It’s On the Way: Conducting Library Website Usability Test Eugenia Zhang Web Services Librarian February 15, 2007

Agenda What is Usability? Phases of Usability Test Questions & Wrap-up Planning Testing Results Analysis Questions & Wrap-up

What is Usability? “Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use”. - Jacob Nielson Learnability Effeciency Memorability Errors Satisfaction Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design? Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks? Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency? Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors? Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

Phases of Usability Test Planning: Types of testing Objectives Methods Building the team What to test Pre-test preparation Testing: Materials Procedure Conducting the test Results Analysis: Collate data Identify problems Prioritize problems Recommend solutions Write report

Phase 1: Planning Types of testing Objectives Methods Building the team What to test Pre-test preparation

Planning: Types of test in a library Website Library Catalog/ILS Interlibrary Loan system OpenURL

Planning: Objectives of website usability test Ease and effectiveness of navigation Usefulness of content Effectiveness of presentation User Satisfaction To fulfill our goal at the Libraries to provide excellent service to students and faculty that will advance each user’s learning, teaching, and research experience at Columbia, the objectives of the usability testing to measure the following elements Ease and effectiveness of navigation - Do users find what they need easily. Is there a clear pattern to the navigation that fits easily into the users mentality. Are the links labeled with terms that make sense to our users. (Or, are we speaking in our own librarian’s jargon!) Usefulness of content - What information do users want/need? Have we organized the content on each page in such a way that it is easy for the users to quickly find it? Effectiveness of presentation - Did the visual design highlight the navigation and content, making the site easier to use? Or did the presentation distract or create a barrier between the user and the information? User Satisfaction - Were the users able to accomplish the key task they needed/wanted to accomplish. If they were able to complete the task, did they feel satisfied, neutral or frustrated?

Methods: How to test it? Card sorting Focus groups Surveys User testing

Methods - Continued User testing is the most basic and useful method: Get users from the target audience to evaluate the site whilst performing tasks Ask the users to perform representative tasks with the design. Observe what the users do, where they succeed, and where they have difficulties.

Building the team Identify staff members for various phases in planning, testing process, and evaluating results Include staff from multiple areas of the library Recruit representative users to test: Faculty, students, staff/admin, etc.

What to test Site-level usability Page-level usability

Pre-test preparation Testing questions How many subjects? Provide an incentive for testers Gift certificate USB drive Other incentives Advertising Notice on website Signage in library

Phase 2: Testing Materials Procedure Conducting the test

Phase 3: Results Analysis Collate data Identify problems Prioritize problems Recommend solutions Write report

Resources Jakob Nielsen, Useit.com Alertbox (regular column; email subscription) James Hom, The Usability Methods ToolBox Elaina Norlin and CM! Winters, Usability Testing for Library Web Sites: A Hands-on Guide. Chicago: ALA, 2002.

Questions? Comments? Eugenia Yuqing Zhang x5422 zhang.yuqing@columbia.edu Presentation slides, reference resources, and meeting minutes are available online: http://columbia.edu/lib/staffweb/zhang/usability