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

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

3. 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?

4. 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

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

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

7. 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?

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

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. What to test
Site-level usability
Page-level usability

12. 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

13. Phase 2: Testing
Materials
Procedure
Conducting the test

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

15. Resources Jakob Nielsen, Useit.com
Alertbox (regular column; 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.

16. Questions? Comments? Eugenia Yuqing Zhang x5422
Presentation slides, reference resources, and meeting minutes are available online: