Usability Testing in Federal Libraries: A Case Study
- 1. Usability Testing in Federal Libraries:A Case StudyNicholas TaylorSupreme Court of the United StatesLibraryFLICC Libraries & Emerging Tech Working GroupFebruary 9, 2011
- 2. the slide where I tell you about what I’m going to tell you aboutusability matterswe did usability testing and so can youchallengesprocesses (i.e. how we confronted challenges)ultimate triumph
- 3. what is this “usability” thing I keep hearing about?“ease of use and learnability of a human-made object” –Wikipedia“if the user can’t find it, the function’s not there”
- 4. you’re a federal library;has this ever happened to you?your websites live on the intranetso much for cool usability testing web appsyou have a limited budget for usability toolsso much for Moraeyou lack access to in-house expertiseso much for…hold on, it’s not as hard as you think!
- 5. Supreme Court Library:it’s all about the researchperforms research for justices’ chamberscurates resources for said researchmaintains information applications…to help with researchamong them, the Virtual Library
- 6. the Virtual Library,our electronic resources access portalcontains 1,000+ links to subscription, non-subscription, and local electronic resourcesmaintained by Content Team composed of five Research and Technology librariansbuilt with ASP.NET, JavaScript, Dreamweaveroriginally built in 2004, grew organically
- 7. to redesign a Virtual Library, in convenient flowchart form
- 8. usability testing prep, elaborated
- 9. usability testbed: the free software that makes it happenUsability Testing Environment (UTE) v2.0free to fedsWindows XP compatibleIE-based task administrationhttp://utetool.com/CamStudio v2.0free/open sourceWindows compatiblescreen and audio recordinghttp://camstudio.org
- 10. usability testing environmentenclosed officePC equipped with microphone and testbed softwareone user at a timeone hour time blocktwo observersAaron R. Fulkerson
- 11. devise a test plan: what do you want to test today?what do you want feedback on?well, what design decisions are you most ambivalent about?breadth versus depthyou can’t test everything
- 12. where the rubber hits the road: translate test plan into scenariosnavigational taskwhat page should user start on/end up at, and how should s/he navigate between the two?feedbackmore open-endedcodify expectations in a document that observers can quickly annotate in test session
- 13. example scenarios“where would you expect to find resource X?”“what would you label this?”“is there anything that strikes you immediately?”“what are your impressions of the text size?”“where would you look for a tool that does X?”“is there anything you feel that is missing?”
- 14. example: single scenario from observer note-taking sheetFind Justice Kennedy’s testimony before Congress on the Court’s Fiscal year 2008 appropriations.top nav link: ‘Links by Subject’right box: ‘About the Supreme Court’ / ‘The Court as an Institution’ > Appropriationslower right box: ‘Supreme Court Appropriations Documents by Year’ > drop-down for specific year > FY2008second entry: 8 March 2007 > pp. 1-35
- 15. recruiting usersfind most passionate usershow many is ‘enough’?breadth versus depthdon’t let them fall off the giant, floating keyboardFree Stock Photos Library
- 16. administer usability teststart UTE and CamStudioconsent forminstructionsobserver intervention, as needed
- 17. observer summary spreadsheet templateScenario Response – noteworthy comments
- 18. Navigation Path – (if applicable) what path did the user take?
- 19. User Suggestions – incidental suggestions about any aspect of the site
- 20. Observer Comments – summary of all user feedback plus observer commentsscenario 9 (of 10)Find Justice Kennedy’s testimony before Congress on the Court’s Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations.
- 21. Expected path: Links by Subject > Appropriations > FY2008after the users have clicked and spoken: results analysisenhance observer session notes by re-watching videosdistill all notes into summary findingspresent findings to redesign teamnot all findings are actionable; users aren’t always right!
- 22. examples of feedback-informed modificationsremoved non-interactive interface elements that users thought were interactiveremoved superfluous graphicsrenamed top-level nav categoriesmade text entries more conciseadded controls to change text sizekept quick link-type shortcuts on home pageprioritized deployment of site search
- 23. outcomes and lessons learnedoutcomes (i.e. ultimate triumph)more unique usersbetter websitebetter frameworklessons learneddon’t discount accessibilityusers are unpredictablelibrarians and users think differentlya little bit of usability testing goes a long way!
- 24. usability is a journey not a destination:how could we improve?perform usability testing earlierrecruit more usersrecruit more representative userssurvey users after “final” design changesbetter utilize quantitative data
- 25. the slide where I ask if you have any questions
- 26. appendix: federal government usability resourcesUsability.gov, http://www.usability.gov/HowTo.gov: Usability and Design, http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/usability/index.shtmlGSA Usability Resources, http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/105114U.S. Government Web Content Managers Forum, http://forum.webcontent.gov/Section 508, http://www.section508.gov/