[WEB4LIB] Our usability test results distilled

[Heinrich C. Kuhn]

Dear Robert Kalabus,

   thanks for your mail to WEB4LIB! It was refreshing to read
the results of "your" usability study: IMHO: lots of common sense
there - though I have to admit that we sin against quite a
number of the recommendations from your study, but in many
of these cases I at least know, that it's a sin  ... . 
However: some of the results leave me with some questions.
Perhaps there's a simple answer to part of them?

> 1.	Replace library jargon with simpler words or at least clarify terms
> using descriptive text or pop-up boxes.  These are some 
> examples of words
> that users do not understand:  interlibrary loan, 
> periodical, new
> acquisitions, database, webliography, search engine.

What would be an equivalent for "database" that is less
arcane than "database"?


> 3.	Use bright colors rather than muted colors and only 
> use 12-point
> font size or larger.  

If I take this together with point 7 (lots of links on the 
main page): It will mean that users will have to scroll.
And if I interpret the access logs of our WWW server 
correctly, there is quite a number of users who tend not 
to scroll down, and who will thus not see part of the
information on the page. Is there a way out of this 
dilemma?

[...]
> 7.	Do not worry about including too many links on the main page if that
> improves efficiency (reduces clicking).  "Save the time of the [user]." -
> Ranganathan
[...]
> 9.	"I could figure out how to use it if I had to." - Test participant
> If someone is not interested in what the library offers, it does not make
> any difference how well-designed the library web site is.  (Memo to the
> bibliographic instruction department:  "If you want to build a ship, don't
> drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and
> work, but rather teach them to long for the endless 
> immensity of the sea." -
> Antoine de Saint Exupery) 

How do I teach them to long for the endless immensity of
the sea?

   Thanks again for your posting, thanks in advance for any
reply to this mail, best wishes and best regards

Heinrich C. Kuhn

+---------------------------------------------------------
|    Dr. Heinrich C. Kuhn
|    Seminar fuer Geistesgeschichte der Renaissance
|    Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen
|    D-80539 Muenchen / Ludwigstr. 31/IV
|    T.: +49-89-2180 2018, F.: +49-89-2180 2907
|    inst. URL: http://www.phil-hum-ren.uni-muenchen.de/
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