Developing a Standardized List of Questions for the Usability Testing of an Academic Library Web Site

Abstract

Modern academic libraries have a great number of information resources available online in the form of electronic catalogs, books, journals, and subject subscription databases. To determine whether users can easily retrieve the information they are seeking, academic librarians conduct usability testing of their libraries' Web sites. There has been an emergence of publications focusing on the usability testing of academic library Web sites. However, researchers frequently report problems and limitations related to this testing, assuming that the wrong wording of questions or tasks during the testing disorients test participants, especially those not familiar with the basics of library research. This study investigates the possibility of increasing the accuracy level of the usability testing of an academic library Web site by developing a standardized list of questions for usability testing that would be based on main functions of an academic library Web site and be designed to meet the general information needs of college students and faculty with different levels of the information literacy skills. and tasks would be appropriate to form one list of standardized questions for the general usability study of an academic library Web site. In the course of this article, the author scrutinizes usability questions and tasks described in the case studies cited, organizes them into categories, and proposes a list of standardized questions for an academic library Web site usability study. KEYWORDS.Web site usability, academic library Web site, usability study, usability testing, usability assesment Today, the speedy development of information technology has transformed traditional library services, and the Internet has become the vehicle for the dissemination of information. A library Web site reflects the academic library mission: it supports curriculum and research activities, provides services to students and faculty, presents available resources, and communicates guidelines on how to locate the information needed. Modern academic libraries have a great number of information resources available online in the form of electronic catalogs, books, journals, and subject and general subscription databases. They offer instruction services, interlibrary loan, and electronic reference.As the number of electronic collections and service possibilities increases, the library Web site becomes much more than a hypermedia manifestation of library resources. It has now become a complex system providing readily available answers to the information needs of the patrons. A user can potentially access an enormous amount of information, often without requiring the assistance of a reference librarian. At the same time, librarians realize the growing challenge from for-profit and nonscholarly information Web sites, such as Google, Wikipedia, and Alta Vista, which attract patrons by offering quick and easy access to the online information. In order to deal with such competition, academic librarians have created sophisticated, user-centered, in...

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