Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Recurso educativo Open Access |
| Language: | en |
| Published: |
2008
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ891740 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
Table of Contents:
- Card-Sorting Usability Tests of the WMU Libraries' Web Site Whang, Michael Research Libraries Academic Libraries Library Science Methods Internet Higher Education Testing Web Sites Information Management Library Materials Catalogs Feedback (Response) Expectation This article describes the card-sorting techniques used by several academic libraries, reports and discusses the results of card-sorting usability tests of the Western Michigan University Libraries' Web site, and reveals how the WMU libraries incorporated the findings into a new Web site redesign, setting the design direction early on. The article briefly describes open and closed card-sorting techniques and quantitative and qualitative methods of analyzing data commonly used in computer and library science fields. Findings from this study allowed the library design team to vastly improve its initial redesign decisions for a new Web site tabbed navigation system. Card sorting not only helped the design team validate its redesign decisions, but it also opened the WMU libraries to outside innovation, inviting Web site visitors to redesign the Web site free from the libraries' influence. The simple and inexpensive techniques used here may be useful to any Web librarian or design team embarking upon redesign and usability testing of their own sites and interested in building a more compelling, insightful Web site. (Contains 5 figures and 31 notes.)