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. Once the student switched the search to Bekoff, Marc, he was successful. The student remarked that his "first reaction" was to enter Marc Bekoff as opposed to Bekoff, Marc.
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 using the catalog box.

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 Asset Management. After receiving the "not found" message, the student went back and looked at the alphabetical list, clicking on J and scrolling. He did find this journal. The student commented that he wondered if the alphabetical listing that displays on the eJournals list will take him to the second letter in the title he is looking (for example, will clicking on J and then O take him to titles beginning with Jo, or will this take him from journal titles starting with J to titles starting with O?)
Number of Links: 4

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____                     Unsuccessful__X____

Observer's comment: The student commented that he would consider clicking on the "find books" link because it is a hard copy and that archives would also be a possibility, but the student stared by doing a title/journal title search in the catalog box for american helicopter society. This search did not work. (There was an error in the page which caused the search to be an author search.) The student changed the search criteria to title (american helicopter society) and still did not find this journal. He went back and then clicked on "reference shelf." He clicked on "journal indexes and databases available to non-subscribers. He commented that he does not know what "non-subscribers" means. The student clicked on the research tools link (???) and then Library Catalogs. He went back and clicked on the BU Library catalog. He did a title search for american helicopter society and got zero results. He changed his search to a subject search for helicopter and scanned the results.  He mentioned that the presentation of the subject search results was confusing.
Number of Links: 8

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: Print journals, since you have eJournals A-Z. In response to the subject search results, the student mentioned that he would like there to be a material type option in the catalog when searching, rather than seeing "everything at once."

Observer's comment about underlying question of: Are students able to navigate to the catalog for a print journal? The student did navigate to the catalog, but had difficulty finding this journal because he was using an incomplete title for the search. Also, he chose a subject search rather than a keyword search, which gave him results that did not help.

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 immediately clicked on the interlibrary loan link.
Number of Links: 1

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:

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 knew the term interlibrary loan and used this link to navigate to the ILL page.

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

Successful_____                     Unsuccessful___X___

Observer's comment: The student started by following the research guides link.  He scrolled through this list and choose psychology since there was "no guide for depression." While looking at the guide, the student remarked that he was hoping to find a list of eJournals related to this subject that he should access. The student focused on the "internet resources" section of the research guide and clicked on the link to social psychology network. He did a search for depression on this page and did not find any scholarly papers, so he went back and then back again, this time clicking on Psych Web. He looked for a link to journals (as advertised in the description for Psych Web on the research guide). After not readily finding it, he went back and followed the link to the Psychology Virtual Library. From this page, he followed the link to journals and then clicked on the American Journal of Psychology. He did a search on this page for depression and scrolled through the results, not finding what he was looking for. He went back and and followed the link to search journals. From here he did a search for depression, but did not find any articles.
Number of Links:12

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: Does the catalog list everything but eJournals? If yes, is the information contained to the right of the catalog search box redundant? I see the library catalog search box first. Will using the branch links at the top right part of the page only search the collections for those libraries?

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

Student's response: "I like eJournals; I use it all the time. It is simple to find and easy to use." He also mentioned that he uses the research by subject pages often, but mentioned that there are varying degrees of specificity for these guides. He gave the example that there is a guide for the narrow topic of alcoholism and also one for the broad subject of aerospace engineering.

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

Student's response: No.