To create more interest is usability awareness in website development, further benefits of usability need to be introduced and examined. This paper attempts to identify and measure a positive correlation between compliance with usability guidelines and the popularity of a website. Showing a significant correlation between usability and popularity would promote further investigations into the importance of usability and could lead to an increase in usability studies within website development projects. There is a gap of knowledge in this area and this study is intended to create a foundation for future research into this issue.
To identify and measure this relationship, a sample of E-learning websites were reviewed and their usability scored using a web-based evaluation system developed during the study. This usability score was then tested against five different ranking systems using Spearman‟s Rank correlation method.
The results of these tests show a strong correlation between compliance with usability guidelines and website popularity. The five ranking systems also showed positive correlations to each-other and to the usability of the sites.
The conclusion drawn from these results is that compliance with usability guidelines could be a way to achieve higher website popularity and visitor numbers.
