Usability testing at the University of Arizona Library: How to let the users in on the design

Information Technology and Libraries

Volumn 19, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 144-150

  Dickstein, Ruth ^b   Mills, Vicki ^a  

^a University of Arizona Library   (United States)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034348519     PISSN: 07309295     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. 1. Jared M. Spool and others, Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide (North Andover, Mass.: User Interface Engineering, 1997); Jakob Nielsen, "Finding Usability Problems through Heuristic Evaluation," in Human Factors in Computing Systems: CHI Conference 92 (New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 1992): 373-80; Jakob Nielsen, useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Web Site. Online. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997, www.useit.com/; Jakob Nielsen and Darrell Sano, "SunWeb: User Interface Design for Sun Microsystem's Internal Web" (proceedings of the 2d World Wide Web Conference '94: Mosaic and the Web, Chicago, October 17-20, 1994), 547-57. Also available at www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/ Proceedings /HCI/nielsen/ sunweb.html. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997; Jeffrey Rubin, Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994).
2. 1. Jared M. Spool and others, Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide (North Andover, Mass.: User Interface Engineering, 1997); Jakob Nielsen, "Finding Usability Problems through Heuristic Evaluation," in Human Factors in Computing Systems: CHI Conference 92 (New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 1992): 373-80; Jakob Nielsen, useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Web Site. Online. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997, www.useit.com/; Jakob Nielsen and Darrell Sano, "SunWeb: User Interface Design for Sun Microsystem's Internal Web" (proceedings of the 2d World Wide Web Conference '94: Mosaic and the Web, Chicago, October 17-20, 1994), 547-57. Also available at www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/ Proceedings /HCI/nielsen/ sunweb.html. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997; Jeffrey Rubin, Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994).
3. 1. Jared M. Spool and others, Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide (North Andover, Mass.: User Interface Engineering, 1997); Jakob Nielsen, "Finding Usability Problems through Heuristic Evaluation," in Human Factors in Computing Systems: CHI Conference 92 (New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 1992): 373-80; Jakob Nielsen, useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Web Site. Online. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997, www.useit.com/; Jakob Nielsen and Darrell Sano, "SunWeb: User Interface Design for Sun Microsystem's Internal Web" (proceedings of the 2d World Wide Web Conference '94: Mosaic and the Web, Chicago, October 17-20, 1994), 547-57. Also available at www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/ Proceedings /HCI/nielsen/ sunweb.html. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997; Jeffrey Rubin, Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994).
4. 1. Jared M. Spool and others, Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide (North Andover, Mass.: User Interface Engineering, 1997); Jakob Nielsen, "Finding Usability Problems through Heuristic Evaluation," in Human Factors in Computing Systems: CHI Conference 92 (New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 1992): 373-80; Jakob Nielsen, useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Web Site. Online. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997, www.useit.com/; Jakob Nielsen and Darrell Sano, "SunWeb: User Interface Design for Sun Microsystem's Internal Web" (proceedings of the 2d World Wide Web Conference '94: Mosaic and the Web, Chicago, October 17-20, 1994), 547-57. Also available at www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/Proceedings/HCI/nielsen/sunweb.html. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997; Jeffrey Rubin, Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994).
5. 1. Jared M. Spool and others, Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide (North Andover, Mass.: User Interface Engineering, 1997); Jakob Nielsen, "Finding Usability Problems through Heuristic Evaluation," in Human Factors in Computing Systems: CHI Conference 92 (New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 1992): 373-80; Jakob Nielsen, useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Web Site. Online. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997, www.useit.com/; Jakob Nielsen and Darrell Sano, "SunWeb: User Interface Design for Sun Microsystem's Internal Web" (proceedings of the 2d World Wide Web Conference '94: Mosaic and the Web, Chicago, October 17-20, 1994), 547-57. Also available at www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/Proceedings/HCI/nielsen/sunweb.html. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997; Jeffrey Rubin, Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994).
