Summary

Details

Web Advisory Group

New home page - usability test results

Site tested: paper prototype of new home page for libraries.mit.edu

Nicole Hennig, Web Manager
April 2004

The Test
6 users were tested. 5 grad students and 1 undergrad. See detailed results for questions and answers.

Results Summary:

Question:	Comments/Solutions
1: What would you click on to find out if we have a certain book?	- no problems: Everyone found Barton, either in quick links, under Search Our Collections, or Barton quick search One used "how do I find a book?" link.
2: It's the first time you've used our library and you want to know how to go about finding some journal articles that you need. What would you click on to find out how to do that?	- no problems: 3 picked "how do I find an article?" link, which is what we were looking for and the other 3 picked Vera or Research Help, which is logical.
3: What would you click on to find out what time Rotch Library closes on Fridays?	- no problem: all but one found Hours link   - One user went to List of Libraries first. IDEA: Add prominent link to "hours" page on our "list of libraries page" in upper right, since some people might go there first.
4: What would you click on to find out when the 5 books you have checked out are due?	- no problem Everyone found "your account" link or would go in through Barton.
5. What would you click on if you wanted to email a librarian for help with your research?	- no problem Everyone found "Ask Us" link.
6. What would you click on if you want to request a book from a non-MIT library?	- no problem Everyone found ILB either under Borrowing + Ordering, the menu, or Barton.
7. What would you click on to find and print out the full text of an article from the Journal of Cell Biology?	- no problem Everyone found Vera, one person would look in FAQs.   IDEA: Make sure we keep all our FAQs up to date, especially now that it will be more prominent. Integrate Information Navigator questions into the General FAQ, such as "how do I find an article?" Answers would link back to Information Navigator.
8. Pretend that you are a wealthy person who wants to give a donation to the library. What would you click on?	- no problem Everyone found Giving link. One person wanted to type "donation" into the Barton search box. We still need to be aware that some people won't realize it's a Barton search. (see discussion below).
9. You want to find out more about something called DSpace - a digital repository for MIT research, sponsored by the libraries. What would you click on?	- took a while, but most everyone found it under "more quick links" when they couldn't see it anywhere else. One person looked in FAQ.   IDEA: Add DSpace FAQ to our FAQs page. Also add a question to our general FAQ, called "what is dspace?" - link to that question in the DSpace FAQ.
10. You want to find a list of web sites and library resources for chemistry. What would you click on?	- This is the age old problem of people not knowing we have such a thing as "subject guides." Most everyone tried Barton or Vera, which is logical. IDEA: Add more subject guides into Vera. Some are there already. We've been planning to add a few more for a while now. This is part of a larger question that still requires more discussion at some point. Even if students don't know we have them, we know our own staff use the Subject Guides a lot while doing reference.
11. You want to order an item from our remote storage facility (RSC). What would you click on?	- Most people chose Borrowing + Ordering, which would get you there. Only two people found it under "order forms" menu.   IDEA: Make "RSC: Remote Storage" link be the visible link in the menu instead of ILB, since ILB is already prominent elsewhere on the page and everyone found it easily. Also, most people go to RSC via Barton, so maybe it's not so critical how they find it on the home page. They are already looking in Borrowing + Ordering, which works.
12. You want to see a list of all the libraries at MIT. What would you click on?	- no problem
13. You want to look at old MIT yearbooks. You heard the archives has copies. Find the home page of the Institute Archives.	- This was hard. Archives is in the "list of libraries" and also under "search our collections," under the archives link at the top. People found it eventually in both places, but didn't feel sure they would. - It took people a while to find it. People looked in "more quick links" and it wasn't there. IDEA: Add Institute Archives back to quick links menu, since people look there. We need more ways to make the Archives prominent. (But maybe most people don't come to the libraries first? Maybe they go from MIT's home page, not realizing it's part of us?) Regardless, we need to find a way to make it easier to find.
14. You heard that we have tips on how to use the Web of Science database. What would you click on to find that page?	- It was hard to find the "database cheatsheets" page. People would go to Vera (which works, it's linked from the "?" icon there). - Some people would click on "ask us" (which would work), or "search our collections" (which wouldn't). IDEA: Make the links to cheatsheets more visible in Vera, since that's the logical place to find them. Right now people might not click on the question mark icon. Would be nice to have a text link in Vera for these. Doesn't matter so much that this is hard to find from the home page - not one of the top things.
General comments and ideas: - some people still want a web search box on the home page, or at least want a link to it	IDEA: Change link to Site Index to say: Site Search/Index ...so at least peope will know web search is still there on that page.
- one person wanted to make the maps of the libraries easier to find	IDEA: On List of Libraries page, near the new "hours" link, also add this link: "Libraries: campus map" ... to make it more prominent.
- one person suggested changing order of links under About Us, we agreed	IDEA: Order of links under About Us should be this: List of MIT Libraries, staff, jobs, news, more...
- one person suggested making Hours more prominent in Quick LInks, since it's different and buried in the middle of unlink things.	IDEA: Put HOURS link first in quick links, since Barton is already there as the Barton quick search just above it. We know that SO many people come just looking for the hours.
- we worry about people still confusing Barton quick search with our web search.	IDEA: Make the default choice not "keyword" but "title keyword" - since that will suggest to people that it contains titles - it's our catalog, not a web search. Also will provide a smaller results set. Abd we're guessing most would be doing a known item search when using Barton from the home page.
- people didn't know what would be in the order forms menu. This made us reconsdier: is this the best division? quicklinks vs. order forms?	IDEA: We will discuss this further in WAG. Seems that the "quick links" are for things that are used very frequently by large numbers of users. This menu appears in the footer of many pages on our site, in addition to the home page. (with the same contents) "Order forms" did not seem logical or descriptive enough to our users. And some items don't belong in quick links but are there since we want to make them more prominent & easy to find, and they don't logically fit elsewhere. (shall we call these "special services?" - see below) So we propose this division: Quick Links: (visible ones) - HOURS - BARTON library catalog - VERA - ASK US! - YOUR ACCOUNT - Renew books + more More quick links: (menu) - List of libraries + units - Virtual Reference --- order forms --- - Document Services - Interlibrary Borrowing - RSC: storage request - Suggest a purchase - Bookpage delivery Special Services: (menu) (still need to brainstorm better name) - DSpace at MIT - Metadata Services - Institute Archives - MIT Press The quicklinks menu that appears on all other pages would be a merged list of the visible quick links and the more quick links, not including "special services."
- in our next generation web site we really need to re-think the category "Subjects + Courses"	IDEA: Even though we were not planning to change any top-level category names this time, we've been discussing it. Thoughts: Since people don't know what's in Subjects + Courses, perhaps that name should go away. Instead the new top level category names could be: - replace Research Help with Ask Us - replace Subjects + Courses with Help Yourself All the things currently under Ask Us, could stay there - phone, email, instruction, etc. and we could add the list of subject experts which is currently in Subjects + Courses. Everything in the Ask Us category would be about getting help from our expert librarians. Help Yourself could contain all the self-service pages, including much of what is now under Subjects + Courses, such as subject guides, publication type guides, course pages, and database cheatsheets. This would promote self-service at the top level and perhaps be more descriptive of much of the content we already have. This would of course mean extra work revising the nav bars on 2nd level pages. We'll discuss this further at the next WAG meeting.