Website Usability: Making Library Websites More Likely to Get Used
It is little wonder that library websites rank low as the starting place for users' research. They usually have too much going on in them. It is hard for users to find answers to their questions or choose where to begin to look. For people to utilize fully what we impart to them in reference, the library website must be inviting and usable.*
Usability Defined
- Learnability: how easy to learn to use
- Efficiency: how quickly you can get what you want
- Memorability: how easy to come back and remember how to use
- Satisfaction with design: pleasant, not offensive, not annoying
- Utility: functionality, how well it works to deliver what people think they want
- Errors: how many do people make? how easy to recover?
Major Principles of Usability
- Design for desired users for the site
- If you want the public to come, design for your publics, not library staff
- Answer the questions users have in mind
- Provide for age groups and language needs
- Library staff can learn to use a page designed for users
- Put other things library staff need elsewhere on the site
- Get to the point, no distractions, no clutter
- In one screen on the homepage, provide pointers to what users are looking for
- Four or fewer general areas to take in or choose among
- Graphics only if they help users navigate without and do not clutter
- Make their purpose clear, easy to know where they take you
- As links they can be action items answering a frequent need
- They must not look like ads (people ignore or shy away from ads)
- Exception: children under age seven like clutter and movement and even tolerate ads
- Make it easy to use, easy to navigate, easy to find what people are looking for
- People formulate a notion of what they want and will keep hunting or foraging if they think they are on track
- People will leave if they don't think they're finding what they want as easily as they might elsewhere
People Don't Read on the Web — They Scan
- They scan in an F pattern
- Read longer across at the top
- Read the first two or three words as they quickly move down
- Look for salient matches for what they're seeking and may read across for a possible match
- When there is less on a page, people read more thoroughly
Write and Design for the Web to be Scannable
- Simple is often best
- Bullets, subheads — not sentences
- Highlight important words (use links, bold, or color)
- Short paragraphs (few words to read, important words first)
- Inverted pyramid (start with conclusion or "What's in it for me"? — details later)
- Simple, everyday language (no jargon, no hype or selling)
Other Usability Tips
- Link names should start with the most important word
- Avoid dead links and out of date links — undermine credibility in general
- Page size should resize for different size screens, not be rigidly fixed in pixels
- Font size should be changeable
- Color should be used to distinguish visited and unvisited links — navigation relies on knowing where you've been
- For interior pages, use a brief tagline to make clear its purpose — clear where one is, without much reading
- All pages in a site need a common look and feel and logo — know where you are
- Search boxes can be a hindrance or a help:
- Search is used when scanning fails
- People assume search boxes search the entire website
- If the search box is something else (as the OPAC), make sure it's clearly labeled without jargon ("find books")
- Make it easy to contact you
* These guidelines are heavily indebted to the website usability research and publications of Jacob Nielsen, much of it posted at Useit.com. Nielsen's books are key documents for website design and usability. His "Alert Box" is a stream of small commentaries and research results that are useful and easy to read (www.useit.com/alertbox). In particular, see his Usability 101 and Top Ten Mistakes of Web Design. See also the F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content.
This information has been provided by Joe Barker and is part of his Reshaping Reference to Fit the Internet Culture class for Infopeople.