Evaluating the Usability of Free Web Hosting among University
Students
Farah Ahlami Mansor, Mimi Zazira Hashim, Norrini Muhammad, Wan Nor Hazimah Wan Azib and
Zuriani Ahmad Zukarnain
Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Kelantan, Malaysia
Keywords: Usability, free web hosting, web development, university student, web tools, web design.
Abstract: Nowadays, most university students search for information through the Internet. Internet becomes a popular
source of information in completing assignments, projects and other tasks assigned to university students.
Besides searching for information, students also should have the opportunity to deliver information through
Internet. Therefore, universities are recommended to provide course to develop websites using free web
hosting among students. Students were given assignments to develop an interesting website by using free
web hosting services. This paper seeks to evaluate the usability of free web hosting among university
students as a convenient as well as simple way of fulfilling their needs. This paper also highlights the
students’ view on the usefulness, convenience, design and quality of free web hosting. A sample of 200 users
was invited by e-mail to participate in the online survey. A total of 119 valid responses were received which
represented 59.5 of response rate. The findings of this study reveal that students are satisfied with the
usefulness of the system as well as satisfied with the system itself. In conclusion, majority of respondents
were ready to use the tools for future web designing tasks.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
There are many purposes of websites development.
Different kinds of websites have different purposes
depending on its targeted users. Some websites are
designed for selling products, providing practical
information or sharing entertainment. This study
focuses on the usability of informative and practical
information website on educational purposes. The
aim of an information centric website is to convey
specific and helpful information for reader so that
the users learn something new or understand a topic
better. According to Williamson & Parolin (2012),
web design is the process of collecting ideas,
aesthetically arranging and implementing them,
guided by certain principles for a specific purpose
with the intention of presenting the content on
electronic web pages, which the end-users can
access through the Internet with the help of a web
browser.
Free web hosting can be described as programs
that allow users to design and develop their own
website through an easy interface that takes all
programming and coding work out (Prodan &
Ostermann, 2009). Users can produce an interesting
and functional website without having to understand
technicalities aspects like code and error.
1.2 Problem Statement
In today’s world, people may deliver and receive
information by only one click. People are heavily
relying on the Internet to find ideas and search for
information. Bernama (2015) has reported that the
Internet users in Malaysia has exceeded 20.1
million. According to Ho (2016), there is an
increment of 14% of Internet use in Malaysia from
2013 to 2015. In 2015, the most popular activities
through Internet were participating in social
networks (84.3%) followed by searching and getting
information (79.6%) (Ho, 2016). It shows that the
second highest percentage of the use of Internet is
for the purpose of searching for information. It is
important for web designer to design their websites
and deliver valid information that may influence
others to possess positive traits.
Mansor, F., Hashim, M., Muhammad, N., Azib, W. and Zukarnain, Z.
Evaluating the Usability of Free Web Hosting among University Students.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Economic Education and Entrepreneurship (ICEEE 2017), pages 247-251
ISBN: 978-989-758-308-7
Copyright © 2017 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
247

Bauer (2009) stated that in designing website, the
web designer does not need to be expert in
programming. Free web hosting were created for
common people to build web site, without learning
programming. The web designers only need to
include information and create the website creatively
without facing difficulties in programming. The web
designer may save time and enhance his creativity to
attract viewers. The web designer must be very
particular if he doing programming because missing
space in coding program can return errors which
require more time to check thoroughly. There is no
need to do extensive testing to make sure all the
parameters and inputs work as the programming are
supposed to work. Therefore, this study evaluated
the usability of free web hosting in designing
websites among university students.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Characteristics of Interesting
Website
In this interconnected world, the most effective way
to deliver information with others is sharing
information through Internet. The Internet users who
have the right platform to deliver information may
influence others but with several factors that need to
be considered. According to Liu & Arnett (2000),
there are four factors that have been identified to be
critical to website success such as information and
service quality, system use, playfulness, and system
design quality.
Ganning et al. (2014) stated that there are several
elements to create interesting website such as layout
of the web site in which includes the arrangement of
graphics, ads and text. In the web world, the key
goal is to help the audience find the information they
seek at a glance. This includes maintaining the
balance, consistency, and integrity of the design.
Graphic use in the web designing can include logos,
photos, clipart or icons, which may attract the users
to browse the web site. For user friendliness, graphic
and color of web site need to be placed appropriately
so that the users feel pleasant browsing the web site.
Content of the website should also be arranged
appropriately, while not making it too congested or
slow to load. Written text should always be relevant
and useful, so as not to confuse the users and to give
them what they want so they remain on the web site.
Content should be optimized for search engines and
be of suitable length, incorporating relevant
keywords.
Besides the basic elements of web design that
make a site beautiful and visually compelling, a
website must always consider the end user.
According to Sicilia et al., (2005), website designer
must consider these aspects such as navigation,
multimedia, compatibility, technology and
interactive. Site mapping, menus and other
navigation tools in the web design must be created
with consideration of how users browse and search.
