Teaching the evaluation of web usability

This paper describes the design and use of a simple method for comparative website evaluation that has been used for the purposes of teaching web design to University students. The method can be learnt within two hours by a novice user or typical customer. The method is not dependant upon the environment being used by the tester and can be adjusted according to the subjective preferences they may have. Results are presented of the use of the method in practice in comparing the sites of a number of airlines. These suggest that the method is both sufficiently rigorous to produce reliable results, and flexible enough for users to customise. It is an effective tool in teaching the principles of web design