Pull quote: “Our user testing showed confusion about article searching with significant numbers going to the eJournal portal (an A-Z listing from Serials Solutions) browsing for a likely journal title, then browsing the issues for a relevant article.”
Pull quote: “This example design is flawed in so many ways, but the worst offense is probably in making something move that should be static. It’s sad to think that extra money was wasted on jazzing up this design with harmful moving features, rather than just creating simple content that clearly communicates the company’s value proposition.”
Pull quote: “Would you like an even more intimate glimpse into what users are actually doing on your site, instead of what you (or the library web committee) think they are doing? There are several easy-to-use web-based analytics services like ClickTale , userfly, Loop11, Crazy Egg, Inspectlet, or Optimalworkshop. These online usability services offer various ways to track what users are doing as they actually navigate your pages — all without setting up a usability lab, recruiting participants, or introducing the artificiality and anxiety of an observed user session.”
Pull quote: “I wonder: do we have some sort of amnesia about our professional history? Why haven’t been building on these ideas since 1939?”
Pull quote: “I started using the term Bootstrap UX, when I wanted to describe the type of work that I was doing in my then-new position as the UX Office at Fondren Library, Rice University. Most of the anthropologists that are involved in library work right now, such as, Nancy Foster, and Andrew Asher, do year-long, grant-funded studies for their institutions. I wanted to explore doing short, intensive, 6-15 week (unfunded) ethnographic studies or usability tests, that could inform, and help drive service decisions, with Foster’s and Asher’s (ERIAL) work as a firm foundation.”
Pull quote: “The one trend all 4 students had in common was their reliance on Google Scholar for search and discovery of scholarly content. When our testing routines asked them to use the search functionality on the SAGE journals site, they often asked if they could use Google Scholar instead. They preferred to go out of the journal site, search Google, and return to the specific page within the site they were after – instead of searching the site itself. They reported only using their library catalog if they were looking for the print copy of something specific.”
Pull quote: “One of the fundamental concepts in UX is notion of affordance: the idea that objects should behave in the manner that their appearance suggests. A push plate on a door affords pushing; a handle afford pulling. How many times have you walked up to a door and found it behaved contrary to your expectations? Invariably this is caused by a mismatch between form and function. Likewise, the design of the search box should follow its function. Its purpose is to allow the user to enter queries in the form of keywords, so it should look like it will accept textual input, and have an associated button that clearly indicates its function.”
Pull quote: “Kupersmith recommends that libraries avoid frequently misunderstood terms; use natural language equivalents on top-level pages, and adding explanations of potentially confusing terms in mouseover, tooltip, glossary or graphic form. He also recommends that if a top level menu choice is ambiguous, libraries use an intermediate page; and provide an alternative path for predictable wrong choices, as well as being consistent across publications.”
Pull quote: “If you went car shopping, you would cross off your list the one with completely different controls positioned in unexpected places. That’s because your perception of what that experience should be determines your expectations. Convenience is determined by perceptions, and when the actual experience is more difficult than what it was expected to be the result is inconvenience. That’s a perfect way to explain the challenges presented by most library search systems. If you were expecting a Google experience, and then you are presented with the Ebscohost interface it’s going to effect your perception of convenience. That’s why more Google-like discovery search systems will ultimately deliver that perception of convenience – at least until the user gets to the results screen or tries to get to some full-text articles.”
Pull quote: “The librarians quoted here understand most of the key problems, and are especially sharp about “the myth of the digital native” — about which see also this deeply sobering Metafilter thread — but there’s one vital issue they’re neglecting: research databases have the worst user interfaces in the whole world.”
