i/s Back Issues

Volume 16

No. 6  July/August 2001

User-Centered Design Key to MIT Libraries' New Web Site

Robyn Fizz and Nicole Hennig

In 1999 the MIT Libraries began the process of redesigning their Web site at http://libraries.mit.edu/

This gateway to services and electronically available content also serves as the Libraries' presence outside the walls of the individual libraries.

Key goals were to make the Web site very user-friendly and easy to navigate. To achieve this, the Libraries have followed a user-centered design process, involving the MIT community in various ways to help develop the site. The Libraries have conducted usability tests, surveys, and more, in order to see the site from the users' point of view, rather than from their own perspective.

Some usability tests involved watching volunteers use the Web site to find answers to specific questions while thinking out loud. In card-sorting tests, volunteers were asked to create and name categories of information on the site. Volunteers included students, faculty, staff, alumni, and users with disabilities. The test results helped the Libraries design a site where users can find information quickly and efficiently. Full details about these tests and their results are available at http://macfadden.mit.edu:9500/webgroup/project.html

Old Drawbacks, New Clarity
The original Libraries Web site was modeled after the physical world, so it didn't take full advantage of the Web as a medium. The primary links on the old home page were the names of the individual libraries at MIT. Other links were vague and unclear, such as "Resources" or "Services." Some links were library jargon or abbreviations that were unfamiliar to most people, such as "RSC" or "ILB." Some aspects of this design required guessing which department or unit was the source of the information you were looking for. Much of the information about what you could do on the site was hidden in lower-level pages.

The new site clearly shows all that the Libraries have to offer in the way of services and interactive resources. The site uses more specific and descriptive link names, and avoids library jargon.

The new categories on the home page are

	Search Our Collections
	Research Help
	Subjects + Courses
	Borrowing + Ordering
	About Us

These categories grew out of concepts from the card-sorting usability tests and reflect the points of view of users. In addition to the new categories, the Libraries have a search page (as before), and a new alphabetical site index.

Creation, Design, Fine-Tuning
Many staff members helped create and fine-tune this new architecture during the summer and fall of 2000. A text-only version of the site, or "wire frame," let staff focus on content, structure, and wording without looking at the visual design elements, such as colors, fonts, or graphics.

The staff also rewrote individual pages to be more readable on the Web. Studies show that people skim, rather than read, most Web pages, and that when there is less information on a page, people perceive the page as more informative. To address this, the Libraries developed a style guide, Writing for the Web. It's available at http://macfadden.mit.edu:9500/webgroup/writing/

Last summer the Libraries sent out requests to several design firms recommended by MIT's Web Communication Services. The Libraries chose to work with Hecht Designs, a firm that had designed MIT's Capital Campaign Web site, and several other Web sites at MIT. They were given the Libraries' goals and criteria and came up with several options for the new look and feel. A design was selected in September 2000 with the approval of the Libraries' Steering Committee.

The Libraries spent January through June 2001 moving almost 1,500 pages from the wire frame to the new templates. The site is made up of a group of interconnected sites, including those of 15 MIT library units and the Institute Archives. In addition, the site includes several database-backed resources such as

	Barton, the library catalog
	Vera, listings of databases and e-journals
	The Digital Library of MIT Theses
	Image collections from Rotch Visual Collections

After most of the pages were moved into the new templates, the Libraries conducted more usability tests to find out how the new design was working. Results confirmed that the site is much more user-friendly than the old one. Detailed results are available at
http://macfadden.mit.edu:9500/webgroup/usability2001/
http://macfadden.mit.edu:9500/webgroup/usability2001/test2.html

The Libraries also asked people with visual disabilities, including blindness, color blindness, and low vision, to test the site. Testers who used screen readers reported that the descriptive link names made the site easy to navigate. The Libraries follow the guidelines for accessibility provided by the W3C at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/

Since the Libraries have totally re- organized the directory structure of their site, they've created some shortcut (or persistent) URLs that can be used to make links to the most important pages. These pointers will be kept current, so that if the page is ever moved, the shortcut URL will still work. These shortcut URLs are listed at http://libraries.mit.edu/shortcuts.html

The Libraries will continue conducting usability tests and making improvements based on them. They have found these tests very informative: the results are much more useful than what can be learned from surveys and focus groups.

Learn More
The launch date for the new site was June 25, 2001. For more information or questions about the redesign process or the Web site itself, contact the Libraries' Web Advisory Group at <webgroup-lib@mit.edu>.

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