Kirstin Dougan Music and Performing Arts Librarian Music and Performing Arts Library University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Music Library Association Annual Meeting Atlanta, GA February 28, 2014

Some rights reservedSome rights reserved Photo by M. Rehemtulla for QUOI Media Group

What patrons say they do What patrons do when we aren’t looking What we observe patrons do What we think patrons do

What are user studies? User Studies  Learning how users approach processes / accomplish tasks vs. Usability Studies  Looking for problems with sites / systems

Why conduct them? “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Stephen R. Covey, Habit 5, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Librarians

First thing’s first Decide what bigger question(s) you want to answer.

Please… Don’t just collect data to have data— that’s not helpful to you, your patrons, or your colleagues.

Kinds of user studies  Ethnographic  Task-based (these most closely overlap with usability testing) Related…  Surveys  Focus Groups

Ethnographic approaches  Observation logs done by library staff  Journals (written and/or photo) done by the patron  Interviews  Space mapping Either from patron’s memory or of what they would like to see

Task studies Some rights reserved by Mufidah Kassalias rights reserved by Mufidah Kassalias

What can task studies tell you about patrons?  What tools/resources they are or aren’t using  Whether they know about all of the library’s tools  Whether they can find the library’s tools easily  Why they are choosing particular tools  How they conduct searches

Constructing a task study  Consider having non-librarian moderator(s)  Don’t have too many tasks  Make the tasks realistic  Have the participant “think out loud”  Record the screen and audio if at all possible

What can you do with the data?  Make changes to Library websites Catalog interfaces (if you are lucky) Instructional sessions and materials Library spaces Library services

Resources  Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) Project  Ethnographer’s Toolkit assessment/data-gathering-tools/ assessment/data-gathering-tools/  WEAVE Journal of Library User Experience  Usability in the Library

Questions? Thank you! Kirstin Dougan