Uksg 2013 breakout r kennedy mcrump

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Simplifying the search experience resisting the lure of shiny, new technology Ronán Kennedy Monica Crump NUI Galway Bournemouth, April 8 th -10 th 2013

Transcript of Uksg 2013 breakout r kennedy mcrump

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Simplifying the search experience –resisting the lure of shiny, new technology

Ronán Kennedy

Monica Crump

NUI Galway Bournemouth, April 8th-10th 2013

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School Institute Name to go here

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School Institute Name to go here

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• Why we did what we did• Some things we did, we shouldn’t have• Some things we didn’t do, we should have

• How we found what we should have done and what we did about it, and what we did about undoing what we shouldn’t have done

• The Epihany: we ticked all the boxes librarians like ticking.They were the wrong ones

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Discovery Layers

• A preharvested central index coupled with a richly featured discovery layer providing a single search across a library’s local, open access, and subscription collections (Hoeppner 2012, source)

• One point of access to the Library’s entire set of bought, licensed and digital collections (Lorcan Dempsey, source)

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www.librarytechnology.org

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Primo

• Sits Over:• Aleph• Primo Central• Metalib• Institutional Repository

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2009

• Primo Implementation Group

• Primo

Implementation

Group

• Interface Group• subject librarians; research librarians; e-resource librarian,

etc.

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2009

• Web Group

• Primo to have prime real-estate space on the Library homepage

• ‘primo lite’

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School Institute Name to go here

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Initial Interface Work

• Demos of out-of-the-box version

• Examples of global sites – NYU, UAE, etc

• Interface Group members liaison role

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Concerns – Radical Departure

• New interface could be radically different

• Big departure from Aleph (function & cosmetics)• Academic opposition• Possible training problems

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School Institute Name to go here

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School Institute Name to go here

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Conclusion #1 – too conservative

• Concerns heavily shaped our vision- tried hard to integrate the past- fear of academics

• We tried to mould our discovery platform into something it wasn’t

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Concerns – Dumbing Down

• One single simple interface = bad information literacy

• “Primo should be a flagship model of good pedagogical practise”

• Multiple tabs made sense to us

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Lots of cooks in the kitchen

• Subjective opinions are always difficult

• “Is it exposing our resources appropriately?”

• Font sizes!

source

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2009

• Interface group assembled the jigsaw pieces

• Model followed closely with NYU, Iowa, British Library, UEA

• Time to caress the divine details….

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Error Checking

• Librarians love detail!

• A lot of librarians means lots of errors being found

• Sub-conscious opinions being formed?

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School Institute Name to go here

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Perfection at all costs?

• Did we get bogged down in making sure it was perfect?

• Special CollectionsSpecial CollectionsSpecial Collections ReferenceStrong Room

• Librarians want perfection – users want good enough

• Risking not seeing the wood for the trees

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Customisation – Tread Carefully

• Discovery interfaces are*very* flexible – lots of options• Cosmetics and functionality very open

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School Institute Name to go here

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Customisation – Tread Carefully

• Discovery interfaces are*very* flexible – lots of options• Cosmetics and functionality very open

• Tempting to generate completely local feel- can be timely

Just because you can push a button, it doesn’t mean you have to

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Customisation – Tread Carefully

• Beware of skills sabotage

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Primo launched Sept 2009

New website officially launched Sept 2010

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School Institute Name to go here

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School Institute Name to go here

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How was it used?

• 80/20 Theory

• 1.5 million Basic Searches• 50,000 Advanced Searches• 14 reviews written• Several hundred items tagged

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LibQual Survey

• November 2010

• LibQUAL+® is a suite of services that libraries use to solicit, track, understand, and act upon users' opinions of service quality.

• Global; great for benchmarking

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IC-1 Making electronic resources accessible from my home or officeIC-2 A library website enabling me to locate information on my ownIC-3 The printed library materials I need for my workIC-4 The electronic information resources I needIC-5 Modern equipment that lets me easily access needed informationIC-6 Easy-to-use access tools that allow me to find things on my ownIC-7 Making information easily accessible for independent useIC-8 Print and/or electronic journal collections I require for my work

LibQual - Information Control Remit

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minimum desired perceived adequacy superiority

IC-1 Making electronic resources accessible from my home or office Overall 6.42 7.84 6.49 0.07 -1.35

IC-2 A library website enabling me to locate information on my own Overall 6.53 8.00 6.49 -0.03 -1.51

LibQual - Information Control Remit

Let’s form a committee!!!

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School Institute Name to go here

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LibQual - Information Control Remit

Polarised Feedback

There was clearly a problem – but what was it???

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What LibQual told us:

• We weren’t meeting our users’ minimum expectations of:

“A Library website enabling me to locate information on my own”

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Comments Analysis

The website is

difficult to use Navigation of

the website is

confusing

The website is

easy to use

since the re-

design

Access to e-

resources needs

to be more user-

friendly

Online

services

are great!

Off-campus

access works

very well

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More investigation was needed!

