ABSTRACT

Usability is a necessary condition for survival th .
on e web by assessing the usefulness of
existing websites or developi g fl h
. n rom t e scratch and then conducting its usabi lity
evaluation e.g., usability testing or heuristic evaluation among other HCI techniques.
Experi mental usabil i ty methods are more expensive but more reliable to evaluate the

usefulness of the websites• D'1f'i'e.1

t h h • • •

1 ren researc ers ave worked on usability testmg and
proved that usability testing is mandatory to eliminate various usability problems in the websites, also heuristic evaluation is an efficient and eflective method for finding the flaws from websites on best possi ble cost. The aim of this thesis is to measure usability problem s in the user interface design of all five Public Service Commission websites of Government of Pakistan i.e. Sindh Public Service Commission, Punjab Public Service Commission, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa/ NWFP Public Service Commission. Balochistan Publ ic Service Commission and Federal Public Sen ice Commission. Through these websites, federal and provincial governments recruit the public sector employees. Approximat ely 2500 users visit these websites daily. So this study was conducted to evaluate the usefulness of these websites. Accordingly, usability testing has been conducted and I O usability heuristics of the famous usability expert Jakob Nielsen have been applied to evaluate thest: websites. These heuristics were then further subcategorized. The results are promising and stress the need for improving the user interface of these websites in order to provide the better services to their intended users.