2011 Usability Test Notes
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2011 Usability Test main page
Test Notes
List of Tasks Tested
Task 1 - Advanced Search
Task 2 - Find a volume
Task 3 - Find a page
Task 4 - Names - Names vs. scientific names
Task 5 - OCR
Task 6 - Volume dropdown
Task 7 - Run new search from book viewer
Task 8 - illustration search
Task 9 - EOL link
Task 10 - title page search
Testing Methods
Number of Testers: 9
Number of Participants: 17
Usability Wrap-up Discussion
notes by William Ulate
Usability Test Wrapup Meeting 20111102.doc
Survey Monkey Results
The following results are for the last 9 questions asking for general opinions/feedback/etc.
SurveySummary_11012011.pdf
Selected results from final survey question provided below
Sherrin_User3_Webster:
•Easier to use US site - Advanced search good •Key word search important - “at a disadvantage if you can’t put in two words” •“I always use advanced search ‘cause I’m a librarian” •Search within a book when looking at a book important feature •“Feel like options aren’t obvious in BHL-AU book viewer. Help text would help”
Sherrin_User2_Cosgrove:
• “To many functions hidden” ( in BHL AU) • Want to be able to move where box is on BHL-AU book viewer • Advanced search important for BHL-AU and searching within book when in book. • Thumbnail zoom (in BHL-AU) clunky, but idea of thumbnails is good • Straight to book view from search results in BHL-US is good feature • BHL-US listing of results easier to read • “Loathes” the way volumes are listed on the BHL-AU site • Really wants to search within book once viewing it. Will search with Google books for the location of names within a volume.
Sherrin_User3_Monro:
• Site’s have different strengths and weaknesses. •“Nifty thumbnails” in book viewer •AU site looks slicker •Using back button on US site resets search, annoying. AU sites stays in scroll position for search results •Page listing on side of book viewer •Partial Title searching would be good e.g “Key Water Bird Florida” •Advanced search good for title & author combination. Important •Searching is big thing - partial title search mentioned again.
Crowley_User1:
General comments: AU site is “prettier” more professional looking, loves thumbnails but functionality “not self-evident”; US site: pages annotated very helpful; normally just googles for content and pulls it up in BHL that way; initially thought that these scanned books were just some guy doing for fun when time; didn’t realize there actually was so much content in the site since website not so polished
Costantino_User2:
Map function, hard to find small locations on map though zoom helps some but not great, i.e. if I want to find everything on Vermont; Gut reaction Australia site easier to use, more visually appealing - more "Mac" US site more "PC"
JJ_User_Student:
Australia wins in the design category. US site wins in the usability category. Both sites need to develop image search function. Total AU time = 14 min, 57 sec. Total US time = 10 min, 33 sec.
MBLWHOI_User2:
Both sites have cool features. Finding images/ image search would be helpful. AU site is “witty” but found simpler text menu on US site more usable US site: Intuitive, Robust, More Functionality than AU site. AU – prettier Reiterated importance of images, site is better than JSTOR…image retrieval easier than JSTOR…and the viewers are more valuable than JSTOR because they are more book like
Comments from Matt and Diane – After working on BHL for so many years, this testing opportunity was invaluable to us – to see and understand how people use the content we worked to create. Every BHL staff member should have this opportunity. It was a remarkable experience!
Michelle comments:
basically they loved the look of BHL-AU. As soon as they both opened the web page, they liked it. However, they liked the usability and functionality of BHL-US better-the way the bibliography page displays, and especially the way the pagination displays. They both got very frustrated at certain points during the test with how the BHL-AU pagination worked-they felt it wasn’t very intuitive. Note: one of Michelle's users said that they like the Botanicus display better
Survey Tasks/Questions
Survey_Questions.pdf
