Squad 1: Genre and Feature Analysis

1
Squad 1 Genre and Feature Analysis

• Nick Baumgardner
• Jeff Smith
• Katie McAlpine

2
Current Scenario

• We examined one high traffic page from each
  second level page categorythe stand alone pages
  and the satellite pages.
• Stand alone page Library Grant Information Page
• Satellite page Library Services Page

3
Problems and Issues

• Grant Page
• large area of information
• mostly unorganized content, leading to navigation
  problems
• Services Page
• navigational difficulties
• Some users couldnt understand all categories

4
Our Analytic Steps

• Grant Page
• Performed object sort activity with existing
  objects as well as items not currently on page
• Gave participant option of including/excluding
  objects based on usefulness
• Surveyed grad students and faculty
• Services Page
• Examined services page for categories and objects
• Performed a card sort with undergrads, grads and
  faculty members
• Observed how they chose to arrange information

5
Preliminary Findings

• Grant Page
• Faculty researchers are very task-oriented
• Faculty seems to be less inclined to require
  links for quick access to other library resources
• Grad students seemed more inclined towards links
  to external resources
• Services Page
• Items that dont fit in categories or on the page
• Found categories that were unclear
• Faculty were more likely to know where to look
  for items in current navigation

6
Transformed Scenario

• Grant Page
• Reduce non-grant-related content
• Page information needs to be categorized
• Services Page
• Categories that are easier to understand
• A mouse over to define potentially confusing
  categories
• Adding a category for library help

7
Work Remaining

• To determine most frequently performed task by
  library web users
• Compare and contrast frequency of tasks among
  grad students, undergrads and faculty members
• How important is page layout consistency to
  usability?
• Analyze content categories for other second level
  pages