Coping with Complaints about the Website: Balancing Responsiveness to an Individual User with Honoring the Results of a Usability Test

[Chris Jorgensen]

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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