Week 8 – Web Technologies

Improvement 1.

Piola (2018) suggests having a search that would allow users to toggle between the website search and catalogue search – this is a functional that is missing on my website! Definitely a limitation of WordPress as a CMS was this inability to toggle in general. Additionally though, the fact is the catalogue search is a LMS shared statewide for the OneCard network, this external search will be present until the OneCard database can be integrated into local networks also.

Improvement 2:
Gambrell (2015) suggests that all websites must be accessible using a keyboard only. This functionality is missing from the website I designed, and this is far beyond my technical capabilities to address but is an improvement that could be made.

Improvement 3

User and functionality testing is essential to judge the user experience (Gambrell, 2015; Hadley, 2017). User surveys were suggested in the design report; but now armed with the knowledge of third party testing being available this would be one route to take in the assessment of user experience.

Improvement 4

Whilst Grambell (2015) and Piola (2018) are rather anti-carousal, Hadley (2017) advocates for the use of them. I would have definitely been inclined to include a carousal in my website had I had the technical know-how. Given how expansive library offerings can be, an automatic carousal on the homepage of my website would be one way of educating the user on different events that were occurring within the library space that they might not have necessarily discovered otherwise. Design aspects to consider would be that auto scrolling would have to be disabled on mobile devices, and that back and forth buttons would be necessary to incorporate due to users potentially wanting to go back to an item they missed or want further information on (Pernice, 2013).

Improvement 5

Gambrell (2015) links an article by Kupersmith (2012) which identifies, through user surveys, that even terms such as “catalogue” and “reference” are not understood widely by library users. I would therefore change some of the wording on my site. Specifically Kupersmith (2012) notes the effectiveness of combining photos with search functions to indicate to the website user what they will search. One example identified was where a university library’s website included an “icon” of magazines and newspapers with the words “article search” prominent overlayed, in one section of their site- which made it clear what that particular search function was available at that link.

References

Hadley, P. (2017). What do the best museum websites all do? Cogapp. Retrieved from https://blog.cogapp.com/what-do-the-best-museum-websites-all-do-8d6727504605

Gambrell, K. (2015). 7 best practices for creating a user friendly library website. EBSCO. Retrieved from https://www.ebsco.com/blog/article/7-best-practices-for-creating-a-user-friendly-library-website.

Kupersmith, J. (2012). Library Terms That Users Understand. UC Berkeley: Library. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3qq499w7.

Pernice, K. (2013). Carousel Usability: Designing an Effective UI for Websites with Content Overload. NN Group. Retrieved from: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/designing-effective-carousels/.

Piola. (2018). 8 tips to improve your library’s website design. Retrieved from https://meetpiola.com/8-tips-to-improve-your-librarys-website-design/.