The goal is to help the user to move around the site
with ease, efficiently finding the information they
require. Relevant video and audio stimuli in the web
design can help users to grasp the information,
developing understanding in an easy and quick
manner. This can encourage visitors to spend more
time on the webpage. The web designer should
design the web page, to perform equally well on
different browsers and operating systems.
Advancements in technology give designers the
freedom to add movement and innovation, allowing
for web design that is always up-to-date, dynamic
and professional. Active number of users’
participation and involvement can be increased by
adding comment boxes and opinion polls in the
design.
2.2 Using Free Web Hosting
In designing a website, the web designer will aim for
usability, performance and accessibility. The web
designer should have basic ability in graphic design
so that he may develop an attractive web site. The
web designer needs to observe what visually
demands by users in order to keep them on the page
and draw more traffic (Bauer, 2009). The goal of
web designing is that everything should look
professional. The web designer only needs to have
information and include pictures, graphs and photos
into the website.
The website needs to be easy for others to use.
Users may only have the ability to click a button or
type in their information (Wen, 2001). If the website
is confusing or too advanced, they will not be able to
interact and influence by information that the web
designer delivers. Everything needs to have a good
flow. One of the templates must be used and then be
customized to specific needs.
Web designer can upgrade content easily by
using free web hosting. The web designer does not
need to write new code every time to make a change
to the web site. The web designer may minimize
ICEEE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Economic Education and Entrepreneurship
248

errors and keeps things running smoothly by using a
free web hosting.
2.3 Web Development and Web Tools
Previous study has highlighted several examples of
web, blog and podcast which provided free web
design tools that may assist students to create and
design their own website interactively and
interestingly (Boulos et al., 2006). The availability
of these web tools helps them to simplify the tedious
web development process. The tools and technology
of new, powerful front-end require only minimum
knowledge of coding (Jin, 2017).
Furthermore, Annarelli et al. (2017) claimed
that the availability of free web and open source web
design tools helps web designer communities to
become web innovators in a simplest way and at
rapid growth. On the other hand, Jin (2017)
highlighted that mobile web development is also one
of the fast growing fields in IT. As part of the
concern, the responsiveness and mobile friendly
characteristics of websites was important and must
be carefully looked in depth to be included at an
entry level of web design and development classes
(Jin, 2017).
2.4 Usability in Web Design
Usability aims to assist web users. The organization
of information in web should be done in the simplest
way and accessible from any kinds of gadgets,
devices or platforms (Leibowitz, 2014). Lawrence &
Tavakol (2007) categorized website usability into
two; either good or poor usability. Good usability
refers to a situation whereby website users did not
even aware they were currently uses web interface to
browse the website.
Furthermore, frustration of users while using
website was linked to the poor usability of web
design (Lawrence & Tavakol, 2007). Several
approaches can be considered by the web developers
to evaluate their web usability depends on the cost
bear to them. The practices of usability assessment
of web can now be done using automatic approaches
which offers automatic usability statistics (Grigera,
et al. 2017).
3 METHODS
3.1 Sampling and Methodology
An online survey on the usability of the free web
hosting was conducted to obtain data from university
students in Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan
Kelantan, Malaysia who have experienced using the
free web hosting in class sessions. A sample of 200
users was invited by e-mail to participate in the
online survey. A total of 119 valid responses were
received which represented 59.5% of response rate.
The researchers used descriptive analysis to evaluate
the usability of free web hosting among the
university students.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 The Usefulness of the Free Web
Hosting
Five questions on the usefulness of the free web
hosting were asked among students. Results
confirmed that students found the usefulness of the
free web hosting in developing the website. Half
(51.3%) of the students agreed that they could
complete the tasks and scenarios quickly using the
free web hosting system. Sixty-three (52.9%) of
students believed that they could become productive
quickly using this system. Regarding the statement
where the system gave error messages that clearly
told them how to fix problems, 52.1% (62) of the
students were undecided, while 37% (44) agreed.
Similarly, 44.5% (53) of students were
undecided whenever they made a mistake using the
system, they could recover easily and quickly while
41.2% (49) of students agreed. On the other hand,
half of students (60) agreed that the information in
the system was effective in helping them to
complete the tasks and scenarios.
