Test 1
• overview
questions
results

Test 2

Web Advisory Group

Barton catalog usability test results
Nicole Hennig, Web Manager
February 2, 2001

Test 1 - current web Barton
January 22 - Feb. 1, 2001

Overview

The purpose of this test was to find out some general things about what worked and what didn't work about our catalog interface in order to help us begin to customize the screens for our new ExLibris system. We decided also to test a couple of existing ExLibris catalogs (at McGill and Boston College - since they are very different from each other) to give us some idea of how ExLibris systems (which have different capabilities than our current GEAC system) work for our users.

Thanks to Wayne Jones, Darcy Duke, Jim Eggleston, and Stephanie Hartman for helping to create and carry out the tests!

who we tested:

• 7 undergrad students
• 3 staff of the MIT Libraries (since we are also users of our catalog)

what we focused on:

• the easiest, most basic tasks that a first-time user should be able to accomplish in the catalog

what we looked for:

• any features of the interface that were confusing or unclear
• aspects of the catalog record itself that were unclear (though there is less we can do about this)
• features that were especially helpful or clear that we should preserve in the new system

catalogs used:

• Current web Barton
http://libraries.mit.edu/barton
• ExLibris: Boston College - QUEST
http://ecs100.bc.edu:4545/ALEPH/
• ExLibris: McGill - MUSE
http://aleph.mcgill.ca:4535/ALEPH/

2 volunteers used McGill (1 staff, 1 student)
2 volunteers used Boston College (1 staff, 1 student)
6 volunteers used Barton (1 staff, 5 students)

the test:

• each test was about 1/2 hour long
• volunteers were asked to find the answer to 10 questions
• they were asked to "think out loud"
• we asked a few post-test questions (for the subjective opinions)
• instructions for observers