Library Website Redesign: User Testing - Phase 1
Home Page Wireframe: Search Box & Main Categories
Don Fitzpatrick/Ann Perbohner
Methodology
User testing was done with nine undergraduate students over three days (April 25 - 27, 2007). The script for the user test is attached in Appendix A and B along with notes on each student response. Students were given time to look at the wireframe and then asked to respond to the questions.
Number of Questions:
10 for the Search Box
13 for the Main Categories section
Note: One question was added to the Search Box section after we had already tested the first three students. The question was added to test a new variation of the Search Box (replaced “Books” with “Books and more”) (see Appendix for Search Box testing, question #10.)
Results
After reviewing all of the student responses a couple questions were troublesome:
Search Box Section
Question #6: (find the music CD and score for the Magic Flute)
Most of the students guessed that they would find music CD’s in the DVD/Videos category (possibly assuming that this category included all multi-media.) After testing the first three students with this question only, we decided to test the remaining six students with the “Books and more” variation of the search box. We added a question #10, and had them use the new version of the test box. Of the six students we tested with the new search box, 4 out of 6 choose “Books and more” where they had originally chose “DVD/Videos.” Only two students answered the “score” part of the question correctly by choosing Books.
Main Categories
Question #6: (how long DVD films can be checked out from Jones)
5 out of 9 students chose the Digital Media Services link under the Services category. I’m not so sure that this page would answer the question.
Recommendations
Overall, the home page worked very well for the majority of our questions. Books & More on the search box label worked better than Books. The DVD/Videos option is perceived as a multimedia choice and confuses students looking for CDs. A change in wording for the DVD/Video option labeling along with a change in the search function might work better.