Primo Central Trial, Usability Testing, and Implementation Options (2012)
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The document summarizes a trial of the Primo Central discovery index by three university libraries - University of Waterloo, University of Guelph, and Wilfrid Laurier University. It describes setting up the trial, conducting usability testing with users and staff, and decisions made on implementing changes based on the findings. The libraries tested different interfaces and approaches during the trial period to evaluate the Primo Central index and identify opportunities to improve the user experience of discovery.
Primo Central Trial, Usability Testing, and Implementation Options (2012)
- 1. PRIMO CENTRAL TRIAL, USABILITY TESTING, AND IMPLEMENTATION OPTIONS Alison Hitchens, University of Waterloo Dillon Moore, Wilfrid Laurier University Randy Oldham, University of Guelph
- 2. Agenda Setting up the trial (Alison) User testing during the trial (Randy) Decisions after the trial (Dillon) Questions?
- 3. TriUniversity Group (TUG) University of Waterloo University of Guelph Wilfrid Laurier University We use: Primo, SFX, Primo Central, Voyager, Verde, bX Recommender
- 4. About our institutions U Waterloo U of Guelph Laurier # of Undergrad Students 28,200 18,296 14,536 Library employee FTE 118.5 95.4 61 ACQ Budget 6.9 Million 6.8 Million 3.1 Million
- 5. Expanding discovery There are several options for expanding the scope of our Primo search Add Primo Central index Create a deep search API to search: Summon Ebsco Scholars Portal e-journals, e-books, e-data etc. Others… Harvest records directly from various places, e.g. Hathi Trust
- 6. Why trial Primo Central Index? Large size- “encompasses tens of millions of records of global or regional significance harvested from primary and secondary publishers and aggregators”* Scholarly material- “records include a mix of scholarly material, primarily articles and e-books but also conference proceedings, newspaper articles and more”* Provider neutral- Ex Libris doesn’t own or sell access to the content Interoperability- indexed using Primo software Reduced set-up time- don’t need to develop an API Free- after initial release Primo Central was free to current Primo customers for a year *Primo Central Index Configuration Guide
- 7. Why trial Primo Central Index? We wanted to answer some questions: How are local resources discovered when blended into a much larger index? What is the subject coverage like? How does it match up with our collections? What search options do our users prefer? Does adding this index enhance the discovery experience of our users? Does it impact the workload of library staff? What does web-scale discovery mean for information literacy?
- 8. Setting up the trial Winter 2011 - staff testing and feedback Summer 2011 - Launched as production trial Created Primo Central focused FAQ for users Provided staff training Waterloo included a search box preferences question as part of a larger library web site survey The three institutions took different approaches to activating collections, for example: Waterloo activated anything that was free for search Guelph activated collections that corresponded to their acquisitions
- 9. Initial Decisions Primo Implementation team initially decided on three tabs Web and Information Architecture cross- functional team at Guelph Recommended having no tabs Single search box for Guelph 3 tabs for Waterloo and Laurier Compare user feedback with our consortial partners
- 10. The Design – Waterloo / Laurier Waterloo and Laurier 3 tabs: Blended, Primo only, Primo Central only Tabs have quick limits that can be applied
- 11. The Design – U of G U of Guelph Single search box No tabs, no quick limits
- 12. The Trial Launch Waterloo & Laurier launched as separate trial, parallel to existing non-Primo Central Primo view Guelph replaced access to its Primo-only view, essentially forcing patrons into the PC view. Feedback links on the Guelph PC view sent patrons to a quick three-question survey Random PRIZE: one of five $10 gift cards for campus food services/textbooks/gifts
- 13. The Usability Testing & Surveys
- 14. The Survey Responses 88 responses Generally +ve staff vs users Number 1 +ve: Easy to use Number 1 –ve: How do I find a known item?
- 15. Immediate tweak Changed facet order Before: After:
- 16. Usability Studies – UW @ U of Waterloo Purpose: to discover how uWaterloo students, faculty and staff use PC, what they like, and what they dislike. Came up with specific scenarios: “Please search for the journal article title Strategic decision-making. Could you tell me if you find the search results easy to understand? Why, or why not?” “I’d like to draw your attention to the facet ‘Expand beyond library collections’. Before I ask you to click on it, could you tell me what it means to you?”
