Meeting Minutes for the User Interface Task Group
December 4, 2007 - 10-12 am
HSHSL in Baltimore, MD, LL03 Computer lab

Present: Cindy Todd (UMCP), Susan Wheeler (UB), Lenore England (UMUC), Heidi Hanson (ITD), Janet Evander (ITD), Laura Wrubel (ITD), Tierney Lyons (HSHSL), Ryan Harris (HSHSL), Linda Seguin (UMBC), Sean Henry (FSU), note taker.

Heidi had released the November UITG meeting minutes electronically for group approval later in the week.

Tierney introduced Ryan Harris to the group as her alternate; Lenore announced that Barb Mann would be her alternate.

Topic 1: Authorities Update (Hanson)
Heidi reported that a test environment had been created for authorities in the catalog; she will link it to the wiki. At this time the authorities work best if accessed through the browse command “LC Subject Heading Beginning With …” Heidi is working to get LC authjority records to link from LCSH index. She recommended that UITG look at the authorities evaluation tests developed by the Stony Brook University Libraries, which she will also link on the wiki.

Topic 2: MetaLib 4 (Evander and Wrubel)
Janet and Laura reported on recent usability testing and resulting Research Port screen changes. There have been 4 rounds of usability testing with the new Research port designs: one round on paper, and three using the new functional screens. Of the three rounds of usability testing using the screens, two were with UMCP students, and one with faculty. Janet and Laura presented the resulting screen changes to the UITG:

• The tab nomenclature “e-journals” was changed to “journals.” After this change, students made effective use of the journals feature.
• The alphabetical A-Z list of links was removed from the journal page due to clumsy navigation using too many mouse clicks. The “starts with” browse search is more effective.
• The tab nomenclature “My Research Port’” was changed to “My Lists”; Some discussion ensued about this change of text, but UITG members generally positive to this change.
• Wording on the “My Lists” page was clarified, i.e., “You must log in to see all features of My Lists.”
• Cross Search was emphasized with a button on the database list screen, but this is still being tweaked in testing; “add to list” will receive a text button to replace the “plus’ icon.
• Cross Search now only shows a list of databases that are actually cross-searchable.
• Cross Search and Quick Search now can narrow results by facets as a new MetaLib 4 feature; Plus the results are now relevancy ranked by default rather than chronologically listed.
• The value of searching a single database through the Research Port interface was questioned, so the “magnifying glass” icon and ability to search a single database has been suppressed for now.

In further discussion of usability testing, Janet reported that the students really like the “looking for a specific article?” citation linker on the Research port screens, although some faculty disturbed that there was no box to search for article author. Laura reported that as database subcategory nomenclature, “most useful databases,” “related databases,” and “all databases” worked well in testing, but that the term “core databases” did not fare very well.

Janet and Laura were very encouraged by testing overall. Big screen issues yet to be resolved are how to best manage the long list of databases by subject categories. Also, the annotated database list pages are overwhelming. Linda Seguin suggested indenting the annotations to make the pages easier to scan, and Cindy Todd recommended that the beige information buttons be made more yellow to stand out.

Janet and Laura pointed out that the Quick Search box still needs some work, and may remove the redundant radio button. Discussion ensued about the value of having book databases as Quick Search databases during usability tests, especially since users expect article results, not books. Cindy Todd pointed out that leaving book databases out of Quick Search would be problematic since most research databases are “mixed bags” of multiple formats anyway.

MetaLib 4 Troubleshooting
The UITG as a group spent the last 40 minutes of the meeting testing the new Research Port screens in the computer lab and collaboratively posting problems encountered on the wiki.

Next Meeting: Tuesday, January 8, 10 AM at College Park.

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