[WEB4LIB] Coping with Complaints about the Website: Balancing
Responsiveness to an Individual User with Honoring the Results of a
Usability Test
kyle.felker at ccmail.nevada.edu
kyle.felker at ccmail.nevada.edu
Mon Oct 11 17:01:26 EDT 2004
Hi Chris;
Some background on me: I work here at UNLV as Web Manager. I've been here
for four years and just completed a total website redesign that took almost
two years. We have done several usability tests and other types of
assessment as well.
The following is all my opinion-I've not found a text outlining how to deal
with issues like these, which is a shame, because they're very important.
First off, I tend to regard comments sent in by individual users as being
less authoritative than data collected from testing. No organizational
scheme or layout works for everyone, and no matter what you do, someone
will have trouble navigating the site. We all approach information in ways
unique to our own education, outlook, and personal style. My design
philosophy is "please the most users in order of prioritized importance."
It is my experience that trying to make everyone happy with the design is a
doomed endeavor and tends to result in sites that have no images or color,
since the lowest common denominator seems to be the only one everyone can
agree on.
In usability testing, our rule of thumb is that if half or more of the
participants have a problem with a design feature, then it is a problem and
we will change it. Making major changes to the website once it is up and
running is both difficult for us and confusing for those using the site,
and design changes have a nasty tendency to cause new problems for other
people. We don't want to do it unless there is a strong indication that it
really is a problem for most people.
As far as faculty and student comments, we save them and compare them with
usability test, and other data, to see if there is any correlation. If
there isn't, we generally don't consider it a problem, and don't change it.
Again, I am not trying to design a site that works for everyone, because I
don't think that's possible. I'm trying to create a site that works for
the most people. As an aside, I treat people within the library the same
way. It is my strong opinion, having done usability tests for four years,
that librarians are not particularly good at designing websites for
students without a great deal of student input. Too often, I have seen
changes suggested by our own staff prove difficult for users. Using
terminology that's clear to students and coming up with organizational
schemes that make sense to them are areas that we seem to be particularly
bad at.
Usability testing, as well as other types of assessment, such as logfile
analysis, should be ongoing. Too often, these tests are done once, changes
are made, and it's simply assumed that the changes succeeded in addressing
the problem. This is not always the case. The change proposed may not
solve the problem, or it could solve the problem but in so doing, create
entirely new problems. the latter was certainly our experience with our
last site redesign-our new design fixed almost all the old problems, but it
created new ones that needed to be addressed.
Reconcile yourself to the fact that redesigning the website is an ongoing
task-it will never be finished. Yes, you do need to space out major
changes to site structure. We are considering a six month to year-long
cycle of usability testing, logfile analysis, and other types of
assessment, with an identified process for translating the results into
actual changes to the site. We are extremely fortunate to have a Content
Manager on staff who can devote time to making sure these tests go off and
helping us analyze the data.
In your situation, my honest response would be "I am not going to redesign
our entire site for one person, especially when I have data that shows that
many users are not having a problem." The most I would do is incorporate
questions around the instructors comments into the next usability test or
focus group to see if other people are having the same problems. If I saw
they were, only then would I start considering major changes.
-Kyle Felker
Web Manager
UNLV Libraries
----- Forwarded by Brad Eden/UNLV on 10/11/2004 10:36 AM -----
|---------+----------------------------->
| | "Chris Jorgensen" |
| | <cjorgensen at creigh|
| | ton.edu> |
| | Sent by: |
| | web4lib at sunsite3.b|
| | erkeley.edu |
| | |
| | |
| | 10/11/2004 10:33 |
| | AM |
| | Please respond to |
| | cjorgensen |
| | |
|---------+----------------------------->
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |
| To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org> |
| cc: |
| Subject: [WEB4LIB] Coping with Complaints about the Website: Balancing Responsiveness to an Individual User with |
| Honoring the Results of a Usability Test |
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Dear Colleagues,
Our library recently redesigned its website. As part of the redesign, we
did
two rounds of usability tests on subjects representative of our population
(in our case, students and faculty members). Our usability tests resulted
in
a good number of minor changes, but in general, our subjects found our
website reasonably easy to use. Our redesigned website has been live since
August 2nd.
Since the launch of the redesigned website, we have received complaints
from
two faculty members that they could not find what they were looking for
easily on the website. In one case, a very minor tweak was all that was
needed to make the faculty member happy, so I just did it. In the most
recent case, the faculty member made some suggestions that would mean
pretty
major changes to the library's home page. Wanting to please this faculty
member, my initial reaction was to call a meeting of the Web Team to decide
exactly how we will alter the home page to address the faculty member's
criticism. But then I started to grow concerned about the ramifications of
making changes to the home page because of one person's reaction to it,
when
our usability tests seemed to show that people generally liked the home
page
and found it easy to use.
So, I guess my question to you is: how do you balance responsiveness to
individual complains about the website, while honoring what you found out
about the web site in your usability tests? Also, if we change the home
page, are we obligated to do another round of usability tests? And should
we
have to be doing that only three months after launching the site? I
definitely am for ongoing usability testing, but that just seems excessive.
And finally, if we change the home page because of this one person's
feedback, are we doing a disservice to those people who have been using the
site for three months and have gotten used to it? (Again, I know that you
have to make changes eventually, but this seems awfully quick.) So.what do
you do in these kinds of situations?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Chris Jorgensen
Reference/Web Services Librarian
Reinert/Alumni Memorial Library
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE 68178
voice: 402.280.1757
fax: 402.280.2435
email: cjorgensen at creighton.edu
web: http://reinert.creighton.edu
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