usability evaluation of electronic learning management systems in the university of medical sciences

Background: with the covid-19 pandemic, higher education communities almost worldwide have switched from traditional face-to-face education to distance learning and the use of electronic learning management systems (elms) in universities increased greatly; so that today online and electronic education is being done as an important part of education. these conditions have caused new challenges to the usability of these systems. in this study, some of these problems were investigated at kerman university of medical sciences.objectives: the aim of this study was to evaluate the usability of electronic learning management systems at kerman university of medical sciences.methods: this cross-sectional and descriptive study evaluated the usability of the navid system, skyroom, and adobe connect using a heuristic evaluation. three evaluators independently evaluated these systems using the nielsen heuristics. data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, and mean) using spss and excel software. finally, the information related to the problems (problem, its related heuristic, severity rating of the problem and its occurrence location) were presented in tables.results: a total of 106 usability problems were identified in elms. the skyroom showed the largest number of problems detected (52 cases), and the lowest number of problems was observed in the navid system (22 cases) and adobe connect (39 cases). some heuristics, such as ‘error prevention’ and ‘help and documentation,’ had more suitable conditions. but in terms of ‘flexibility and efficiency of use,’ there was no suitable situation; so that the most problems in the navid system and skyroom were classified in ‘flexibility and efficiency of use’ (45.45% and 23.07%, respectively), but the largest number of problems in adobe connect were related to ‘help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors’ (38.46%).conclusion: the usability of elms in universities and the learning experience of learners can be improved by using the principles of usability and appropriate interface design. this will help designers of these systems to provide better systems with the ability to improve the quality of teaching and learning.