Avaliação da usabilidade de uma plataforma web gamificada sob a perspectiva discente: uma abordagem no estudo da UML

Abstract

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a diagram-based language widely used to model systems. Comprising 14 models, UML enables software to be visualized, documented, and specified. Due to the high degree of abstraction involved in its study, some research has been dedicated to developing tools and techniques to help teachers and motivate students when it comes to studying UML. Gamification is an alternative approach that aims to engage students and increase their interest in learning by incorporating game elements. Given this reality, the gamified platform PGE-UML was developed in a previous research project for this purpose. The tool makes UML topics available to students in a pedagogical and motivational way. Just as important as developing innovative teaching tools is evaluating the usability of these resources. This study evaluated the usability of the PGE-UML gamified platform through a usability test, and the user experience (UX) was assessed via interviews. Fourteen volunteer students from computer science courses at the Federal University of Itajubá (UNIFEI), enrolled in software engineering subjects, took part in the study. The results showed good usability for PGE-UML, with its evaluation reaching 86.07 points on the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire. The interviews and the Microsoft Clarity tool used in the UX evaluation indicated good user experience with the use of PGE-UML. Although the findings were positive, some issues were identified, and suggestions for improvement were proposed. This research contributes to the academic community by highlighting the importance of evaluating gamified platforms for teaching purposes.