TechEssence.info

A few days ago, Dorothea recommended some terrific books on information architecture and usable design. Usability basically means how easy and enjoyable it is to use a particular tool (which can be measured for anything from a computer to a rake to a building). If you find that your toaster oven is difficult to use, you can’t figure out which knobs do what, and you can never remember which setting makes your toast perfectly toasted, then it has poor usability. When libraries talk about usability, they are usually referring to the online interfaces our patrons utilize. Some of these interfaces are quite usable, but the majority are not. Many of our online databases and catalogs are not intuitive to use, do not contain sufficiently simple documentation to explain how to use them, and are not designed to match the user’s expectations based on the interfaces they use every day (Amazon, Google, Yahoo!, etc.). Jakob Nielsen, an expert on the subject of usability, has developed ten heuristics for evaluating user interfaces. They include a "match between system and real world," "error prevention," "recognition rather than recall," and "help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors." If your Web site, catalog, and online databases actually satisfy these ten heuristics, then you’re in great shape. Unfortunately, most online library resources don’t.

One thing that is too often ignored in all this talk about Web usability is the terminology librarians use without even thinking about it, both in our everyday speech and on our Web sites. Librarians speak their own antiquated little language and sometimes we forget that our patrons don’t. If patrons are confronted with terms they don’t know on your Web site, how likely is it that they will be successful in completing the task they came there for. And consequently, how likely is it that they’ll ever come back?

Last Fall, I did a usability test of our library Web site at Norwich University to see how easy it is for users to complete basic tasks. I had a bunch of Freshmen and Sophomores go through a number of tasks (like finding a book, finding a database, finding a specific journal, finding the phone number to get research help, etc.). What I discovered, not surprisingly, was that most Freshmen and Sophomores don’t know what the following terms mean: Periodicals, Reference, Circulation, Interlibrary Loan, Acquisitions and Databases and Indexes. Unfortunately, those are the terms we use on the navigation bar of our Web site and throughout the site. Some students didn’t know that you could get research help from the Reference Desk and that you could find books in the Catalog. Recently, our liaison to the architecture department was complaining that the students don’t know what folios mean. In the catalog, if the book students are looking for is oversized, they will be directed to the “folios” section. Why not use the term “oversized books” and perhaps even give them some idea of where the oversized books are kept?

I was once told at a job interview that the students at the school I was interviewing at weren't very bright because they couldn't use the catalog. I doubt I made myself very popular by telling them that I thought that catalog had poor usability and that it should be designed to be used by students of all abilities. Who outside of the library world designs systems their users can't use and then blames the users for it? Very few companies would survive with that attitude.

Think about the terms you use on your Web site and ask yourself if a person using a library for the first time would know these terms. I’m a recent enough graduate of library school to remember a time before I knew what Interlibrary Loan meant. I can honestly say that I didn’t know what a folio was until this year. And I certainly didn’t have a clue what an “indexing and abstracting database” was until I went to library school. Why do we use these goofy terms instead of ones our users are familiar with? You don’t see Amazon.com talking about folios, monographs or serials (just for giggles, check out this demo of Amazon on an old Innovative platform entitled “If Amazon sucked like our old OPAC”)!

Instead of Reference, why not use “research help”? Instead of “Interlibrary Loan” how about “Borrowing Materials from Other Libraries”? Instead of Databases and Indexes and Catalog, how about “Finding Books” and “Finding Articles”? Instead of Acquisitions, what about “Suggest a Book for Purchase”? And don’t even get me started with Tech Services!!! I can’t imagine how many Tech Service Departments get calls from patrons with computer questions. I know they do here. Should our Web site really be organized by the internal departments of the library (using terms our users don’t know) or should it be organized by the tasks the users are actually coming to the library to do? Users aren’t looking for a catalog or a database or Interlibrary Loan; they’re looking for books and articles and frankly, they don’t care exactly where they get it from as long as they get what they want. We need to focus on what users are actually going to use our Web site for when designing user interfaces and developing terminology.

For more information, visit John Kupersmith’s excellent Web site, Library Terms Users Understand, which includes results from a number of library usability tests.