Building a better reference interface

Internet Reference Services Quarterly

Volumn 3, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 57-85

  Carter, Laurel A ^a  

^a HANOVER COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

Indiana University Purdue University; Indianapolis; Reference services; User centered design; Web page design

Indexed keywords

EID: 0012243604     PISSN: 10875301     EISSN: 15404749     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1300/J136v03n04_08     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Dr. Andrew Dillon of the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science and the reference and information staff of the University Library at Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis.
2. Ann Koopman and Sharon Hay, “Large-scale Application of a Web Browser,” College and Research Libraries News 57:1 (January 1996): 12-15.
3. Ann Koopman and Sharon Hay The prototyping, design, and implementation occurred from February to April of 1996. Since that time, the library staff has moved into a new team-oriented structure that has changed the number of librarians who work at the Reference Desk as well as having changed the operational areas from which reference staff are drawn.
4. George A. Miller, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information,” The Psychological Review 63:2 (March 1956): 81-97.
5. Wai On Lee, “Adapting to Interface Resources and Circumventing Interface Problems: Knowledge Development in a Menu Search Task,” in People and Computers VIII, eds. J.L. Alty, D. Diaper and S. Guest (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993): 61-77.
6. Kent L. Norman, The Psychology of Menu Selection: Designing Cognitive Control of the Human/Computer Interface (Norwood: Ablex, 1991).
7. Kent L. Norman, The Psychology of Menu Selection: Designing Cognitive Control of the Human/Computer Interface 127.
8. Kent L. Norman, The Psychology of Menu Selection: Designing Cognitive Control of the Human/Computer Interface 129.
9. Kent L. Norman, The Psychology of Menu Selection: Designing Cognitive Control of the Human/Computer Interface 194
10. Kent L. Norman, The Psychology of Menu Selection: Designing Cognitive Control of the Human/Computer Interface 270.
11. Kenneth Paap and Renate Roske-Hofstrand, “Design of Menus,” in Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, ed. Martin Helander (North-Holland: Elsevier, 1988): 205-235.
12. Kenneth Paap and Renate Roske-Hofstrand, “Design of Menus,” 219.
13. Kenneth Paap and Renate Roske-Hofstrand At the time of this study, the author was a graduate assistant at the IUPUI University Library. Of her twenty hours of service per week, ten were spent providing assistance at the Information Desk and Periodicals Desk, and ten were spent writing and editing Web pages for the LIS. The author engaged in frequent conversations with the reference librarians about the nature and various philosophies of reference service.
14. Kenneth Paap and Renate Roske-Hofstrand Actually, Figure 2 shows a later iteration and the current content of the reference Web page. After the reference and information staff members had used the interface for a few weeks, their suggestions for improvement were implemented, and the Web page was changed to that shown in Figure 2. The link to the Title List was replaced by a link to the online catalog (IO). The button bar used on the LIS Title List pages was added to the bottom of the Ready Reference page. Since the Title List button bar was visually unique on the LIS and the reference and information staff members were already familiar with it in that context, there was no need to label it as the Title List on the Ready Reference page.
15. The print resources are not included on all of the subject pages. Once the pages were implemented, responsibility for their maintenance became the purview of the Reference and Research Team Leader, who asked that the print resources and the call numbers not be added. The hope was the Subject Liaisons would create finding aids, which would be available both in paper and on the Web site.
16. The URL for the Library Information System is: http://www-lib.iupui.edu. The original page was supplanted after July 1997 by a new LIS home page. The URL for the reference Web pages is: http://www-lib.iupui.edu/reference/ref.html.
17. “Questionnaire for User-Interaction Satisfaction 5.0-L” (College Park: Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland, 1988-1991).
18. Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis University Library, “Reference Services.” Available World Wide Web: http://www-lib.iupui.edu/libinfo/ ref_serv.html
19. Brian Shackel, “Usability-Context, Framework, Definition, Design, and Evaluation,” in Human Factors for Informatics Usability, eds. B. Shackel and S. Richardson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991): 21-37.
20. Brian Shackel In fact, these changes have been implemented and are visible in Figures 2 and 3.