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Author: Suzanne Chapman
Survey

The University of Michigan Library launched a new article discovery tool in the Fall of 2010. This tool is powered by Summon™ and rebranded locally as “ArticlesPlus.” Immediately upon launch, we conducted a survey using Qualtrics survey software to gather demographics, gauge user satisfaction, and evaluate usability. The latter was accomplished via static screenshots and task-based questions. Overall, satisfaction levels were high and a majority of the respondents succeeded in accomplishing goals of the task-based usability questions.

See all reports for: ArticlesPlus
Guerrilla Test

The goal of this guerilla test was to determine which of four labels (three alternate labels, in addition to the current “available online” label) denoting online availability is preferred by patrons, taking time to ensure that patrons understand the range of situations currently represented by the "available online" label. We also solicited suggestions for alternate labels from participants.

See all reports for: Mirlyn (VuFind)
Survey

The primary purpose of this survey was to gather information about how satisfied patrons are with search results in Mirlyn and whether satisfaction levels vary significantly between categories of users (i.e. undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, etc.). The survey was designed to measure satisfaction with searching overall and with two different kinds of searches: known item searches for specific items a patron already knows about and subject searches for items about a particular topic or subject.

See all reports for: Mirlyn (VuFind)
Participatory Design

The primary purpose of this exercise was to gain a better understanding of which tools and sections of the library website's home page the participants found most and least useful.

See all reports for: Library Gateway
Card Sort

The goal for these tests was to determine how users categorized a sample of pages currently grouped under Services, Departments and Libraries on the Library Gateway to see if there might be better ways to group and label these items.

See all reports for: Library Gateway
Survey

 This survey was designed and administered by the MLibrary Mobile Devices Working Group: Karen Reiman-Sendi (chair), Anne Beaubien, Suzanne Chapman, Kathleen Folger, and Gary Munce. The survey was intended to supplement national survey data about mobile use with actual responses from MLibrary patrons.

See all reports for: Library Gateway
Guerrilla Test

 The gateway provides options for users to search or browse the content of the site. The results pages for these features sort resources into different sections by type. The goal for this test was to determine the order of the headings on the search results page and the browse results page.

See all reports for: Library Gateway
Guerrilla Test

 The gateway includes a group of links on the bottom (footer) of each page called “Quick Links.” These links are meant to provide convenient access to some of the most frequently used and/or most requested links related to both library and university business. The goals of this test were to determine if the labels for both the group and each link within the group were clear, and whether the links included in this grouping were what users want and need.

See all reports for: Library Gateway
Guerrilla Test

This guerrilla test built on previous focus group findings which demonstrated that the language currently used to describe our LibGuides (e.g., "research guides") is confusing and misleading regarding the actual content found on LibGuides pages.

See all reports for: LibGuides
Focus Group

 The goal for this test was not to look at specific design or functionality features of LibGuides, but to better understand the research habits of undergraduate students.

See all reports for: LibGuides
Usability Testing

 The Instruction Menu allows faculty and Graduate Student Instructors to request library instruction sessions and to tailor those sessions to their particular needs. The goals for this test were to determine whether the form provides users the information they need/want and if the design is navigable and the terminology is clear.

See all reports for: Library Gateway
Card Sort

 The goals for this test were to solicit suggestions from users for labeling facet categories, determine how users perceive the relative importance of facets, and determine how many narrowing terms users would like to see within each facet.

See all reports for: Mirlyn (VuFind)
Guerrilla Test

 The goal for this test was to evaluate how users perceive the catalog when it is and is not embedded into a page with navigation tool bars located at the top of the library's homepage.

See all reports for: Mirlyn (VuFind)
Guerrilla Test

 The goal for this test was to determine how users perceive login when using the catalog, and at which access points it is best to force a login decision.

See all reports for: Mirlyn (VuFind)
Card Sort

 To determine staff opinions and trends about categories and labeling, and see if participants had ideas of new features and content.

See all reports for: Library Websites
Survey

 To determine staff opinions about particular category labels, and see if participants have ideas about new labels and content.

See all reports for: Library Websites
Focus Group

 Intranet usage characteristics, frequently used features and recommendations for changes and additions were identified.

See all reports for: Library Websites
Guerrilla Test

 The goal for this test was to determine if the Tagging window should incorporate the flexibility to navigate to the user’s personal MTagger account after applying tags to a webpage.

See all reports for: MTagger
Comparative Evaluation

Usability interns researched popular platforms that are currently providing online bookmarking and tagging services. Attention was paid to how these sites handle issues known to exist in MTagger as well as how these tools provide users with features that go beyond MTagger’s current implementation.

See all reports for: MTagger
Interviews

 Interviews were conducted to gather feedback about user behavior and expectations concerning MTagger and other social tagging tools in order to improve and expand upon existing features in the MTagger interface.

See all reports for: MTagger
Heuristic Evaluation

 The goal for these evaluations was to reveal a preliminary set of issues pertaining to the usability, functionality and aesthetics of the Policies Database, and to facilitate prioritizing further benchmarks.

See all reports for: Library Websites
Heuristic Evaluation
Cognitive Walkthrough

The goal for these evaluations was to reveal a preliminary set of issues pertaining to the usability, functionality and aesthetics of MTagger and to facilitate prioritizing further benchmarks.

See all reports for: MTagger
Guerrilla Test

 Four significant issues were identified related to terminology, iconography and navigation. Recommendations for changes to link labels and placement of global navigation links were made.

See all reports for: Library Websites
Survey

 The goal of this survey was to offer users the opportunity to select a graphic to represent the Ask Us reference service from a variety of options (as determined by a review of how other libraries represent this service). Specifically, we wanted to learn if users prefer Ask Us or Ask a Librarian and if they prefer text to describe the methods for contacting a librarian, icons to describe the methods for contacting a librarian, or neither text nor icons.

See all reports for: Library Gateway
Comparative Evaluation

 The Library Outages web page lists the status of current problems with online resources. The overall goal of this project is to make the Library Outages page easier for patrons to find and easier to use once found. This report is an informal evaluation of the outages page and a comparative analysis of other how other library's communicate their outage information.

See all reports for: Library Gateway