Education Level and a Computer-Based Performance Dashboard Prototype for a Major Delivery Company

The two main objectives of this study were to: (1) evaluate the usability of a major delivery company computer-based performance dashboard design and (2) identify education level differences in user task performance and dashboard usability assessments. Both college educated and non-college educated participants were recruited to complete 15 tasks on a dashboard prototype under time constraints. The dashboard was divided among 5 user roles, and 3 tasks were assigned for each role. Participants also completed the VARK (Visual, Aural, Reading/writing and Kinesthetic) Questionnaire to identify their learning styles and a Computer Experience Categorization tool to categorize them as expert, intermediate or novice computer users. After-task usability questionnaires and an open-ended questionnaire were used to acquire usability ratings from participants. This study suggested that college educated participants performed better than non-college educated participants on dashboard-related tasks. Expert computer users rated the dashboard as more usable than did intermediate computer users.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Algarin, Liana Michelle

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• Babski-Reeves, Kari L.
• Kleiner, Brian M.

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Smith-Jackson, Tonya L.

• learning style
• computer experience
• performance computer-based performance dashboard
• usability
• education level

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-03192009-113152

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/31502