Traditional Usability Testing of Library Mobile Websites Kimberly Pendell & Michael Bowman 1

Choosing Your Testing Environment Field testing or laboratory testing? What are you testing for? User interaction or hardware & software compatibility? 2

Hybrid Usability Testing Recruit participants to test site with their own phones Controlled environment with recording capability Predetermined tasks Time at the end for user to explore site independently Post-test survey 3

Recruiting Volunteers 4 Phase 1: Facebook post on Library account Announcement on Library news blog & posted to Library homepage Phase 2: Flyers in the Library and on campus bulletin boards

Usability study (May) & mobile website analytics (Fall) PSU Smartphone OS Distribution, Study VolunteersWebsite Usage Android 31%23% iOS 52%70% BlackBerry 4%0.6% Windows Phone 4%0.5% webOS 4%0%

Document Camera as Recording Device 6

Testing Results Participants slow to connect the task of searching for a book with label Search PSU-only Catalog Multiple technical problems with chat reference Demonstrated the lack of a mobile-friendly proxy authentication webpage, error pages and linked forms Surfaced users difficulties with network connectivity options Slow page loading would lead some users to abandon tasks Problems unique to different devices 7

iPhone vs. Windows Kin Website Display Comparison 8

9 Notable Post-Test Survey Results Searching for articles on mobile website 9 of 12 participants selected weekly or more than weekly Using a feature indicating availability of lab PCs 8 of 12 participants selected weekly or more than weekly Everyday and Very important

Learn From Our Mistakes Dont overestimate your users familiarity with their smartphones Consider your campus connectivity & authentication situation Dont make your usability tasks too simple Plan for the unexpected during the tests themselves 10

Pendell, K.D., & Bowman, M.S. Usability study of a librarys mobile website: An example from Portland State University. Information Technology and Libraries, 31, 45– 62. doi: /ital.v31i If Youre Interested in Reading More 11