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User Observation Study

• Real Users

• Real Tasks

• One user – One observer

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We wanted to find out:

• where were users becoming confused• user interface features that users didn’t notice• whether and when users logged-in to enhance

search results• additional features/on-screen guidance that might

have benefitted users’ search experience• Any issues affecting the success of the users’ search

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Structure of observation

• Pre-observation interview

• Set list of tasks

• Think aloud:

– Explain choices

– Highlight anything that’s confusing

– Express pleasure or frustration

– Explain how you would carry out a similar task in real life

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User Focus Groups

• Focus groups - for a wider perspective and to confirm findings

• Two groups – Undergrads; Postgrads & Staff

• Caution – those willing to attend tend to be more library-focussed, library-aware and therefore library-positive!

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Key Findings

• Our in-depth knowledge and closeness to the website and discovery tools had blinkered us to the experience of a ‘normal’ user

– user observation was like blinkers being removed

• Overwhelming message from our users was:

“make it simple – more like Google”

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Too many options!

• Most of the problems, frustration and confusion seemed to arise from the user being presented with too many options:

– multiple links to our discovery tools

– pages about resources confused with links to resources

• Our knowledge of the fantastic range of choices we could offer the user had stopped us from choosing wisely what we should offer them

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Too many options!

Where do

I look for

a book?

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Problems of terminology

• Other sources of confusion arose once they navigated into the catalogue or discovery tool

• Users found terminology confusing

Why can’t you

just call things

what they are!

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Users tended not to notice the ‘Get it’ and ‘Online Access’ links and there was some confusion about what the wording meant

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FRBR - A little too clever?

• FRBRisation is a powerful tool aimed at presenting the user with a single result representing several works that are very similar and are likely to be of similar value.

• However, this posed great difficulties and caused confusion:

– Primo chooses a preferred record to display in the results.

– If this preferred record had only unavailable items – it looked like everything is unavailable

– Users didn’t click into displayed record to find alternative editions that were hidden behind

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Preference for Online?

• Design premise of Primo is that online resource is users’ preferred resource

• Users were unable to see the print holdings of journals that had print and electronic access

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Other interesting findings

• Heavy reliance on Google by all participants

• Prior attendance at library training hugely improved the users’ success in completing the set tasks

• Several undergraduates were confused about references:

– unsure what was a journal and what was a book

– searched by article title instead of journal title

• Users with experience of other libraries were emphatic that our online services were significantly easier to use than elsewhere.

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Call to Action:

Simplify the Search Experience

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Introduce a Single Search Box

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Improve visibility of Login

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What about the other functionality?

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Find Databases

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More Search Options

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Journal Article Searching

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Primo Central

• Primo Central is a single massive index of metadata that has been harvested from primary and secondary publishers, from aggregators, and from open-access repositories

• Primo Central indexes hundreds of millions of journal articles, e-books, reviews, legal documents etc.

• Because the metadata has been harvested into a single index, it’s faster because it’s not cross-searching

• Facets allow users to refine and narrow down their results

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Browse functionality

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Other Improvements

• OPAC via Primo

– Clearer account information

– Clearer item/ holdings information

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Making print holdings more visible

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Have we succeeded?

• Have we simplified the search experience?

• Are we now meeting users’ expectations?

• It’s not enough to make changes - essential to check back with the users whether we’ve got it right!

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Libqual 2013

• Still some comments that the website is confusing and hard to navigate

• But a 50% increase in the number of positive comments about the website/catalogue!

• 85% decrease in the number of negative comments about off-campus access!

• LIBQUAL SCORE???

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Feedback from Students

• Significantly less difficulty completing the set tasks

• Big demand for easier access to ‘My Account’ –but all managed to check their account

• Print content still not being seen – confusion over terminology ‘Print Locations’

• Still reporting a heavy reliance on Google/Google Scholar

Much better

this year

than it was

before

Awesome

colours!

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Feedback from Academic Staff

• Biggest complaint from academic staff is the additional steps to get to their favourite database!

• Some were very positive about ‘Including Articles’ search, but most hadn’t noticed or tried it.

• Timing of launch an issue just ahead of start of term.

It seems to

have more

steps to get

where you

want

A fantastically

convenient

new option

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Feedback from Library Staff

Over-whelmingly positive:The new

catalogue is

amazing!

It mirrors the

layout in many

of our

databases

An enjoyable and

fruitful search

experience

Intuitive and

intelligent

layout and

design

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Some Final Thoughts

• Evolving user behaviour is very evident:

– Students are using our discovery tool to search both for AND within resources

– Expectation growing that everything will be online

• Difficulty of meeting different expectations:

– Academics expect library tools to point and link them to resources

– They don’t think to simply search!

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What next...

• Very valuable to ask users what they think

• Even more valuable to observe them using your discovery tools

• We’ve had some clear signals about further adaptations we should make

• This is an ongoing process, and we intend to make user observation a regular practice to ensure we keep up with evolving user needs and behaviour.

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Thank You!

• Ronán Kennedy [email protected]

• Monica Crump [email protected]