CSUN Library Web Usability Study:
Findings & Suggestions
Specific Tasks and Observations:
1. Reserve room location
 Found on About the Library/Services for Students/Reserve Book Room
 Expected to find it in How to Do Library Research
 Expected to find it on Course Reserves search page in OPAC
 Missed it on How to Find Books page list of locations
2. Collaboratory hours on Sunday
 Expected to find it on Library Hours page
 Assumed same as open hours (until 10 pm not 9:45 pm on Sunday)
 Needed notice on Library Hours page about upper floors and TCC closing
15 minutes before Library closing.
3. Undergraduate renewal policy
 Found on About the Library/Services for Students/Circulating
Books/Circulation Policies (too many steps; a lot of text—needs a table or
bullets)
 Expected to find it on About the Library page
 Missed Library A-Z on About the Library page
 Expected to find it on Help/Library Services
 Missed links from Find Books/How to Find Books/Circulation
 Expected to find it on the Renewal Request Form and the Renew Your
Books form in OPAC
4. Find an article on Colin Powell
 Found articles (press releases on Powell) on whitehouse.gov link from
Find Government Sources/Government Information Page.
 Cannot navigate to appropriate category on Find Articles page
 Cannot navigate to appropriate database on General/Multi-Subject page
 Expected OPAC link on Find Articles page to provide article level access
 Expected Periodical Title search on OPAC to find articles
 Expected Find Government Sources page (actually knew who Colin
Powell was!) to link to articles:
 Gave up and went to Google
5. Inter-Library Loan
 Found it under Find Articles/How to Find Articles/Choices if CSUN Doesn’t
Own
 Found it under OPAC table link to ILL
 Sort of found it: Find articles/Other Library Catalogs (would search other
libraries and go there for article—missed ILL service)
 No concept of Inter-Library Loan (actual question asks how to get an
article if the Library does not have it)
 Missed it under How to Find Articles
 Missed it under OPAC table link to ILL
K. Dabbour & L. Lampert, 7/18/03,
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Went to Find Articles/Other Library Catalogs/Melvyl (guessed it might
include libraries in LA area, but then searched books)
6. San Fernando Valley statistics (Mary F.’s page)
 Found it by searching Google: Got to Google by going to Find
Articles/General/Table/WWW/Google
 Found it under Search our Site
 Found under Find Articles/Subject Guides/ Social Sciences
 Went to SFV History Digital Library—missed that it was an image
database
 Went to Campus Home page and Resources for the Community
 Missed Subject Guides under Find Books/Articles/Home
 Missed Search our Site
 Expected to find in OPAC
7. Email address for Karin Duran
 Found on About the Library/Employees Directory
 Found Karin’s web page with Search our Site
 Missed Subject Specialists on Ask a Librarian page
 Missed Employees Directory on About the Library
8. Newspaper databases
 Found on Find Articles/Databases A-Z/Newsstand (alpha by accident)
 Found it due to prior knowledge of Lexis. Got to Lexis from Find
Articles/Electronic Periodicals
 Expected to find “newspapers” on Find Articles page
 Could not determine where newspapers fit in the categories on Find
Articles page
 Expected to search OPAC by a particular newspaper title or with the
subject “newspapers”
9. Special Collections location
 Found on About the Library/Library Collections/Special Collections
 Found on About the Library/Library A-Z
 Search our Site brings up older pages, e.g.:
http://library.csun.edu/spcoll/hpser.html (lists exhibits from 96/97)
http://library.csun.edu/spcoll/hbspcolly.html (lists Room 4 as location)
http://library.csun.edu/spcoll/hbtemp.htm (no location)
10. Locate Factiva
 Found on banner Databases A-Z
 Found Databases A-Z on Find Articles page
11. Find a video
 Found on About the Library/Library A-Z/Audio Recordings (Did not scroll
to V for Videos!!)—See Fine Arts/Link to OPAC
 Found on Find Books/Media Library
 Found on OPAC/Quick Search changed to videos
12. Leisure and Hospitality Business (online journal access)
 Found it by searching Google with the title and CSUN which linked to
http://library.csun.edu/ejournals/jnlsL.html !!
K. Dabbour & L. Lampert, 7/18/03,
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Expected to find in OPAC by searching Ejournals
Missed link from OPAC Periodical Titles search or OPAC footer to CSUN
List of Electronic Periodicals
 Confused Databases A-Z with journal titles
13. Description of the APA format
 Found the APA’s page using Google, but did not find our citation example
page
 Found using Search our Site
 Missed Search our Site
 Missed it in How to Do Library Research
 Missed it in Research Strategies
 Expected to find it in OPAC
14. Connect from home
 Found link to Connecting from Home from Find Books
 Expected to see a Library FAQ page
 Some had previous experience with E-Z Proxy menu & instructions—knew
how to do it, couldn’t find our Connecting from Home page.
 Missed Library Proxy Server from Off Campus link on Help page
 Expected to find it on How to Do Library Research
Suggestions:
 Search our Site: mostly overlooked. Needs a search box in banner.
Change text from “Replace this text with your search terms” to “Type
here”. Make text delete automatically with one click in the box. Many
confused by it or did not delete existing text, so had no results.
 About the Library: often missed. Need a Library Services page that
includes circ policies, ILL, proxy, instructional services, librarian subject
specialists, ask a librarian, etc. from the home page or banner.
 CSUN List of Electronic Periodicals is completely overlooked. Should be a
link from the home page and within it, there could be brief text to also
check the OPAC.
 Research Strategies pages need updating and re-organizing.
 Subject Guides page is completely overlooked. Needs more explicit
description than “Subject Guides Librarian-recommended links.” What
about “Research Guides by Subject”?
 Find Articles needs a menu of databases by type of periodical, e.g.,
Newspapers & Magazines, Scholarly Journals, etc. as well as by subject.
Consider removing the links to OPAC, Other Library Catalogs,
Government sources, and Electronic Books from the Find Articles page,
and just link back to the Find Books page. In addition, create a page on
how to locate periodicals that discusses the OPAC, CSUN List of
Electronic Periodicals, and SFX as well as ILL and ingenta options.
 Citation Format and Style Guide pages need to be made more prominent
in higher level pages, such as linking from the Find Articles/Books pages;
and, on the How to Do Library Research page, reword the link text to read
K. Dabbour & L. Lampert, 7/18/03,
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something like, “How to Cite Sources—APA, MLA, and other citation
formats and style guides”.
Need a “what to do if we don’t have what you need” link on the Find
Articles, Find Books pages that refers to ILL and ingenta.
Need a Library FAQ page.
Special Collections pages need to be updated and/or deleted if outdated.
Consider cataloging Subject Guides and instructional pages, such as the
APA/MLA citation style examples pages
Ask a Librarian to find a specific librarian by name is mostly successful.
Perhaps a link to the list of librarians by name is needed, too.
Change wording on Help page from Library Proxy Server to How to
Connect from Home, or something equally low tech.
K. Dabbour & L. Lampert, 7/18/03,