Usability Studies in Times of Pandemic: Different Solutions for the Remote Usability Tests of Research Digital Tools

In this paper, we present the usability evaluation of three digital tools of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media \(\vert \) Georg Eckert Institute, namely Curricula Workstation, GEI-Digital and International TextbookCat, compared with a Meta Search Engine (MSE) search.gei.de which shall replace the use of the individual tools. Due to the lockdown measures enforced by the German government at the end of 2021, we developed different solutions to adapt our usability test plans to remote settings. First, the MSE was compared with Curricula Workstation using recordings performed via Zoom. Second, we compared the MSE with GEI-Digital by leveraging mouse tracking data using a combination of Zoom with OBS Studio for recording the screen. Third, a comparison was made between International TextBookCat and the MSE with data collected via CamStudio. The experimental results showed that the individual tools are perceived as better than MSE mainly in terms of intuitive design and ease of learning, while MSE is more satisfying for users.