Website Usability

Data

Q1: Using the library web site, can you tell if the library has any books written by Marc Bekoff?

Successful__X?__                     Unsuccessful______

Observer's comment: The student followed the link to "find books" and then did an author search in the library catalog page for Marc Bekoff. The student did not reverse the order of the author's name, so he never actually found any books by Marc Bekoff
Number of Links: 1

Observer's comment about underlying question of: Are students able to navigate to the catalog to look for a book? The student was able to link to the library catalog, in this case the "find books" link seemed to attract his attention.

Q2: Using the library web site, can you find an electronic copy of Journal of Asset Management ?

Successful__X___                     Unsuccessful______

Observer's comment: The student clicked on the eJournals A-Z link,  and then did a title search for Journal of Asset Management.
Number of Links: 1

Observer's comment about underlying question of:   Do students use the eJournals A-Z list for electronic journals? Yes.

Q3: Using the library web site, can you find a print copy of the Journal of the American Helicopter Society ?

Successful_X___                     Unsuccessful______

Observer's comment: "You mean like, in the library?" he asked. The student started by clicking on the eJournals A-Z list, then back, then Indexes and Databases, then back. The student then clicked on Find books and went back to the home page again, following the link to indexes and databases. He scrolled through this page and clicked on J. "Humm," he said, "are these journals?" The student clicked on the catalog link (?) on the indexes and databases page. From the catalog he did a title search and found this journal.
Number of Links: 9

Follow-up to Q3 if unsuccessful: If the student is unsuccessful, the librarian should ask what word or phrase were you looking for, but did not find?

Student's   response:

Observer's comment about underlying question of: Are students able to navigate to the catalog for a print journal? This student struggled with this question, but persisted.  The student mentioned that he finds online much easier. "You can find anything online," he said.  He usually only uses online journals.

Q4: Using the library web site, how would you get a book or article we do not own?

Successful__X___                     Unsuccessful______

Observer's comment: The student clicked started by clicking on other library catalogs, then BLC catalogs, back, BLC catalogs page again, scrolling. The student went back and clicked on the Virtual Catalog link, logging in.
Number of Links: 6

Follow-up to Q4 if unsuccessful: If the student is unsuccessful, the librarian should ask what word or phrase were you looking for, but did not find?

Student's   response: I know "other library catalogs" would take me to where I wanted to be, but was not sure where to go once I got to this page." The student remarked that he could search individual catalogs, but knew there must be a better way.

Observer's comment about underlying question of: Do students navigate to the ILL page and if so, how (through the how to box or the ILL link)? The student eventually noticed the link in the "how to box" during our follow up questioning.

Q5: Using the library web site, how would you find a journal article about depression?

Successful__X___                     Unsuccessful______

Observer's comment: The student started by following the eJournals A-Z link. He did a keyword search for psychology and found several journals. He scrolled through this list and choose the American Journal of Community Psychology and used the search box on the journal's home page to do a search for "depression," finding multiple articles. Apparently this is a technique he used quite frequently for Biology class.
Number of Links: 3

Observer's comment about underlying question of: Do students use the indexes and databases link to find articles? No.

Q6: How would you change the library's web site to make it more useful for you?

Student's response: He is familiar with our current interface and likes the interface used for testing.  He likes the "general links" at first, like eJournals. He thought the eJournals and research by subject links went to the same type of information.

Q7: What do you find useful on the library's web site?

Student's response: "Ejournals is the most useful thing." He said that it is "so easy to find really specific things right off the bat." He mostly used the library's web site for eJournals, preferring to sort through an alphabetical list rather than using the search box because he is not familiar with exact titles for most journals.

Q8: Is there anything you would like to tell us about the library's web site?

Student's response: The student when to the catalog page and said, "there is something I don't like about this page, but I don't know what." He asked if we could make the author search work better because he did not know to put the last name first and feels that most of his peers also would not know to do that.