Bonnie Gormley
03/16/10
Usability Test Project
Library Website: www.cobbcat.org
I have decided to use the main website of Georgia’s Cobb County public library system for my usability test. The address for this website is www.cobbcat.org
Representative Users
I have decided to have five representative users for the usability test that will represent the variety of users the Cobb County Library website would attract. Here is the list of users who took the test.
1. Elementary School Student
Rachel Gormley a 10 year old elementary school student. She is being homeschooled. Rachel uses the libraries near her home but has little or no experience with library websites. She does however use her home computer and the internet for schoolwork and entertainment. Her favorite website is webkinz.
2. Undergraduate College Student
Peter Gormley is an 18 soon to be 19 year old college student majoring in business a Kennesaw State University. He enjoys gaming and has experience using a computer. He has used library websites for school.
3. Library Science Graduate Student
Benji Martian is a student of Library Science attending the University of Alabama. He has extensive experience using both libraries and library websites.
4. Homeschooling Parent
Sandra Gormley is a parent who home schools her 4 youngest children. She is not very comfortable using a computer. She only goes online for school related reasons or to use the email. She may have used a library website but not very often.
5. Business Professional
Matthew Gormley is an employee of the company of GE, where he works in sales. He is known for being able to compile data into charts. Matthew uses the computer for work and is comfortable using it, but he does not make use of library websites.
Setting
The ideal setting for taking this usability test would be either at the users home computer or at a library computer, because this is where a user would most likely to access this kind of website. Rachel, Peter, Sandra, and Matthew used their home computer and Benji used a computer in the computer lab located in the University of Alabama’s School of Library and information studies.
The Usability Test
Here is a copy of the usability test I created as well as the closing final questionnaire
Usability Test
www.cobbcat.org
User: Library Science Major
Name:
First go to the website www.cobbcat.org, and then complete five tasks and answer questions about them. At the end of the test answer a questionnaire about your overall experience.
Task # 1
Locate the library catalog. Access the catalog and search for Theodosia and the serpents of Chaos by R.L. LaFevers. Search for this book by using its title, then search for it again using its author.
Questions about Task # 1
1. Were you able to complete this task?
Yes No
2. How would you rate the difficulty level of this task? Please mark you answer below
Easy A little Difficult Very Difficult
3. Approximately how long did it take you to complete this task?
4. Would you use this feature again?
Yes No
Task # 2
Locate the information on how to apply for a library card.
Questions about Task # 2
1. Were you able to complete this task?
Yes No
2. How would you rate the difficulty level of this task? Please mark you answer below
Easy A little Difficult Difficult Very Difficult
3. Approximately how long did it take you to complete this task? About a minute
4. Was this information useful to you?
Yes No
Task #3
Find the Job Search Resources Page, find the section of the page that list books about creating resumes. What is the call number listed for the book, Knock; Em Dead Cover Letters.
The Call Number
1. Were you able to complete this task?
Yes No
2. How would you rate the difficulty level of this task? Please mark you answer below
Easy A little Difficult Difficult Very Difficult
3. Approximately how long did it take you to complete this task?
4. Was this information useful to you?
Yes No
Questions about Task # 3
Task # 4
Locate information about the Georgia Room at the Central Library.
Questions about Task # 4
1. Were you able to complete this task?
Yes No
2. How would you rate the difficulty level of this task? Please mark you answer below
Easy A little Difficult Difficult Very Difficult
3. Approximately how long did it take you to complete this task? About a minute
4. Was this information useful to you?
Yes No
Task # 5
Find the information about the Library Board of Trustees write down their contact information
Board of Trustees contact information
Questions about Task # 5
1. Were you able to complete this task?
Yes No
2. How would you rate the difficulty level of this task? Please mark you answer below
Easy A little Difficult Difficult Very Difficult
3. Approximately how long did it take you to complete this task? About a minute
4. Was this information useful to you?
Yes No
Final Questionnaire
1. On a scale of one through ten how would you rate your overall user experience?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. Do you feel that the website was designed well, were there any aspects of the website that you found frustrating? No it was not the catalog was awkward, and the site was not user friendly. It is particularly hard to get back to the main page from the catalog.
