Muslim User Interface Evaluation Framework (Muslim-UI) for Islamic genre website: A quantitative approach

There is a strong emphasis towards preserving the unique cultural characteristics of Muslim communities. Rather than to follow what the online technology norms and limitations dictate the way Muslims behave and conduct their activities online, the requirements of our distinctive features should be defined towards a betterment of Islamic cultural understanding to web developers and technology creators, who mainly come from western countries. This study reports an initial investigation on the presence of Islamic identity, traits and usability in Islamic websites by using a Muslim User Interface Evaluation Framework (Muslim-UI) adapted from Islamic genre website Checklist established by Wan Abdul Rahim, Shafie and Nor Laila (2006). Samples of 100 websites were identified and selected by using convenient sampling from Islamic portal at http://www.2muslims.com. The evaluation process was done by using personal observation and the adapted checklist as the research instrument. The study revealed several issues concerning the characteristics of Muslim User Interface (Muslim - UI) for Islamic Genre Website. We end our study with a few recommendations for further improvement of the Muslim User Interface for Islamic Genre Website.