Library Terms That Users Understand

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Library Terms That Users Understand

• John Kupersmith
• University of California, Berkeley
• Internet Librarian 2005

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brillig toves wabe borogovesThese words from
Lewis Carrolls Jabberwocky are intentionally
meaningless.
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catalog database ILL periodicalThese words are
meaningful to librarians, but not much better
than Jabberwocky for many users, who may see your
home page as a wall of noise (next slide).
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Library jargonnot a new problem

• Librarians are prone to assume that the patron
  is as familiar with our jargon as we are. --
  Pierce Butler
• ALA Glossary w/ 2000 terms

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• It was like being in a foreign country and
  unable to speak the language.-- student quoted
  by Mellon
• 1989 Patrons only understand 50 percent of
  what librarians say or write.
• -- Naismith Stein

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User successon library websites

• Finding journal articles or databases
• 50.3
• (average from 13 tests)

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Why?

• Site organization
• Graphic design
• Excessive verbiage
• Terminology

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In the physical world

• Environmental cues
• Social context

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On the web

• Navigation depends on graphics text

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44 usability studies

• User observation 25
• Survey/questionnaire 12
• Card sorting 4
• Other/not specified 5
• www.jkup.net/terms.html

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The Data
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Problematic terms

• Acronyms brand names
• Database
• Library Catalog
• E-journals
• Index
• Interlibrary Loan

Periodical or Serial Reference Resource Subject
categories such as Humanities or Social
Sciences
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Not understood

• Acronyms brand names
• Periodical
• Reference
• Resources

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Misunderstood

• Library Catalog
• Database
• E-journal

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Strong attractors Journal Services

• Weak- or non-attractors
• Electronic Resources

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The ideal term

• Attractive for the right reasons
• Meaningful to users
• Technically accurate
• Unambiguous
• Short

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Bad news!

• There are few (if any) ideal terms.

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What do students say?
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• Wheres the search engine for the books?
• I want the thing where it says advanced search
  and you can type in a bunch of words.
• Wheres the search thing?
• I would go to the Web thing.

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• How is somebody going to know if they need to go
  to Humanities/Social Sciences or Science and
  Engineering when theyre looking for something?
• Nowhere on the homepage do you guys say
  journal articles specifically. It would help if
  you did.

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Theyre not stupid, but

• They dont know our language
• They dont share our mental models
• Theyre used to instant results
• Theyre in a hurry

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Were not arrogant, but

• Librarians have a specialized language and
  complex mental models
• We are contaminated as designers by what we know
• We dont want to dumb down our sites

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Best Practices
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• Test users understanding and preferences - Use
  data- Share data

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Test Methods

• Capturing data from
• User observations
• Focus groups
• Logs usage statistics

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• Link choice (preference)
• Link naming
• Card sorting
• Category membership

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Best Practices (contd.)

• 2. Avoid - or use with caution - terms that users
  often misunderstand.

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• 3. Use natural language on top-level pages
• - Borrowing from Other Libraries
• instead of Interlibrary Loan
• - Find Books in addition to the catalog name
  
• - Target words such as Book or Article
• - Introduce more precise technical terms on
  lower-level pages

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• 4. Provide intermediate pages
• - Find Books leading to a page of
  options
• 5. Provide alternative paths
• - Find Articles option on Find Journals page
  and within the catalog

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• 6. Enhance or explainpotentially confusing
  terms
• - Additional words and/or graphics
• - Mouseovers, ALT TITLE attributes
• - Glossaries

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• 7. Be consistent
• Throughout website
• Printed materials
• Signage

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Beyond terminology?Changing the system

• User profiling customization
• Multisearch systems
• Segmented search results

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All of this has happened before, and all of it
will happen again.-- Cylon in Battlestar
Galactica