Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usability (effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction) of e-feedback interfaces. The experiment compares a traditional visual approach with a multimodal approach in order to determine the impact of multimodal metaphors upon the user's understanding, reasoning and engagement with the e-feedback. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical investigation involved visual (text with graphical illustrations) and multimodal (audio-visual with expressive avatars and recorded speech) experimental e-feedback platforms. Both experimental platforms provided the same e-feedback but used different interaction metaphors to convey the information. The evaluation approach measured effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction. Findings: The results showed that the multimodal approach increased usability in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and engagement of users with the e-feedback. There is a very clear prima facie case that combining different communication metaphors to convey information involved in the e-feedback simultaneously does not increase the information overload on users. This however was observed to be the case when the visual channel was used. Originality/value: This paper introduces a unique approach that uses specific combinations of multimodal metaphors to communicate information about e-feedback simultaneously. This approach increased the usability of e-feedback and user's engagement in interfaces for e-learning applications. (Contains 4 figures.)