WebZ Design Work Group Minutes

CPE B, Frankfort, Ky
April 27, 2001

In Attendence: Tom Kmetz, Martha Perry, Lee Burchfield, Anna Marie Johnson, Stacey Nickell, Beth Kraemer, Susan Brown, Miko Pattie

Kentucky Libraries Catalog Page
Some of the predefined groups have gotten so large that the search box has dropped down on the page. A user must scroll to find the search box. Instead of having the list of catalogs or databases to the left of the search box, the group likes the idea of putting the group below the search box. All Databases or catalogs listed would be preselected and the patron would still be able to deselect (uncheck) any of them. Beth is working on a gadget to make them appear that way.

Complete list of catalogs and databases
This will be hard coded so that we can seperate the catalogs and databases into two seperate lists on the same page. Hard coding will also allow us to add a link to the description of the database and a littlt icon to better indicate those with full text.
We will also remove the word catalog from the name of the Library Catalogs => Transylvania University Library Catalog would become just Transylvania University Library

Select a Single Database and Create my own group
We will add the word catalog to these buttons.

Making changes to the interface
Fixes for something broken would take place as needed.
Small changes should have a one week warning before taking effect. This notice would go to the KYVL-Ref list for their comments.
Medium changes should have a two week warning before taking effect. This notice would go to the KYVL-Ref list for their comments.
Major changes should take place between semesters or over the summer.
We should try to avoid making changes at the beginning and the end of the semester.

Adding Native Interface
The group talked a lot about how we might improve the interface. It was decided that we would add simple links to the native interfaces below what exists already with text saying "Connect directly to." We decided that any major change to the interface would wait until we had collected data from users on its usability. If any major changes come out of this we will aim them for the Summer of 2002.

Collecting Feedback
A number of ideas were discussed including working with KLN to gather data, using online or paper surveys to collect data, using focus groups, an online suggestion box. We decided that we like the idea of task oriented testing. We will come up with a list of things for an end user to accomplish and a librarian will observe how the end user does this - if they are able and how long it takes. Something like this was done at the University of Louisville so we will look into how they did their testing. We would like to have this done at libraries that use the WebZ interface on a regular basis. We will work on questions over the listserv.

Last updated: 5/2/01