River Campus Libraries User Centered Design Process Brenda Reeb, Usability David Lindahl, Digital Initiatives Susan Cardinal, Science Libraries

Usability group Content group Design group Key tasks Test results Prototypes Issue/Responses Design iterations Test results User Centered Design Process

Usability group Design group Content group Highest No other goal than to represent the user. Medium Competes with standards, technology, time and money Medium Competes with exhaustive content, complex tasks GroupUser Focus

User Centered Design Process Artifacts of design process  Key task list  Design iterations and prototypes  Usability results  “Issue/response” document Meetings  Regular meetings (design usability)  Project specific meetings (usability content, content design)

Design Group  Reorganized in 2001  Lives in the Digital Initiatives Unit  ¼ FT UI designer (MS, Computer Science)  1 FTE graphic designer (BA, Graphic Design)  1 FTE developer  Responsibilities  UI Design and prototyping  Style guidelines  Issue/response process

Design Group Perspective on Site Design  “Hide the technology”  Consistency across library website  Task-oriented pathways  Usability testing results Perspective on Page Design  Essential components  Prioritize  Simplify  Style guidelines

 Universal Design  Section 508  Web Style Guide  Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines  Page Editors’ Checklist “Universal design is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.” Ron Mace Design Group Style Guidelines

Knowledge of databases Partial knowledge No knowledge needed Mapping your search to a subject takes you away from your natural path Find Articles Google Databases by Subject Databases A-Z Design Group User pathways

Design Group Models For Finding: Google 1.Enter keywords 2.Browse results by title and snippet 3.View full text

Design Group Models For Finding: FRBR FRBR User Tasks  Find  Identify  Select  Acquire FRBR = Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records More information:

Design Group 1.Enter keywords and select databases 2.Select databases or “SHOW ALL” 3.Select a result 4.View metadata 5.Select a full text source 6.View full text online Encompass UI

Design Group 1.Enter keywords and select databases 2.Select databases or “SHOW ALL” 3.Select a result 4.View metadata 5.Select a full text source 6.View full text online Encompass UI

Design Group 1.Enter keywords 2.Select a result 3.View full text online Find Articles UI Generation 3

Design Group Search Select Article Full Text (Gather) FRBR Tasks: Find Identify Select Acquire Mapping the Find Articles UI to FRBR Generation 3

Content Group  Multiple content groups, one for each project  Any number of members (1-?)  Every department participates - cataloging, circulation, reference, etc.  Created and disbanded as needed

Content Group Content group activities:  Define key tasks  Select appropriate content  Apply experience and education  Observe some tests  Interpret usability results  Raise issues, not design solutions

Content Group What is a key task? Key tasks are defined as frequently asked items, frequent actions or navigation to parent/child pages. Example key tasks: Find a known article. Find a known journal. Find an article on a specific topic. Find articles on a multidisciplinary topic. Find a specific journal collection.

Content Group Find Articles Group  Acted as content group  Collected issues  Categorized these issues  Technology issues (website, SFX, ILL, Databases OPAC)  Building, shelving & organizational Issues  Subscription issues  Citation problems  Basic research help  Librarians  Created scenarios  Assigned issues to various other groups…

Usability Group Usability Program  Began 2001  7 staff trained as usability testers  Over 20 projects, large and small  Testers volunteer for projects  Reading, conferences, practice  Vendor co-development

Usability Group Usability team activities:  Manage key task process  Design and conduct tests  Maintain a “lab”  Communicate results to staff and public

Manage key task process Usability Group

Key taskTest question Find a known journal Find an article in the Journal of Fish Biology. Find a journal collection Your friend told you there is a collection of political science journals called JSTOR. Where is it? Usability Group Manage key task process

Usability Group Design and conduct tests  Mental model test  Heuristic test  Card sort test  Assessment test (Click path)  Scenario test See Jeff Rubin “Handbook of Usability Testing”, Wiley, 1994

Usability Group Picture of our lab Meet me at Circ!

Usability Group Communicate results

Students say: “I need an article!” Librarians say:  “Select a database”  “This database has 435 journals in it.”  “These journals are peer reviewed.”  “Choose basic or advanced.”  “These journals predate the Civil War.” Culture and Politics

Student culture  Connect at courses, not at academic disciplines  Meet them where they are  Students attend POL250 – “Conflict in Democracies”  They do not relate to Political Science.  They do not envision themselves as political scientists.  Sustainability  Distributed workload (all bibliographers participate)  Dynamic, database-driven pages

Culture and Politics Expect these accusations!  Simple designs dumb down the site  Testing 3 users is not enough  “I have to wonder if usability testing - especially for money - proves very useful input”  No one told me about this  Where is your report?  This is so subjective!

Culture and Politics Try these responses:  Inform  Page design process document  Don’t leave home without the toolkit  Neilson’s Alert Boxes  Pages from Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think  Engage  Observe tests  Publish results

Generations of Design Generation 0

Generations of Design Generation 1

Generations of Design Generation 2

Generations of Design Generation 2

Generations of Design Generation 3

Generations of Design Generation 3

Generations of Design  Find  Subject clusters Course clusters  Catalog (CUIPID + Web Services)  Identify and Select  Relevance Sorting (Evolving Metasearch)  Metadata (Abstracts on selection screen)  Results navigation  Obtain  Direct to full text (via shared knowledge base)  Holdings information / maps (integration with catalog) Generation 4

Generations of Design  Subject Clusters  Pre-selected databases  Search boxes anywhere  Course Pages  Connects undergrads to library resources  Top-5 resource  Usability success  Course Clusters Generation 4

Technology Meta-search Technology and Standards  Find  Z39.50  SRW/SRU and CQL (NISO MetaSearch Init.)  XML Gateway  Identify/Select  OAI  Obtain  OpenURL  SFX, LinkFinder, Serial Solutions

Technology Meta-search Issues  Speed and Reliability  Connectors  Index vs. Meta-search  Ease of use  Database selection  Abstracts on selection screen  Full text availability  One click to full text  Relevance sorted results and de-duping  Quality of results  How search terms are applied  Database selection

Technology Search Select Article Full Text (Gather) Library Web Server ERA Server Subscription Database XSLT User Page with Full Text XSLT XML HTML

Technology OpenURL Knowledge Base  Get the article  Choose an alternative (catalog, ILL)  Translate Journal abbreviations

River Campus Libraries Questions? Presenters: Brenda Reeb, Usability David Lindahl, Digital Initiatives