Assessing the Usability of Popular English Language Learning (ELL) Websites: An Automated Evaluation Approach

Abstract

Technical quality is a fundamental component of website quality. Inefficiently designed websites can cause dissatisfaction among users, resulting in a high bounce rate where they just view the main page without exploring other pages. Thus, this study attempts to evaluate the technical quality of popular English Language Learning (ELL) websites in relation to 'Site Performance', 'Mobile Friendliness', 'SEO', and 'Security' aspects. The PageRank (PR) tool was utilised to choose the sample according to their popularity and significance. Only 24 ELL websites with high importance rankings (PR5-PR9) were selected as the sample for the study. An automated website evaluation tool called Website Grader was used to evaluate the technical quality of these websites. 71% of the examined ELL websites are rated as having average technical quality. 17% of websites are considered to have good technical quality. The abundance of average-to-good quality ELL websites highlights the significant potential of these valuable resources for use within the teaching and learning context. The findings offer website hosts valuable insights into the deficiencies and urgent need to improve the quality of their websites. Furthermore, this assessment offers insight into the effectiveness of automated evaluation techniques in evaluating language learning websites. Comparative studies may be carried out to determine the technical quality based on the various tools used.

Keywords: Automated tool, Computer-Assisted Language Learning, English Language Learning websites, website evaluation, usability.