- 17. Usability Studies - UW UW Participants: Undergraduates: 38 Graduates: 32 Faculty: 2 Staff: 4 Alumni: 1 UW Incentive PRIZE: iPad 2 Lots of feedback to help with labels and to get direction. Lots of non-PC related comments.
- 18. Usability Studies - UG @ U of Guelph usability testing Participants completed 4 real-life tasks. Before the tasks were assigned, users were asked pre-test questions and after the test a number of follow-up questions were asked. Use PC to find information on something that interests you, or that you expect to be researching in the near future. Take some time to look at the results of your search. What have you found?
- 19. Usability Testing - UG UG Participants: 3 Undergraduates 4 Graduates Incentive: $10 Dollar gift card for campus food/gifts/textbooks Learned a lot about GENERAL principles of discovery vs search and user expectations…less about the actual PC labels etc.
- 20. Survey Library Staff - UW Sent survey to Library staff Asked label questions… Asked some task-based questions… Offered chance for comments/feedback
- 21. Survey Library Staff - UG Did group interview with Library staff from Learning &Curriculum Support team and Research Help Team How do you use facets/with students? When do you use Adv search/with students? How effective is PC to find what you/students need? What has PC been good/lousy for What do you wish PC could/not do? Has the availability of PC changed your search habits?
- 22. Label testing UG/WLU - Final stab at label testing for our tabs Gorilla testing…
- 23. Gorilla Testing
- 24. Guerilla Testing
- 26. Incentives: UG – Coffee & muffin coupons WLU – Bowl of candy
- 27. Testing Complete All Usability testing, survey responses and comments complete: UG, UW and WLU Staff survey results UG, UW and WLU Patron feedback UG and UW Usability feedback UG, UW and WLU Staff group interview feedback UG WIA feedback UG and WLU Guerilla label testing Now… it was decision time…
- 28. Decision Time
- 29. Implementation Planning Common across all views: 3 search tabs Facet order Changes to views Addressing comments from staff survey and usability testing Usability testing at Laurier to get quick assessment Individual view changes Static HTML files
- 30. Implementation Plan Creation of duplicate views with Primo Central and all changes implemented Testing by staff with testing scripts and usability testing at Laurier Communication to staff Updated FAQs, staff guides, tutorials Moving all new features of duplicate views to existing production views
- 31. Search Box Embedded search box changes Example Boolean search under the search box
- 32. Tooltips Tooltips for search tabs Hover text gives detailed explanation of what each tab is searching
- 33. Above the Results Top-level facets now only on left side, removed from top of results list “blended” search scope renamed to match tab name
- 34. Expand Results Entirely removed this option Removed using jQuery Potential for confusion greater than benefit (demonstrated during staff survey) Not promoting Primo with Primo Central as a complete literature review tool Might choose to turn it back on in the future
- 35. Top-level Facets Label changes Removed “Cited Articles” facet entirely (jQuery) New normalization rule for “Available” to contain available physical items in the library
- 36. Brief Results “Full text available” now “Available online” Changed CSS to bring attention to the versions tabs
- 37. Usability Testing - Laurier April 11-18 Laurier Participants 3 graduate students 9 undergraduate students Quick feedback on some of the decisions that were made in the implementation process Generally positive feedback and results
- 38. Usability Testing - Laurier Opening questions on experience with Primo / Primo Central Simple tasks (search, find an available book in library, find and retrieve an article) Follow up questions What the tab names mean to you What Primo is searching What changes would improve searching in Primo
- 39. Still Ahead Laurier launch for the fall Accessibility testing Creation of ongoing usability testing plan Potential of Hathi Trust through Primo Central Assessment of usage statistics
- 40. Questions? Alison Hitchens ahitchen@uwaterloo.ca Randy Oldham roldham@uoguelph.ca Dillon Moore dimoore@wlu.ca
Editor's Notes
- #4: Formed in 1995 : Shared resources and collaboration including: Shared integrated library system (ILS) Reciprocal borrowing Document delivery Statistics portal Collaborative functional committees