Vera Multi-Search Usability Results

This page is maintained by Nicole Hennig, Web Manager & Usability Specialist of the MIT Libraries. The User Interface Group plans and conducts usability tests for the libraries' web sites and other interfaces.

Dec. 2007
For complete documentation, see the wiki pages:
Usability plan (MIT Libraries staff only)

Summary
Successes:

• They found it simple and easy to navigate (except for the SFX menu).
• They learned about databases they weren't previously familiar with (as we intended).
  
  

Some problems observed:

• Most users assumed the General set was the largest and included all the other subjects, so many times they used it instead of trying the other sets.
  
  
• They were often confused about whether we had the full text and how to get to it. The title link vs. "delivery options" was unclear.
  
  
• The SFX menu was confusing, especialy when "no full text available." Not sure what all the other options meant.
  
  
• Sometimes they looked for a specific e-journal title in the multi-search box... (the only link to ej title search is on home page and people often searched from top of results page).
  
  
• People sometimes made typos and didn't notice it... so didn't find what they were looking for.
  
  
• Results from Barton are so different from other kinds of results that people wanted a way to decide whether to include them or not.
  
  
• Google Scholar results are so large in number and have confusing or incomplete metadata coming through... some people would prefer to not have us include it here.
  
  
• Confused about links to native interfaces in sidebar that only go to the home screen without sending your query along with it. Expected those links to be the filter links or to at least go to results in the native interface (something we can't do, according to ExLibris).
  
  

Detailed list of problems - and possible solutions