Library lingo

[Chris Jorgensen]

Ranti,

We just redesigned our library website with the terminology limitations of
users in mind. We started by creating some personas (undergraduate student,
graduate students, faculty member), and trying to think of what terms are
meaningful to them. Our undergraduate student was our primary persona, and
hence we ended up with the Find Books, Find Articles set up for our research
resources. In our usability tests, even users who had never used the
library's web page before seemed to understand the Find Books, Find Articles
sections, which is what most students use our website for. Here's what it
looks like:

http://reinert.creighton.edu

I should give props to the University of British Columbia Library website
(http://www.library.ubc.ca/) that inspired our design.

Also, there was some concern among my Web Team that the faculty wouldn't be
happy with the "dumbing down" of the library website, but I read somewhere
(I'm sorry--I read so much on usability during this I can't be sure
where--it could be Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think") that users don't get
upset if something is too easy to use, and that made a lot of sense.

Hope this is informative,
Chris Jorgensen
Reference/Web Services Librarian
Reinert/Alumni Memorial Library
Creighton University
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE 68178
voice: 402.280.1757
fax: 402.280.2435
email: cjorgensen at creighton.edu