6. 1. Jared M. Spool and others, Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide (North Andover, Mass.: User Interface Engineering, 1997); Jakob Nielsen, "Finding Usability Problems through Heuristic Evaluation," in Human Factors in Computing Systems: CHI Conference 92 (New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 1992): 373-80; Jakob Nielsen, useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Web Site. Online. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997, www.useit.com/; Jakob Nielsen and Darrell Sano, "SunWeb: User Interface Design for Sun Microsystem's Internal Web" (proceedings of the 2d World Wide Web Conference '94: Mosaic and the Web, Chicago, October 17-20, 1994), 547-57. Also available at www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/IT94/Proceedings/HCI/nielsen/sunweb.html. Accessed 10 Nov. 1997; Jeffrey Rubin, Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994).
7. 2. The User Survey Questionnaire is available at http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/lib_comp_survey/survey.htm.
8. 3. Additional sources about Web site design and usability methods that would be useful to those beginning this process include Susan Feldman, "The Key to Online Catalogs that Work? Testing: One, Two, Three," Computers in Libraries 19 (May 1999): 16-20; Kristen L. Garlock and Sherry Piontek, Building the Service-Based Library Web Site: A Step-by-Step Guide to Design and Options (Chicago: American Library Association, 1996); and Kristen L. Garlock and Sherry Piontek, Designing Web Interfaces to Library Services and Resources (Chicago: American Library Association, 1999).
9. 3. Additional sources about Web site design and usability methods that would be useful to those beginning this process include Susan Feldman, "The Key to Online Catalogs that Work? Testing: One, Two, Three," Computers in Libraries 19 (May 1999): 16-20; Kristen L. Garlock and Sherry Piontek, Building the Service-Based Library Web Site: A Step-by-Step Guide to Design and Options (Chicago: American Library Association, 1996); and Kristen L. Garlock and Sherry Piontek, Designing Web Interfaces to Library Services and Resources (Chicago: American Library Association, 1999).
10. 3. Additional sources about Web site design and usability methods that would be useful to those beginning this process include Susan Feldman, "The Key to Online Catalogs that Work? Testing: One, Two, Three," Computers in Libraries 19 (May 1999): 16-20; Kristen L. Garlock and Sherry Piontek, Building the Service-Based Library Web Site: A Step-by-Step Guide to Design and Options (Chicago: American Library Association, 1996); and Kristen L. Garlock and Sherry Piontek, Designing Web Interfaces to Library Services and Resources (Chicago: American Library Association, 1999).
11. 4. Garlock and Piontek, Designing Web Interfaces, 75.
12. 5. Nielsen, "Finding Usability Problems," 373.
13. 6. Rubin, 21.
14. 7. For a more detailed explanation of card sorting, see "What Is Card Sorting?" Information and Design. Online. Accessed 13 July 2000, www.infodesign.com.au/usability/cardsorting.html.
15. 8. Verlene J. Herrington, "Way Beyond BI: A Look to the Future," The Journal of Academic Librarianship 24 (Sept. 1998): 381-86.
16. 9. Since we began our work in 1997, more libraries have begun to conduct usability tests for Web designs and other product testing. Some libraries that we know about include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Washington, University of Georgia, University of Minnesota, and University of Wisconsin. The last two institutions are using this method for the design of instructional tutorials.
17. 10. Rubin, 93. According to Rubin, "for the purpose of conducting a less formal usability test, recent research has shown that four to five participants will expose 80 percent of the usability deficiencies of a product, and that this 80 percent will represent most of the major problems."
18. 11. An example of the questions used during the second round of testing can be found at http://dizzy.library.arizona. edu/library/teams/access9798/usability_studies/questions.htm.
19. 12. An example of the script can be found at http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/library/teams/access9798/ usability_studies/guide.htm.
20. 13. An example of the Path Form can be found at http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/library/teams/access9798/ usability_studies/pathform.htm.
21. 14. All of the icons and page design on the current SABIO site have been designed by Marty Taylor, the library's graphic artist and a member of Access 2000.
22. 15. User Interface Engineering, "Making Tips Work." Online. Accessed 21 Apr. 1998, http://world.std.com/~uieweb/tips.htm.
23. 16. These idea for pages was copied from the Ohio State University Library's Subject Guides. Available at www.lib.ohio-state.edu/gateway/subjects.html.
24. 17. RIO received the 1999 ACRL Innovation in Instruction Award.
25. 18. With the new SABIO gateway, there has been a 59 percent reduction in the number of hits on our home page relative to hits on secondary pages. This indicates that users are being more efficient in the use of our site and do less "pogo sticking" (jumping back to the home page when their first choice didn't locate what they wanted). The data for this information can be found at http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/library/teams/access9798/reports/graphs/beforeandafter.jpg and http:// dizzy.library.arizona.edu/library/teams/access9798/asu/stats.htm.
26. 19. Rubin, 12.