Building student groups of similar usability needs in Web based learning systems

The performance of Web-based learning systems depends on student acceptance of the environment. Usability needs may differ among students attending the same course who have similar technical skills, and it is difficult to determine average user requirements. The identification of student groups of similar preferences may help designers in building interfaces acceptable for users. Methods for building student groups investigated in the paper were chosen according to different factors, which are connected with usability requirements. We examine such portal features like graphics, navigation, the informative contents architecture of web sites as well as color preferences. An application of data mining methods for creating groups has been considered. Some experiments for real student data are presented.