Evaluating the Usability of Free Web Hosting among University Students
249

Table 4.1: The Usefulness of the web hosting (n=119)
Statements
1 (%)
2 (%)
3 (%)
4 (%)
5 (%)
I was able to
complete the
tasks and
scenarios
quickly using
this system
0
(0%)
0 (0%)
45
(37.8%)
61
(51.3%)
13
(10.9%)
I believe I could
become
productive
quickly using
this system
0
(0%)
0 (0%)
36
(30.3%)
63
(52.9%)
20
(16.8%)
The system gave
error messages
that clearly told
me how to fix
problems
0
(0%)
2
(1.7%)
62
(52.1%)
44
(37%)
11
(9.2%)
Whenever I
made a mistake
using the
system, I could
recover easily
and quickly
0
(0%)
4
(3.4%)
53
(44.5%)
49
(41.2%)
13
(10.9%)
Note: Scale: 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=undecided, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree
4.2 Convenience of the Free Web
Hosting
Five questions regarding the convenience of the free
web hosting were combined into this study. Results
confirmed that majority of students decided that the
free web hosting was convenient to use. Majority of
students 73 (61.3%) agreed that they were satisfied
with how easy it is to use this system in the
development of the website. In addition, majority of
the students 70 (58.8%) agreed that it was simple to
use the system. Similarly, highest percentage
(56.3%) of students felt comfortable using this
system. Sixty-one students (51.3%) agreed that it
was easy to learn to use this system. Furthermore,
over half of the students (55.5%) agreed that it was
easy to find the information they needed while only
2 (1.6%) disagreed.
Table 4.2: Convenience of the free web hosting (n=119)
Statements
1 (%)
2 (%)
3 (%)
4 (%)
5 (%)
Overall, I am
satisfied with
how easy it is to
use this system
1
(0.8%)
0
(0%)
27
(22.7%)
73
(61.3%)
18
(15.1%)
It was simple to
use this system
1
(0.8%)
0
(0%)
36
(30.3%)
70
(58.8%)
12
(10.1%)
I felt
comfortable
using this
system
1
(0.8%)
0
(0%)
35
(29.4%)
67
(56.3%)
16
(13.4%)
It was easy to
learn to use this
system
1
(0.8%)
2
(1.7%)
38
(31.9%)
61
(51.3%)
17
(14.3%)
It was easy to
find the
information I
needed
1
(0.8%)
1
(0.8%)
32
(26.9%)
66
(55.5%)
19
(16%)
Note: Scale: 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=undecided, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree
4.3 Design of the Free Web Hosting
The researchers formulate four questions related to
the design of the free web hosting. The majority of
the students 66 (55.5%) agreed that the organization
of information on the system screens was clear.
Moreover, over half of the students (51.3%) agreed
that the interface of the free web hosting system was
pleasant. Fifty-nine students (49.6%) agreed they
liked using the interface of this system while 39 of
them were undecided. Likewise, 49.6% (59) of the
students agreed that the information (such as online
help, on-screen messages and other documentation)
provided with this system was clear and 33.6% were
undecided.
Table 4.3: Design of free web hoting (n=119)
Statements
1 (%)
2 (%)
3 (%)
4 (%)
5 (%)
The information
(such as online
help, on-screen
messages and other
documentation)
provided with this
system was clear
1
(0.8%)
0
(0%)
40
(33.6%)
59
(49.6%)
19
(16%)
The organization
of information on
the system screen
was clear
1
(0.8%)
0
(0%)
39
(32.8%)
66
(55.5%)
13
(10.9%)
The interface of
this system was
pleasant
1
(0.8%)
3
(2.5%)
38
(31.9%)
61
(51.3%)
16
(13.4%)
I liked using the
interface of this
system
1
(0.8%)
0
(0%)
39
(32.8%)
59
(49.6%)
20
(16.8%)
Note: Scale: 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=undecided, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree
4.4 Quality of the Free Web Hosting
This study also explored the quality of the free web
hosting. Results demonstrated that majority of the
students were satisfied with this system (55.5%).
Sixty-three students (52.9%) agreed that this system
has all the functions and capabilities they expected
to have in developing the websites.
Table 4.4: Quality of free web hosting (n=119)
Statements
1 (%)
2 (%)
3 (%)
4 (%)
5 (%)
This system has
all the functions
and capabilities
I expect it to
have
1
(0.8%)
0
(0%)
42
(35.3%)
63
(52.9%)
13
(10.9%)
Overall, I am
satisfied with
this system
0
(0 %)
0
(0%)
32
(26.9%)
66
(55.5%)
21
(17.6%)
Note: Scale: 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=undecided, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree
ICEEE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Economic Education and Entrepreneurship
250

5 CONCLUSIONS
This study focused on evaluating the usability of
free web hosting among university students in
Malaysia. The free web hosting is a free web hosting
services provided for users around the world to
design their own websites. Therefore, using free
web hosting in designing the websites among
university students may enhance their creativity,
intuitive and associational thinking. The findings of
this study revealed that students are satisfied with
the usefulness of the system as well as satisfied with
the system itself. The university students may have
potential for increased access and exposure to the
quality of information in order to develop websites
that are informative and interactive for users. They
did not only experience delivering information in
class but also sharing information to the world to
promote social interaction. Besides, the university
students also should be educated on positive uses of
the Internet to enhance public awareness on their
responsibilities when using the Internet in this digital
era which needs to be identified in future research.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The study is financially supported by ARAS
Research Grant, 600-IRMI/DANA /5/3/ARAS
(0148/2016) Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.
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