Website Usability

Data

Q1:  Using this printout and keeping in mind that everything on this page is linked:

(a) Please circle any of the links on this page that you have used in the past month.

(b) Can you prioritize these links in order of importance to you: 1 is the most important.

(c) In addition to the links you have followed in the past month, have you used any of the other links on this page? If yes, please highlight them.

User's comment:

Observer's comment:

Q2: Using the library web site, how would you get a book or article we do not own?

Successful__X___                     Unsuccessful______

Observer's comment:
Interlibrary Loan link.

Number of links: 1

Follow-up to Q4 if unsuccessful: If students did not make it to the ILL page, 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)?

  This student did via the ILL link.

Q3: Using the library web site, how would you find a journal article about the health benefits of chocolate?

Successful__X___                     Unsuccessful______

Observer's comment:

Find Articles, then said "Do you have to look for something within categories e.g., health or psychology? I could go straight to a broad category. e.g., Medline, PubMed". Searched chocolate health benefits. Hit enter.

Number of Links: 3

Observer's comment about underlying question of: Do students use the "find articles link" to find articles?

At one point she said that when she was a student at BU people kept mentioning PsycINFO, but she didn't know where that was.

Q4: How would you change the library's web site to make it more useful for you?

Student's response:

She said "the main thing is to put categories above the list of indexes and databases on the I&D webpage". She pointed to the list on the I&D webpage and said "before you get to this".

She pointed to the Catalog-- "this I liked, I used it a lot".

She pointed to Ask-- "they can call".

Q5: What is your status at BU?

Student's response:

Undergraduate ___     Graduate ____  Faculty ____     Staff ____    Other _X_(alumni)