Testing The Usability Of The Stanford University Library's Cataloging Services Website

Project Proposal

Feb. 13, 2002

Purpose

To evaluate the usability of the Stanford University Cataloging Services Department website and suggest improvements.

Situation

The Stanford University Cataloging Services Department website is designed to be publicly viewable, but primarily serves as a resource for cataloging staff and selected staff in other parts of the library. Resources include:

• Documentation for local policies and procedures
• Staff contact lists
• Information about current and past department projects
• General information about the department and each service unit
• Forms
• Tools, including an accession number generator
• Links to offsite documentation and tools

The site was completely redesigned in June 2001 and upgraded to its current form in October 2001. A Web Advisory Group convened in August 2001 to further develop the site, write guidelines, and to address known problems that had surfaced since the redesign, including

• Difficulty with navigation and some other features in Netscape 4.7x (the default staff browser)
• Other cross-platform inconsistencies
• Lack of a site-specific search, although one can search the site using the library-wide search feature (planned)
• Some important documents not yet converted
• Lack of comprehensive site index (planned)
• Incomplete or non-authoritative resources chosen for off-site resource listings

Since the redesign, all but a few legacy documents have been updated and converted to the new design, and additional documents have been added at the rate of 1-3 a week.

The Problem

No formal study of staff use has been made and the Advisory Group and management have no concrete information about its use. The basic site design was developed in a short time with testing from a few managers only; very few staff commented on the site when asked to do so after the launch, with the responses limited almost solely to criticism of the Netscape Javascript handling problems. While the members of the Advisory Group have devoted many hours to the site in addition to their regular duties, the usefulness of that work hasn't yet been demonstrated.

Research Questions

• Do CS staff use the site in their daily work?
• What barriers (such as violations of common design standards, lack of relevant information, preference for printed reference) prevent its use by CS or other staff?
• Do staff outside the department use the site, and if so, what information are they seeking?
• What are the most important changes that should be made to increase usability?

Scope

This study will look at site usability in terms of both design and content. I intend to examine the following areas:

• Analysis of staff use of CS site
  • Analysis of access logs
  • Survey of internal and external staff
  • Observations
• Analysis of usability CS site from common Web design standards
  • Graphic design
  • Readability
  • Navigation
  • Organization
  • Disabilities access
  • Intranet vs. Internet issues
  • Ease of use for site contributors and managers
• Comparison between the CS site and analogous sites from other major universities' cataloging departments (e.g. Cornell, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, University of California)
  • Audience
  • Existence of Intranet site in addition to public site
  • Statistics of staff use of site
  • Types, numbers of documents and resources available
  • Site design measured against common design standards
  • Who is responsible for design and content?

Resources

Bryce, A. (1996). Information tasks: toward a user-centered approach to information systems. San Diego, Calif. : Academic Press.

Frary, Robert B. (no date). A brief guide to questionnaire development. Retrieved Feb. 8, 2002, from ericae.net/ft/tamu/vpiques3.htm

Hackos, J.A., and Redish, J.C. (1998). User and task analysis for interface design. 1^st ed. New York, N.Y. : John Wiley & Sons.

Krug, S., and Black R. (2000). Don't make me think: common sense approach to Web usability. 1^st ed. Indianapolis, In. : New Riders Publishing.

Lynch, P. and Horton, P. (1999). Web style guide. New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press. (also available online: www.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/)

McNamara, Carter. (1999). Brief overview of basic methods to collect information. Retrieved Feb. 7, 2002, from www.mapnp.org/library/research/overview.htm

Nielson, J. (2000). Designing Web usability. Indianapolis, In. : New Riders Publishing.

Rosenfeld, L., and Morville, P. (1998). Information architecture for the World Wide Web. 1^st ed. Sebastopol, Calif. : O'Reilly & Associates.

Trochim, William M.K. (2001). Research methods knowledge base. Retrieved Feb. 1, 2002, from trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/index.htm