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University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions
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Meeting Minutes for User Interface Task Group
August 7, 2007
10:00-12:00 noon
McKeldin, Rm. 6103
Present: Lenore England, Janet Evander, Heidi Hanson, Sean Henry, Tierney Lyons (recording), Linda Seguin, Cindy Todd, Susan Wheeler, Laura Wrubel
Topic 1 Minutes from July 3rd meeting were approved.
Topic 2 AV18 Follow-up and clean-up.
Heidi presented issues related to the v18 upgrade that still need work. The group reviewed the following issues:
- the "preferences" option was removed with the upgrade. Patrons who set display preferences in V.16 can’t change their settings. Outcome: Heidi will add preferences to My Account and add references to preferences back to the help page. Heidi will design a test page for the group to edit.
- the change in the log out. In v.18, end session takes you back to the catalog as a guest where some patrons wonder if they truly signed out. Outcome: The group will work on the wording of the end session confirmation page. Heidi will try wording the ‘you are not signed in’ statement in the general catalog to parallel with the ‘You are: last name, first name’ statement when logged in.
- need to revise "help" screens. Outcome: Heidi will review the screens for accuracy and revise them in the test catalog and Cindy will proof them. The group will keep them up to date, but not redesign them until we determine their usage.
- other as-yet-unresolved problems/Rxes. Outcome: Heidi will add note to Old Saved items page to explain that items saved before July 2007 lack features of current saved items. She will fix links to catalog from this page so it goes to the live catalog.
Heidi will work on browse items being out of place and other outstanding Rxes.
Topic 3 Metalib 4.
Laura led review of faculty interviews. The group learned:
- Some questions were repetitive and could be reworded.
- Comments on content/materials available instead of interface
- Users not looking for new functionality, but see ResearchPort as a way to get to a specific resource they need.
- Many didn’t know about ResearchPort. It is something they link though, not a destination.
- One user can get to what he wants (a database) regardless of the interface.
- Confusion about terminology, database categories & sub-categories (all versus core)
- They do not use or not interested Quick search or Cross Search or they did not know they were using it.
- Wanted help to be more prominent.
The group is interested in creating a summary of the interviews. Janet and Laura will add interviews to usability testing page.
Timeline to implementation in January 2008. UITG will work on user research, interface customization, and testing from September through mid-November. A subgroup, consisting of Laura, Lenore, Janet, and some others from CP not on UITG, will give feedback and guidelines to bring back to the larger group. Laura will present an ejournal list with more functionality to review at the September meeting.
Topic 4 UITG renewal, membership, scheduling.
UITG renewed through September 2009. Laura stepped down as co-chair. Outcome: Cindy will remain on as co-chair and Susan will become the new co-chair. They will attend the Taskgroup Chairs Meeting in September. Meeting schedule will remain the same on the first Tuesdays of the month.
Topic 5 What’s next for the Catalog?
Outcome: We will state in the work plan that usability testing is assumed in all interface changes. The group identified the following items for a catalog work plan to be prioritized:
- Authorities in PAC (top priority)
- Simplify & beautify the interface to improve usability (2nd priority)
- Explore new options/functionality in v.18, including renew all
- Export to RefWorks
- More indexes for better relevance ranking
- PAC statistics
Adding catalog search box in Facebook will be explored by a group outside of UITG.
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