Multimedia systems in distance education: effects of usability on learning

Multimedia systems are more and more used in distance learning. Since these systems are often structured as a hypertext, they pose additional problems to the user due to the complexity of navigable paths. In these cases the user has to learn both the structure of the hypertext and the provided contents. Three studies have been conducted to test the hypothesis that the level of usability of a system can affect the learning performance. The first two studies were aimed at evaluating the level of usability of a system developed as a multimedia distance learning course. An experiment was then conducted to compare the learning performance of students using this system to that of other students using different educational tools. Results lend a preliminary support to the hypothesis that a difficult to use hypermedia system can negatively affect learning performance. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.