Monthly Archives: October 2011

Website Appearance

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Over the course of the past few weeks the appearance of the website has started to be addressed. All of the changes have been made to the CSS to adjust and change several things. The changes made to the CSS impact the following:

  • Typography – Font Size and spacing around text that appears on the page.
  • Color – Using the school colors red and white to change the appearance.
  • Spacing and Borders – The space around the columns of the layout have been adjusted and borders have been added around specific items.

Instead of trying to explain in detail all of the changes that have been made it is easier to provide some images of what the website currently looks like.

Home Page

Screen capture of the Home Page

About Us

Screen caputre of the About Us web page

Libraries A to Z

Screen capture of the Libraries A to Z web page.

The Site Map has been renamed to become Libraries A to Z because the latter is more representative of the items that appear on the web page.

More Prototype Testing Results

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Here are some more results to testing the prototypes. This post is a continuation of an earlier post called Testing the Prototypes Part I.

How would you search for a book about turtles?

A2

Person 1 – This person entered the term turtles into the search box and selected the search button.

Person 2 – This person entered the term turtles into the search box and selected the search button.

D

Person 5 – This person selected the link called ‘SUNY Catalog”. After going to this website they entered the term turtles.

What are the hours for the Crane Library for today?

***Please note that the hours will be different depending on the day that the prototypes were tested.

A2

Person 1 – Selected the back arrow of the browser from the library catalog. After arriving back at the home page the pointed to the hours on the computer and said that they were right there. Next they clicked on the link called ‘Fall Semester Hours’ and stated the library was open from 7:45 am until 10 pm.

Person 2 – Selected the back arrow of the browser from the library catalog. After arriving back at the home page the pointed to the hours on the computer and said that they were right there. Next they clicked on the link called ‘Fall Semester Hours’ and stated the library was open from 7:45 am until 6 pm.

D

Person 5 – They clicked on the back button in the web browser and than after arriving back at the home page the clicked on the link called ‘Crane Fall Semester Hours’ and stated that the hours for the library for today are 7:45am to 10:00pm.

What is the phone number for the College Archives?

A2

Person 1 – Selected the ‘Contact Us’ link and than stated the phone number.

Person 2 – At first this person selected the link called ‘Resources by Subject’. After arriving at this web page they quickly selected the link called ‘Contact Us’ and stated the phone number for the College Archives.

D

Person 5 – They selected the back button on the web browser and than they selected the ‘Contact Us link’. After arriving on the Contact Us web page they stated the phone number for the College Archives

Lets say you are taking a history class and you are writing a research paper on womens suffrage. The professor has stated that you must use peer reviewed articles as references. Where would you to to find an article that you could use for your paper?

A2

Person 1 – This person selected the link called ‘Resources by Subject’ from the left hand navigation. After arriving to the web page they would select Women’s & Gender studies first. If the Women’s & Gender Studies web page did not contain the information they needed they would go back and select ‘History’.

Person 2 – The first thing that this person did was selected the back arrow on the browser until they returned to the home page. After going to the home page they selected the ‘Articles’ tab at the top of the page and than selected the link called ‘Periodicals at SUNY Potsdam’. After arriving on the Periodicals at SUNY Potsdam website they went back to the home page by selecting the back arrow of the web browser. Next they selected ‘Online Resources’ than ‘Articles’ and than selected the link called ‘JSTOR’.

D

Person 5 – They selected the link called ‘Resources by Subject’ and than stated that they would select History for this web page.

Are there currently any job openings available with the libraries?

A2

Person 1 – Stayed on the Contact Us web page for a moment and realized the hours did not appear on this web page, so the selected the link called ‘Site Map’. After arriving on the Site Map web page they selected the link called ‘Employment’.

Person 2 – Went back to the home page by selecting the back arrow of the web browser. After arriving at the home page they selected the link ‘About Us’. After arriving on the ‘About Us’ web page they selected the link called ‘Employment’.

D

Person 5 – At first this person selected the ‘Contact Us’ link and after not finding the answer to the question they selected ‘FAQs’. After arriving to the FAQs web page they tried to click on the Ask us graphic that appeared on the web page. After a few tries of trying to click on the graphic they realized that there was nobody around to answer a question. Next this person selected the link called ‘Site Map’ and after arriving on this web page they selected the link called ‘Employment’

 

Other Comments

  • The most important stuff is up front
  • Hours are great
  • Try and show both the opening and closing times in the same window.

Prototype Observations II

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Searching for a Book

One observation that was pretty interesting was how a person looked for a book about turtles. Approximately two-thirds of the people who looked at the prototypes would just enter the word turtles into the search field on the home page and than clicked the submit button. The other one-third would select the link called ‘BearCat’ and after arriving at the new website they would enter the word turtles into the search box and select the submit button called ‘Go’. This sounds very simplistic with this description; However, if people chose to use ‘BearCat’ they had more difficulty completing the task than if they had just entered turtles in the search field and selected the submit button.

Some of the people that went to ‘BearCat’ seemed to be confused when they first arrived at the website. As stated above part of the confusion was that the website looks different from the prototype even though it is one of the services that the libraries provides. The second part that tripped people up was that there is a drop down list that appears just above the search field and another one that appears just to the left of it. One person clicked on the drop down menu and saw several options and than asked me what they meant. Once again, I had to reluctantly not answer their question to get quality feedback. The other part that made things difficult for some people is that the submit button in BearCat, which is named ‘Go’ does not appear right next to the search field My impression is that most people that choose to go to ‘BearCat’ new it was the libraries catalog and that it would allow them to search for items that were in the building.

Employment

The question “Are there currently any job openings available with the libraries?” caused some confusion for some people. About one-third of people went immediately to the FAQs web page to try and answer this question. This was not a surprise because the question seems like it would be a Frequently Asked Question. Another one-third went to a variety of different places that included Contact Us, Help, and Schedule an Appointment to try and find the answer to the question.

The last one-third of testers went to the About Us web page, which is where a person can get to the Employment web page. Even the testers who went to the About Us web page had some difficulty in answering the question. After arriving on the web page not all testing participants saw the link for ‘Employment’ and went to the Site Map page next to try and locate employment.

The navigation on the About Us page in prototype A currently looks like:

It was interesting talking to people after they found the answer to the question because when they made it the About Us page they said that they did not see the ‘Employment’ link on it. All of the testers eventually found the Employment web page except for one person. This person said that they would just call one of the libraries to find out if there were any job openings.

Conclusion

By keeping things simple makes it easier for a person to use a website. The goal was to test the prototypes; However, it revealed several problems with other websites and services that the libraries makes available to people. The new College Libraries website will allow a person to get to things they need; However, I am not convinced that when they leave the libraries website that they will be able to accomplish their tasks. In order for people to be successful the other websites and services that the libraries subscribe to will need to be updated. On one hand, some of them can be updated, but some can not be changed. The saga continues….