JM2010 Contributed Poster: First Steps Toward Rejuvenation of the Wilson Dental Library Website: Information Gathering Using a Survey and Usability Studies
Posted on February 2, 2010 by ebrennan | 1 Comment
By Joe Pozdol, USC Norris Medical Library
In her well-organized poster on website redesign, Hughes articulates the process she used to evaluate the usability of USC’s Wilson Dental Library homepage. Since its launch in 2001, no user testing of the site had been done. Hughes used two steps in her evaluation process: an online Qualtrics survey and in-person testing.
The survey went out to all School of Dentistry students, faculty, and staff in February of 2009. In open-ended questions, participants had the opportunity to identify what they liked most and least about the site. Additional questions allowed for feedback on how often users went to the site, which resources they used most, ease of navigation, and design quality.
In July of 2009, in-person testing took place. Student listservs advertised the testing, and participants received 2GB USB keys as a reward for participating. Five questions assessed how easily patrons could navigate the site—participants had to locate a database, an e-journal, an e-book, a book’s call number, and librarian contact info. During 15-20 minute sessions, Adobe Captivate 4 recorded user clicks while patrons told facilitators about the search experience.
Taken together, the survey and in-person website testing identified a number of concerns to address. To start, patrons had difficulty locating specific e-books and databases. Finding the online catalog was also a source of frustration as well as the lack of a site-wide search box. In addition, students requested the creation of lists of frequently-needed resources and of subject guides that categorized resources by subspecialty. Last, participants found the homepage layout and graphics to be out-dated and needing change.
Hughes plans to incorporate her findings in the creation of a new library website. In her poster, she reminds us of the need to continuously reassess site usability as time progresses and both content and user expectations change. Hughes also stresses the importance of considering usability and user needs before creating a new website.
Posted 2/2/10
Comments
One Response to “JM2010 Contributed Poster: First Steps Toward Rejuvenation of the Wilson Dental Library Website: Information Gathering Using a Survey and Usability Studies”
Leave a Reply
April 23rd, 2010 @ 3:14 pm
See the poster here: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6EMcnROXV0VOTg2MzY0YWEtNDBjMy00YTVkLThjNTktYjRjMWVjM2E0MzAx&hl=en.
Use the + to zoom in.