[Web4lib] What to call the links

[Elizabeth Edwards]

In the context of our website redesign, I did a review of 75 schools'
terminology for things like the catalog, ILL, databases, etc.  I'd be happy
to share this information with you if you'd like.  There doesn't seem to be
any agreement in terminology amongst universities - instead, we saw a
combination of task based ("find books"), general ("catalog"), and branded
("ALADIN catalog") terminology in use.

In response, we did a language usability test with students and staff, and
found that in some instances, our branding ("consortium loan service" rather
than "borrow from other schools") was preferred - while in others, students
responded to the task-based terminology.  These results may be flawed,
however, because in at least some instances students appeared to be looking
for the terminology that was closest to the language currently in use on our
website.

I would highly recommend reviewing the resource that Alan sent, looking at
the language you currently use, and then checking with students to see if
the language that YOU think makes sense to them ACTUALLY makes sense to
them.  :)

Hope this is helpful -
Elizabeth

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 9:21 PM, Suelzer, Elizabeth <suelzer at msoe.edu>
wrote:

> The library I work at is undergoing a site redesign. In the hopes of
> making the site more user friendly, we want to get away from using
> library terminology (when appropriate) and use terms that are more
> intuitive to our students. An example of this would be labeling the link
> to the catalog as "search for books" instead of "catalog," or saying
> "borrow from other libraries" rather that "interlibrary loan."
>
>
>
> In your opinions, would this be helpful for college students, or do you
> feel that the term "catalog" is intuitive enough.  Will I be dumbing
> down our site, or will I make it easier to use? Also, do you have
> examples of how you have changed the language on your site to make it
> less librarianese and more consumer friendly?
>
>
> Thank you.
>
>
>
>
> Elizabeth Suelzer
> suelzer at msoe.edu <mailto:suelzer at msoe.edu>
>
>
>
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>


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"Life meant convincing another that you knew what it meant to be alive." -
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