1. Redesigning the Archival Services’ Website with User Perspectives
Emily Lockhart, Archives Associate Senior
Archival Services, University Libraries
April 30, 2011

2. Introduction Archival Services Website:
Analyzed users’ feedback collected through 13 website usability testing
Recommended effective, user-centered approaches to presenting website content
Research Questions:
Do researchers understand information presented on an archives’ website?
How do they navigate the presentation of information?

3. Characteristics of Usability Testing
Improve usability of a product
Represent real users
Perform real tasks
Observes and records what participants do and say
Analyzes the data, identifies the problems, and recommends changes to fix the problems
(Barnum, 2002)
“Testing begins with a frame of mind that puts the end user first” (Norlin, 2002)

4. Background
Significant personnel changes in previous 3 years. Website not a top priority BUT…
Implementation of content management system at university-level and mandated migration to new system

5. Mandated Website Structure
Basic structure templates set by university and University Libraries
Top tabs & left-hand navigation

6. Organizing Content – Our Attempt
Archival Services =
University Archives
Special Collections
Records Management

7. Conducting Website Usability Testing
13 participants from core audience:
5 undergraduate students
5 faculty members
2 staff members
1 community patron
Usability lab with one-way mirror
Digital video recording
Staff present
Think-aloud protocol – asks user to express any opinions, feelings, or thoughts while testing

8. Scenarios Allowed 5 minutes of exploration & free discussion
Different tasks for each audience group
Similar tasks but varied with specific collections
Designed to ensure that participants would use all areas of the website
EXAMPLE) Finding archival materials
Where would you find the archives’ holdings on the rubber industry?
EXAMPLE) Finding basic information
How would you contact the archives’ staff?
Note: did not test records management at this time

9. Analysis
Main issues:
Confusion over terminology used in top-tab navigation
Lack of familiarity with archives jargon
Unaccommodating to user behaviors
When 2 or more users experienced the same problem, it should be addressed

10. Analysis – 1) Terminology
Tabs
University Archives
Special Collections
Records management
User Perceptions
department name, archives general, everything archival
rare books, “special requests”, “special categories”
“permissions”, “managing something”, internal function only, not at same level

11. Analysis – 2) Archives Jargon
Finding archival materials (descriptions & finding aids)
All users read definitions of divisions during the test as prompted by the facilitator
50% had to be prompted by facilitator to go to university archives tab for student newspapers
39 questions on special collections materials: 3 hard (prompted by facilitator), 11 medium (2 or 3 tries), 24 easy (first try)
Many users first looked under university archives tab
Organization at highest hierarchical level was not understood by users and needed significant redesign

12. Analysis – 3) User behaviors
General user behaviors
Rarely read text
Search for everything
Did not always notice special features
Suggested more photographs

13. Recommendations – 1) Navigation

14. Recommendations – 1) Navigation

15. Recommendations – 2) Jargon

16. Recommendations – 3) User behavior

17. Conclusions
Website usability tests provided an opportunity to better understand users.
Burden of understanding should not be on researcher. Archivists should take responsibility for educating users.
Lessons learned can be applied to provide better services at reference desk, during information literacy sessions, and through remote inquires.

18. Emily Lockhart, Archives Associate Senior
Thank you
Emily Lockhart, Archives Associate Senior