Public Interfaces Committee
PIC Meeting Minutes
November 10, 2004
9:30 - 11:00 a.m.
SML Lecture Hall
Present: Katie Bauer, Debra Falvey, Julie Linden (chair), Stephen Naron, Karen
Reardon, Earl Roy, Andy Shimp, Kalee Sprague, Tao Yang (minutes), and Richard
Zwies.
Absent: Dale Askey
Announcement:
Manuscripts and Archives launched their new web site (http://www.library.yale.edu/mssa),
which has incorporated input from PIC members.
Medical user survey:
Rick presented the usability test results on 5 Medical Library users conducted
from June through August 2004 as they were asked to find information on the Cushing/Whitney
Medical Library Web site: Medical Library Usability Testing Results Sept. 2004
(http://www.med.yale.edu/library/test/usability/user-tests-2004-summary.html)
He also showed results of a link survey conducted on the Medical Library's
homepage showing the number of times users clicked on links during a week in
September. Surprisingly, WebMail and E-mail were the hottest links, followed
by large numbers of E-Journal clicks. E-Resources linked from the homepage were
also shown to be heavily used.
For details, see Medical Library Homepage Gatecount (clickthroughs) Sept. 2004
(http://www.med.yale.edu/library/test/usability/gatecount.html).
He did not have time to show an analysis of search terms during the same one
week period of time. But the results are online: Medical Library Analysis of
Search Terms for E-Resources Sept. 2004 (http://www.med.yale.edu/library/test/usability/search-terms.html)
He concluded by discussing the possible design changes these results may indicate.
All in all, the new design for the homepage will not be altered too much, except
for an attempt to reduce the redundant links and a slight rearrangement of the
layout to make the news more prominent. They will also try to present the searchbox
with search options in various databases and domains to accommodate users looking
for articles (PubMed), etc. The Medical Web Advisory Group will forward the wireframe
design ideas to Pat Lynch of Medical ITS for graphic design.
Usability study: next steps
We discussed Katie's outline. Four PIC members volunteered to draft actual question
text for each category:
Earl: Orbis;
Julie: Electronic holdings;
Debbie: citation management;
Karen: Front Door.
We'll send the questions to pic-list before Thanksgiving for comment. Some
ideas raised were:
- should we start test subjects at the library's web site, or give them a blank
screen and a question and see where they go? Katie suggested that we use the
blank-screen approach for one or two questions, but then start them at the library
home page or Orbis for the other questions.
- should we show them other (non-Yale) library home pages for comparison?
Review of proposed FD changes:
As a result of a lively discussion, we will
- -add RefWorks to Quick Links right away
- -make some revisions to the proposed Working at the Library page and share
it with Diane Turner and the group that is beginning to revise the LHR site.
Once we can consolidate the "Human Resources" and "Job Opportunities"
links on the home page, we will add a link to "Create Bibliographies"
under "Research Tools."
- -we will hold off on adding language links to the page for now. We'd like
to get some data about Quick Links use before we decide whether/how to repurpose
that real estate.
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