I am beginning to think about this year’s usability testing, which will again be aimed at the use of subject guides. We last tested the use of subject guides in 2007. I’m looking for people who would be interested in working with me on this. If you might be one of those people, please read on.

Last time we tested to see if students were actually finding and using the subject guides, as well as what they did once they found them. This year I think our aim should be to start from the guides themselves, to see if and how students are using them for their course work, and how they react to changes made to the guides with the conversion to LibGuides.

To achieve this I think we need to see students working in their own subject area. Therefore we might need to allow a bit of flexibility in what we ask the students to do, so that it matches the resources on their subject guide. I’m thinking along the lines of:
1) Try to get students from various disciplines. Find out ahead of time, what courses they are doing, and what recent assignments they’ve done, then create a series of tasks based on a particular subject guide that matches their course work.
2) Have a series of questions that test specific things eg finding journal articles, but within the context of each specific guide. For this I need help from people actually working with the students and subject guides.
3)Get them to explore the guide as well, and comment on what they are seeing, and how they might use some of the features.

We are thinking that we may be able to test more students than usual, particularly so that we can have a separate series of tests that focus on one of the more heavily used guides and its use by a group of students. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who would like to work with me more closely on this. We will probably only be able to focus on one guide, so may have to make a choice if more than one is suggested.

Testing would probably be done in mid to late September. I’m going to be on leave for 2 weeks from next week, but please email me if you are interested in being involved, and I’ll get back to you either this week, or in late August.

Catherine