Document 3: Website Focus Group Discussions

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Document 3 Website Focus Group Discussions

• A Summary of Our Findings

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Purpose of the Study

• 1. To gather student, faculty and staff input on
  what their needs and expectations are when
  seeking information in an online environment.
  
• 2. To find out what types of design structures
  and aesthetics users prefer when seeking
  information in an online environment.

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Purpose cont.

• 3. To obtain user input on their needs and
  expectations when using the librarys website.
  
• 4. To find out what types of information (staff,
  hours, services etc), research tools, and
  instructional tools users would find useful when
  seeking information using the librarys website.
  
•  
• The information gathered will be used to create a
  library website that is centered on the research
  needs and expectations of Blinn College students,
  faculty and staff.

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Methodology

• Series of discussion led by moderator
• A revised version of a pre-tested script was
  used
  
• Four student discussions (2 in Brenham, 2 in
  Bryan) with 17 total participants
  
• Two faculty/staff discussions (1 in Brenham, 1 in
  Bryan) with 10 total participants
  

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Part One Searching the Internet

• When students use the Internet to find
  information, the majority go to search engines
  first.
  
• Yahoo and Google were mentioned most frequently
• Ask Jeeves, Excite, MSN and Alta Vista were also
  mentioned several times

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What students like about search engines

• Fast
• Straightforward
• No Boolean searching
• Efficiency (Just type in a question and it
  answers you.)
  
• Broad variety of information
• One stop shopping

• Doesnt give impertinent information
• Take you directly to what you need
• Theres nothing you cant find

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Types of information students are looking for on
the internet

• Recreational information movie times, band
  sites, sports
  
• Services online banking, job searching,
  apartment searching
  
• Newspapers and news resources
• Images
• Government information and government news

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Opinions on the sites they use

• Things students like
• Attractive
• Colorful
• Contain a lot of information
• Contain graphics and images

• Things students dont like
• Sites without graphics
• Sites without color
• Too much text

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Part Two Discussion of the Librarys Current
Website

• A Compilation of Student, Faculty and Staff
  Opinions

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Student Quiz

• A short quiz was administered to the students to
  assess how easy it is to find information using
  the librarys website
  

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Student Quiz

• The Bad News
• 38 of students are confusing the Periodicals
  link with the Electronic Resources link
  
• Only 48 of students were able to locate
  information on library services
  
• Only 27 of students were able to locate
  instructional information

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Student Quiz

• The good news
• 88 of students were able to identify the online
  catalog as the place to search for books

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Ease of Use Student and Faculty Perceptions

• Most students find the site fairly easyor
  moderately easy to use.
  
• Most of the faculty find the site easy to use
• Many students find the site difficult to use.
• Many of the faculty find the site somewhat
  confusing
  
• All faculty members agree that students have
  difficulty navigating the site

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Why Students and Faculty are using the site

• The majority of students use the site for
  research related to their classes
  
• The majority of students do not use the site for
  personal reasons
  
• 5 out of 7 faculty assign library research
  projects to their classes (71)
  
• 3 out of 10 faculty/staff use the site for
  personal research (30)
  

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Issues with the design of the site

• The white background is sterile and unwelcoming
• Layout of homepage and second tier pages are
  overcrowded, confusing and too busy
  
• The site contains too much text.
• Information on second tier pages is too buried

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Navigation Issues

• Many students have difficulty navigating the
  site
  
• Many students have difficulty navigating through
  the electronic resources
  

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Suggestions for Improving the Design of the Site

• Simplify
• Background color
• Images
• Graphical icons
• Mouse over menus
• Buttons
• No scrolling
• Consistent menus

• Remove bullets
• More white space
• Group links into 4 or 5 main categories
• Dont use all caps for words
• Make page more inviting

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Suggestions for Improving the Content of the Site

• Links to Blinn Campus Resources
• Blinn Log
• Boris
• WebCT

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Suggestions for Improving the Content of the Site
cont.

• Instructional Information
• Electronic Resources
• Citing Sources
• Selecting Search Terms/Constructing Searches

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Suggestions for Improving the Content of the Site
cont.

• Prominent display of
• library hours
• library news and announcements
• email link for contacting the library
• online renewals
• news links
• Meta search feature on the homepage

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Part Three Opinions of the Website Demos

• Students were shown two alternative versions of
  the librarys website
  
• http//Blackbeard/Library/LibraryDemo/Homepage/Ind
  ex.htm
  
• http//Blackbeard/Library/homepagedemo/index.htm

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Blue Demo Positive Aspects

• Names of links are clear, easy to read
• Not a lot of text
• Simple to understand
• Categories are easy to understand and see
• Categories are broken down
• Looks easier to operate

• Meat of the site in center of page
• Contains a lot of space
• Aesthetically pleasing
• Dummy proof
• Inviting
• Looks like a homepage

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Blue Demo Suggestions for Improvement

• Change the font color
• Bolder links and higher contrast
• Add the Blinn logo
• More contrast in colors
• Incorporation of mouse over menus

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Yellow Demo Positive Aspects

• Prominent display of library news and
  announcements
  
• Contrasting colors
• Separated into categories
• The layout of the sections
• The structure of the page
• Appears to contain more information
• Prominent display of the librarys hours
• Colorful

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Yellow Demo Suggestions for Improvement

• Many students felt the page had to much stuff on
  it
  
• Several students suggested changing the yellow
  color
  

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Version of the homepage preferred overall

• The majority of participants said both demo sites
  are improvements over the present homepage
  
• The majority of participants suggested merging
  the strengths of the demo sites an incorporating
  mouse over menus
  
• Simplicity, categories and groupings of blue
  demo
  
• Prominent news and announcements and library
  hours of Yellow site