[WEB4LIB] RE: Focus groups and survey questions

[Jennifer A. Heise]

>We are about to begin an evaluation of our Library web site. This Fall ,
>we'll be working on ways to obtain useful information, including focus
>groups and surveys. We are looking for feedback in regard to usability,
>content and navigation specifically. 
>
>Have others done anything similar ? Did you receive useful feedback ?
>
>  
>
After years of doing mostly focus groups, we got some results back from 
the LibQual survey and started doing a usability study. First we did 
user observations, then a focus group, then a card sort.  We found that 
we got lots of  meaningful information from the user observations (some 
of it quite startling, like the fact that our faculty were looking for 
journal articles in Worlcat....) and learned a bit more when we did the 
focus groups.

I would definitely recommend user observations as the best way to do an 
evaluation of your site.

-- Jenne Heise