Usability testing of an academic library Web site: A case study

Journal of Academic Librarianship

Volumn 27, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 188-198

  Battleson, Brenda ^a   Booth, Austin ^a   Weintrop, Jane ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035343884     PISSN: 00991333     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0099-1333(01)00180-X     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. Jakob Nielsen uses increasing corporate budget allocations for usability engineering as well as "the increasing number of personal computer trade press magazines that include usability measures in their reviews," as evidence of this increase. See Jakob Nielsen, "Usability Laboratories: A 1994 Survey," Useit.com: Usable Information Technology, (n.d.) available online: http://www.useit.com/papers/uselabs.html (accessed January 6, 2000).
2. ISO DIS 9241-11, Ergonomic Requirements for Office Work with Visual Display Terminals. Part 11: Guidance on Usability (London: International Standards Organization, 1994), p. 10.
3. Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering (Boston: Academic Press, 1993). Other useful books and Web resources on HCI and usability engineering in general include: Keith Instone, Usable Web, available online at http://usableWeb.com/(accessed July 15, 2000); Ben Shneiderman, Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, 3rd ed. (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman, 1998); Bryce L. Allen, Information Task: Toward a User-Centered Approach to Information Systems (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1996).
4. Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering (Boston: Academic Press, 1993). Other useful books and Web resources on HCI and usability engineering in general include: Keith Instone, Usable Web, available online at http://usableWeb.com/(accessed July 15, 2000); Ben Shneiderman, Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, 3rd ed. (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman, 1998); Bryce L. Allen, Information Task: Toward a User-Centered Approach to Information Systems (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1996).
5. Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering (Boston: Academic Press, 1993). Other useful books and Web resources on HCI and usability engineering in general include: Keith Instone, Usable Web, available online at http://usableWeb.com/(accessed July 15, 2000); Ben Shneiderman, Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, 3rd ed. (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman, 1998); Bryce L. Allen, Information Task: Toward a User-Centered Approach to Information Systems (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1996).
6. Jeffrey Rubin, The Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests (New York: Wiley, 1994); Joseph C. Dumas & Janice C. Redish, A Practical Guide to Usability Testing (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Co., 1993). Since our testing, a 1999 edition of this title has been published by Intellect, Exeter.
7. Jeffrey Rubin, The Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests (New York: Wiley, 1994); Joseph C. Dumas & Janice C. Redish, A Practical Guide to Usability Testing (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Co., 1993). Since our testing, a 1999 edition of this title has been published by Intellect, Exeter.
8. Jakob Nielsen, Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity (Indianapolis, IN: New Riders Publishing, 1999); Jakob Nielsen, "Alertbox," column in Useit.com: Usable Information Technology, available online: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/(accessed January 6, 2000).
9. Jakob Nielsen, Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity (Indianapolis, IN: New Riders Publishing, 1999); Jakob Nielsen, "Alertbox," column in Useit.com: Usable Information Technology, available online: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/(accessed January 6, 2000).
10. Jared Spool, Web Site Usability: A Designers' Guide (North Andover, MA: User Interface Engineering, 1997). This book documents a test of nine popular Web sites for usability. A 1999 edition of this title has been published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco.
11. Alison Head, Design Wise: A Guide to Evaluating the Interface Design of Information Resources (Medford, NJ: CyberAge Books, 1999).
12. James Hom, The Usability Methods Toolbox, available online: http://www.best.com/∼jthom/usability (accessed January 6, 2000).
13. Nielsen lists usability principles that should be followed by all interface designers: (1) use simple and natural dialog; (2) speak the user's language; (3) ensure that instructions are easily visible or retrievable; (4) design consistency; (5) give user appropriate system feedback; (6) provide clearly marked exits; (7) provide shortcuts; (8) display easily interpreted error messages; (9) design to prevent errors; and (10) provide help and documentation (Usability Engineering, p. 20).
14. Useful sources for the discussion of these inspection methods include Jakob Nielsen & R. Mack, eds., Usability Inspection Methods (New York: Wiley, 1994), which introduces inspection methods, including heuristic evaluations and cognitive walkthroughs; and Keith Instone, "Usability Heuristics for the Web," webreview.com, available online: http://webreview.com/wr/pub/97/10/10/usability/sidebar.html (accessed January 6, 2000), which shows how Nielsen's list of heuristics can be adapted for the Web environment.
15. Dumas & Redish, A Practical Guide to Usability Testing, p. 22.
16. In addition to the sources cited above, there are numerous online periodicals and trade publications that discuss usability testing and it applicability to Web sites, The most useful are webreview.com, available at http://webreview.com and Useit.com: Usable Information Technology, available at http://www.useit.com/. Useit.com includes Nielsen's "Alertbox" column that discusses various usability topics and well as practical methods by which to implement usability testing. Both publications devote significant space to the discussion of usability.
17. Karen Eliasen, Jill McKinstry, & Beth Mabel Fraser, "Navigating Online Menus: A Quantitative Experiment," College & Research Libraries 58 (November 1997): 509-516.
18. Janet Chisman, Karen Diller, & Sharon Walbridge, "Usability Testing: A Case Study," College & Research Libraries 60 (November 1999): 552-569.
19. SM, listed links to recent and ongoing usability testing of academic library Web sites at, for instance, the University of Washington, Indiana University-Bloomington, Yale, MIT, University of Nevada-Reno, Roger Williams University, and Washington State University.
20. Head, Design Wise, p. 48.
21. We modeled our test procedures after those used in a similar test conducted at the University of Arizona Library. See Michelle Clairmont, Ruth Dickstein, & Vicki Mills, "Living the Future 2: Testing For Usability in the Design of a New Information Gateway," available: http://www.library.arizona.edu/library/teams/access9798/lft2paper.htm (accessed January 6, 2000.) The information outlined in this paper was invaluable to us in that it conveyed the simplicity and effectiveness of conducting usability testing of a library Web site.
22. The student need not necessarily have answered the question to be considered "correct." For the purposes of this test, a "correct" response was one in which the user could navigate to the appropriate index, database, resource, etc. in which the question could then be answered.
23. For more on think-aloud protocol, see Dumas and Redish, A Practical Guide to Usability Testing and Rubin, The Handbook of Usability Testing.
24. For more on think-aloud protocol, see Dumas and Redish, A Practical Guide to Usability Testing and Rubin, The Handbook of Usability Testing.
25. Nielsen, Usability Engineering, p. 185.
26. Keith Instone, "User Test Your Web Site," webreview.com, available: http://webreview.com/97/04/25/usability/index.html (January 6, 2000.).
27. Head, Design Wise, p.53.
28. Students did not immediately recognize the term, "Online Resources" which suggests that terminology also be subjected to usability testing.
29. Nielsen, Usability Engineering, pp.172-174. See also Nielsen's "Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users," Useit.com: Usable Information Technology, (March 19, 2000) available: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html (January 6, 2000).
30. Nielsen, Usability Engineering, pp.172-174. See also Nielsen's "Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users," Useit.com: Usable Information Technology, (March 19, 2000) available: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html (January 6, 2000).
31. Jakob Nielsen, and Thomas K Landauer, "A Mathematical Model of the Finding of Usability Problems," Proceedings of ACM INTERCHI'93 Conference (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 24-29 April 1993), pp. 206-213. Nielsen and Landauer's formula and curve reproduced in Nielsen, "Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users."
32. Nielsen, "Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users."
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Nielsen, Usability Engineering, p. 21.