3. Would you use this Website again?
Yes No
4. Why would you use or not use this website again
5. Aside from the information found while doing the tasks was there anything about the website that caught your attention? If so what was it?
Report of the Usability Tests Findings
My method for reporting my data will be narrative. This seems to be the most appropriate way to share my findings. There was one task that all the users could not complete. The first task was to locate a book using its title and then its author. All the users could locate the designated book by its title but none could locate it by its author. The authors name was not misspelled, so there must have been an error in the catalog.
The first user was Rachel Gormley a 10 year old elementary school student. She ranked the difficulty of the tasks as easy or a little difficult and was able to complete these tasks anywhere between a few seconds or a few minutes. The one exception was task 5 where she was asked to locate the contact information of the Library board of trustees. Rachel search for approximately 15 minutes and was unable to locate this information. Rachel said that the information she found on the site was useful to her except for the information on how to apply for a library card. This was probably because she already has access to a library card.
In the final questionnaire Rachel ranked her user experience with the website an 8 or 7 out of 10 and said the only frustrating aspect was not being able to locate the board of Trustees contact information. She said she would use the site again and when asked if there was any additional information on the website that caught her eye she said she had learned what the Central branch library looked like.
The next person to take the test was Peter Gormley an 18 year old college student. Peter found the website frustrating. In his final questionnaire he described it as messy and said that he would not use the site again. He rated his user experience as 6 out of 10. Peter ranked most of his tasks as a little difficult to accomplish and he was unable to accomplish task 5 locating the board of Trustees contact information. When asked to list a books call number he listed a number that looked more like a phone number. The length of time Peter took to complete each task was a few minutes each and he found most of the information useful. He mentioned to me after he took the test that he found the websites design frustrating and hard to use.
Sandra Gormley is a parent who home schools her younger children. Sandra completed each of her tasks in 2 to 3 minutes and found most of the tasks a little difficult. She was able to complete all her tasks, except for finding the book by author which none of the users accomplished. In her final questionnaire she ranked her experience as 7 out of 10. Sandra said she thought the website was”o.k., but could have been more efficient.” She would use the site again and the additional information that interested her was the library job listings.
Matthew Gormley works in sales for the company GE. He does not make use of library sites. He ranked the difficulty of the tasks somewhere between easy and a little difficult and except for finding the book by its author he was able to complete all the tasks within 1 to 2 minutes. Matthew felt that the information provided by the website was useful. In the final questionnaire he ranked his experience as a user a 9 out of 10 and he would use the site again. He felt the site was easy to use and uncluttered. The information that caught his eye was the e-library and the digital library of Georgia.
The final user was Benji Martian a Library Science student attending the University of Alabama, because of his studies Benji has a lot of knowledge about library websites. Benji mostly ranked his tasks as easy and took about one minute to complete each task. He sometimes thought the information was useful and sometimes he did not. Despite being able to easily accomplish the tasks Benji did not care for the website. In the final questionnaire he ranked his user experience as 3 out of 10. He said” the catalog was awkward and the site was not user friendly, the only thing that drew his attention on the site was its overall lack of quality. He would only use this sight again if he absolutely had to.
All the users were unable to locate the designated book by its author and this was frustrating to many of the users. Two of the users could not locate the contact information for the board of trustees but other than this all users completed the tasks with relative speed and found the information useful. Despite these users reactions to the website varied tremendously. Users ranked their overall user experience with scores as high as 9 and as low as 3. An interesting trend about these rankings is that the users with more experience using library websites gave the website a higher score and the users who had more experience with library websites gave the site a lower score.
Based on these findings I would recommend that the websites designers should try to make the contact information for the board of trustees more visible, recheck the catalog and make sure there are no errors and retool the design of the home page so that is less text dense and easier to navigate.
