messages and required fields in web forms and explores the factors affecting these preferences. A total of 73 software developers participated in this study and data was collected through a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. According to the results of the study, for the error message design, the developers tended to provide solutions they considered useful not only for users but also for themselves. Therefore, the majority of the software developers chose to embed error codes in error messages; however, they stated that it was not appropriate to display the error code as the main element of the message. Furthermore, it was seen that the error message preferences of software developers were significantly influenced by the duration of developers’ participation in the project, the stage at which they joined the project and the number of other experienced developers.

UX Professionals' Definitions of Usability and UX - A Comparison Between Turkey, Finland, Denmark, France and Malaysia.

This paper examines the views of user experience (UX) professionals on the definitions of usability and UX, and compares the findings between countries and within different socio-cultural groups. A mixed-method analysis was employed on data gathered on 422 professionals through a survey in Turkey, Finland, Denmark, France, and Malaysia. Usability appears to be an established concept, respondents across all countries agreeing on the importance of the ISO 9241-11 definition. There is also a tendency that UX professionals attach organizational perspective to usability. UX professionals diverge when defining UX, and there are systematic differences related to socio-cultural conditions. UX professionals in Finland and France incline more towards the definition highlighting the experiential qualities, when compared to Turkey and Malaysia that incline towards the definition reflecting the ease of use, utility, attractiveness, and degree of usage. Further research should address the implications of the diverse meanings and contexts of usability and UX.

Usability and accessibility evaluation of Libyan government websites

The aim of this study was to evaluate the usability and accessibility of Libyan government websites. A total of ten government websites in Libya were analyzed according to the criteria of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0, and one of them was selected for further analysis based on usability criteria. The results showed that the evaluated website had significant number of usability problems. More than half of the usability problems were rated as major and catastrophic. Visibility of system status, user control and freedom, and user help recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors were the most violated heuristic items. All Libyan government websites did not pass accessibility evaluation using the AChecker tool with the exception of the website for Management of Scholarships, and all failed using the TAW tool. Providing text alternatives for each non-text element was the most frequently violated success criterion for Libyan government websites.

Web accessibility in Turkey: awareness, understanding and practices of user experience professionals

Ensuring web accessibility for all is not an easy task and requires the awareness, understanding and practices of people with different roles. User experience professionals (UXPs) play an important role in ensuring web accessibility for all. However, in Turkey, there is no research concerning the status of the awareness, understanding and common practices of UXPs. The overall goal of the present work was to offer an assessment of the current situation in Turkey to suggest areas of improvement and changes to advance web accessibility practices. To meet this goal, we conducted an online survey. The results of this survey show that UXPs believe they have enough training and education in web accessibility; however, they are not familiar with web accessibility standards and assistive technologies used by people with disabilities. They do not work with people with disabilities in their studies on usability, and they do not consider web accessibility in their projects. Our findings also show that UXPs have a top-down approach to web accessibility and they think that it is the responsibility of project managers to make web applications accessible. In brief, the study showed that UXPs in Turkey need to be better educated and trained on web accessibility, and organizations need to realize that both top-down and bottom-up approaches are required to ensure accessibility of the web for all.

Analyzing Playability in Multi-platform Games: A Case Study of the Fruit Ninja Game

Video games offer new perspectives for discussions and studies on user experience, which results in a change of the relevant terms in the context of gaming; replacing ‘usability’ with ‘playability’ and ‘user experience’ (UX) with ‘player experience’ (PX). PX can be inspected in various gaming platforms, which present diverse interaction methods through different peripherals, consequently uncovering the complex nature of video games. Therefore, it is critical to understand the nature of PX through user research. However, limited number of studies investigated PX and playability in detail in order to create an analysis framework for entertainment systems by referring to former UX and usability methodologies. Majority of those studies presented a set of playability heuristics on theoretical basis, which still required to be tested through empirical research in various gaming platforms. In this context, this study focuses on the qualitative analysis of multi-platform PX through a proposed playability heuristics framework derived from relevant literature. This study aims to test the proposed framework in a multi-platform game setting and thus seek ways to contribute to the establishment of a new comprehensive analysis framework to understand multi-platform PX. For this purpose, a qualitative multi-method study based on game platform diversity is designed to measure player experience with 8 users in two different gaming platforms which is based on mobile and full body gesture based interaction. Besides revealing the effect of “On-Screen” elements on PX such as game interface, mechanics and gameplay, the study also presents promising findings for the effect of “Off-Screen” aspects such as the environmental and social factors.