Interactivity, usability and aesthetic as predictors of undergraduates’ preference for university library websites

Abstract

The study examined interactivity, usability and aesthetics as predictors of undergraduates’ preference for university library websites. A total of 134 final year undergraduates registered for a course in Web Design and Management from two departments in two different universities represented the sample for the study. A researcher-designed questionnaire was used to gather data from the respondents which were analysed to test the three developed hypotheses. The results suggest that all three factors correlate with preference for university library websites. The students’ perceptions and ratings of interactivity versus usability and interactivity with aesthetics were low. The three independent variables (interactivity, usability and aesthetics) jointly explained 51% of the variations in the preference for university library websites. Each of the features makes significant contributions to the prediction of university website preference. All the factors are significant to the prediction of preference for university library websites. The results call for the improvement of interactivity in order to have high correlation with usability and aesthetics and thereby increasing the preference by users for university library websites.