Where’s My Pineapple? The Usability of a Website for a Hospitality & Tourism Program

Abstract

This paper reports on a usability test conducted to evaluate a website designed to provide a more informative and user-friendly experience to the new students entering the Hospitality and Tourism Program at Kapiʻolani Community College located in Honolulu, Hawaii. The website was designed to be a resource tool for the program’s new student orientation to help students transition into the college and the Hospitality and Tourism Program. The new students (n = 15) were given a URL to the website prior to the new student orientation so they can review the content before attending the orientation if they choose to do so. This also allowed them access to the information at any given time. The website was designed to be evaluated by participants who navigated through the different contents of the webpage by performing several usability tasks. The analysis involved verbal and written feedback obtained by pre and post-surveys concerning the usability, design, and content of the website as well as satisfaction and interest.