{"id":1236,"date":"2010-02-02T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T17:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2010-02-04T15:03:07","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T23:03:07","slug":"jm2010-contributed-poster-first-steps-toward-rejuvenation-of-the-wilson-dental-library-website-information-gathering-using-a-survey-and-usability-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/?p=1236","title":{"rendered":"JM2010 Contributed Poster: First Steps Toward Rejuvenation of the Wilson Dental Library Website: Information Gathering Using a Survey and Usability Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Joe Pozdol, USC Norris Medical Library<\/em><\/p>\n

Contributed Poster: First steps toward rejuvenation of the Wilson Dental Library website: Information gathering using a survey and usability studies. Annie Hughes, MSLS Wilson Dental Library\/The University of Southern California School of Dentistry.<\/a><\/p>\n

In her well-organized poster on website redesign, Hughes articulates the process she used to evaluate the usability of USC\u2019s Wilson Dental Library homepage.\u00a0 Since its launch in 2001, no user testing of the site had been done.\u00a0 Hughes used two steps in her evaluation process:\u00a0 an online Qualtrics survey and in-person testing.<\/p>\n

The survey went out to all School of Dentistry students, faculty, and staff in February of 2009.\u00a0 In open-ended questions, participants had the opportunity to identify what they liked most and least about the site.\u00a0 Additional questions allowed for feedback on how often users went to the site, which resources they used most, ease of navigation, and design quality.<\/p>\n

In July of 2009, in-person testing took place.\u00a0 Student listservs advertised the testing, and participants received 2GB USB keys as a reward for participating.\u00a0 Five questions assessed how easily patrons could navigate the site\u2014participants had to locate a database, an e-journal, an e-book, a book\u2019s call number, and librarian contact info.\u00a0 During 15-20 minute sessions, Adobe Captivate 4 recorded user clicks while patrons told facilitators about the search experience.<\/p>\n

Taken together, the survey and in-person website testing identified a number of concerns to address.\u00a0 To start, patrons had difficulty locating specific e-books and databases.\u00a0 Finding the online catalog was also a source of frustration as well as the lack of a site-wide search box.\u00a0 In addition, students requested the creation of lists of frequently-needed resources and of subject guides that categorized resources by subspecialty.\u00a0 Last, participants found the homepage layout and graphics to be out-dated and needing change.<\/p>\n

Hughes plans to incorporate her findings in the creation of a new library website.\u00a0 In her poster, she reminds us of the need to continuously reassess site usability as time progresses and both content and user expectations change.\u00a0 Hughes also stresses the importance of considering usability and user needs before creating a new website.<\/p>\n

Posted 2\/2\/10<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Joe Pozdol, USC Norris Medical Library Contributed Poster: First steps toward rejuvenation of the Wilson Dental Library website: Information gathering using a survey and usability studies. Annie Hughes, MSLS Wilson Dental Library\/The University of Southern California School of Dentistry. In her well-organized poster on website redesign, Hughes articulates the process she used to evaluate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,19,33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1330,"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions\/1330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}