Evaluation of the user interface of Persian web pages of Iranian museums

The article was carried out with the aim of evaluating the user interface of Persian web pages of Iranian museums

The research is of an applied type and it was carried out by a survey method of the type of Heuristic Evaluation. The statistical population of the research includes 10 museum websites under the supervision of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage of Iran. The research tool is the evaluation list based on the criteria found in the texts and sources including 10 main indicators and 103 sub-components. Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Friedman test were used to analyze the data.

The findings showed that among the 10 main indicators, the criteria of simplicity, error correction and user interface language scored 100%, 98.13% and 97.51%, respectively. The criteria of user control and search had the lowest compliance with the components of the evaluation list with 21.9% and 26.83%, respectively. Among the statistical population. Niavaran Museum site had the highest level of quality compliance with 71.71% and Iran Communication Museum had the lowest level of quality compliance with the evaluation list with 42.52%.

The results of the investigation of the research hypothesis showed that the studied museum sites differ in respect of user interface evaluation indicators, and the websites of the studied museums have acted differently in terms of compliance with the indicators. The results showed that the studied sites were able to score more than 50% on the criteria of guidance, information display, and guidance, but they scored less than 50% on the criteria of search, coherence, page design, user interface, user control, and error correction. Considering the role and importance of these criteria in increasing the satisfaction of users from the museum website, it is recommended to upgrade the existing situation by the custodians of the museum website under study.