Visual Design Focus Group
Manuscripts Online
29th February 2012
User Feedback Summary
The session:
Wendy recruited 10 people to attend the session, 7 of which made it. The group
consisted of a mix of undergraduates, Phd researchers, University Lecturers, and
Library academics. The session was a little short on undergraduate attendees.
The attendees were given a short introduction to the three visuals and their
functionality; and then asked to complete a short questionnaire to gauge their
initial responses to the designs, before moving into group discussion.
The structure of the session was as follows:
Introduction:
Wendy gave a brief overview of the project before leaving the session.
We then had a quick round table of introductions so that everyone was familiar
with who was attending the session.
Design synopsis & questionnaire:
We gave a design synopsis of the three creative solutions and their functionality,
before asking the group to complete a short questionnaire to capture their
immediate responses to the designs.
Structured discussion of creative solutions:
Moving into the open group discussions we discussed the following:
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Overall creative appeal
Focal points
Features within the designs
Design in relation to the subject matter
Site identity
Colour
Attendees:
Danielle Rosen – University of Birmingham, Undergraduate Student (English
Language and Literature)
Fran Bumpus – Shropshire Records Series, Keele University
Emily Rozier – University of Birmingham, PhD Researcher (late medieval English
literature and society)
Tim O’Mara – Worcs Cathedral Library
Helen Coy – University of Birmingham, Student Records Assistant (About to go
on to PhD study)
Philippa Semper – University of Birmingham, Lecturer in English
Robert Swanson – University Professor
The Questionnaire
Question1
At first glance which design has the most visual interest encouraging you
to explore the site further?
The initial response to this question resulted in favour of design one and three
with a slight majority preferring design one.
Example quote
“1. The background makes it stand out & draws the eye in, the ‘discover our
resources’ section is visually appealing & intriguing. It is the most coherent
looking”.
Open discussion
In the open discussion it was agreed that design one was the most visually
appealing and engaging for the user to explore further.
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Question 2
On each of the three designs, where would you say the immediate focus
is?
In design one three out of the seven people saw the ‘Quick search’ as the
immediate focal point.
Design two saw six out of the seven attendees thinking that the ‘Map’ (Discover
our resources) was the focal point.
Design three’s results were six out of the seven attendees saw the ‘Quick search’
as the focal point, although two of these thought it was competing with the
‘Discover our resources’ area.
Open discussion
The group agreed that they liked the open approach of design one as it felt much
more together and easier to read and the ‘Quick search’ stands out.
Although there was a high majority who saw the ‘Map’ as the focal point on
design two, they also doubted the Importance or usefulness of this, and therefore
thought it shouldn’t be the focus.
On design three, the ‘Quick search’ was the strongest focus. However it was
thought that the white type on dark background wasn’t the easiest on the eye for
reading.
Question 3
From the three designs, which of the ‘Latest searches’ features most
appeals to you and why?
The majority of the group favoured the ‘Latest search’ feature on design one
(Four of the seven attendees).
Example quote
“Version one: it is the most clear and least fussy – I doubt this feature would be
of much interest to me though”.
Open discussion
The questionnaire responses had a general opinion that this feature was a little
unnecessary, as they were only really interested in their own resource search
rather than other peoples. However, after discussion merit was seen in design
one’s approach to the feature with some interest gained by the possible
community aspect of seeing what people who have searched a resource may
have contributed to it.
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Question 4
From the three designs, which of the ‘Discover our resources’ features
most appeals to you and why?
Six out of the seven attendees selected the ‘Discover our resources’ feature from
design three, although two of these equally liked design one’s feature along with
the other remaining person.
Example quote
“Version three: clearly laid out and in keeping with the function of the website.
Use of this would probably be intuitive”.
Open discussion
The group clearly liked the approach of this widget in both design one and three,
but preferring design three’s approach after discussion. They liked the clear view
of resources in design one, but liked the concept, information presentation, and
general feel of design three’s approach more. The only doubt of this one is the
space for presenting all of the resources, because a carousel approach will be
needed as the resource numbers increase.
The response to the map was very skeptical. The attendees didn’t see any worth
in plotting the resources origins on a map as an access point. This feature maybe
needed more technical detailing of its function for the attendees to see its worth.
Question 5
Which design solution do you feel best suits the subject matter and why?
Five of the seven attendees chose design number one as the design that best
suits the subject matter. Two of these also liked design number three as did the
other two attendees.
Example quote
“Number 1, because it is attractive & medieval themed while still being clearly
laid out. Number 2 does not seem to suit the subject matter, it looks more like a
news site & wouldn’t encourage exploration of the resources. Number 3 is quite
clunky looking”.
Open discussion
There was a clear favourite in the group during this discussion. It was thought
that design one was clearly presented while having the right feel for the subject
matter.
Design two was thought to be far too glaringly white (didn’t like the colours) and
not appealing as a concept for the subject matter.
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Although design three got some positive feedback, it was thought to be too
blocky and the features were heavy and therefore distracting (competing with
each other).
Site identity (Logo)
The logo on design one was chosen by the group as fitting for the subject matter,
as it has suggestions of the period without being too intrusive.
The second design identity correlated with the feeling that the colours and design
didn’t meet the audience.
Design three’s identity was ruled as too faux manuscript (Blackadder).
Colour
The group particularly liked the dark background of design one against the lighter
coloured design. They didn’t like the colour-scheme of design two at all and
thought the design may work better in different colours. They liked design three
but thought the colour of the ‘Quick search’ box was too dark with the white text.
They also thought the colours were too blocky in this design.
Concluding summary
The group decided that their ideal design for Manuscripts Online would be design
one with the book feature (Discover our resources) taken from design three.
They also thought that this section widget should also click through to the top
level resources page as in the primary navigation.
They liked the ‘Quick search’ and saw it as the most useful entry point for them.
We think that the inspirational widgets would appeal more to undergraduates
looking to be enthused and not always knowing exactly what they were looking
for (for example: browsing for inspiration for a dissertation).
After discussion the group saw the merit in having an ‘Announcements’ block for
general news, resource, and event announcements; and also a twitter feed for
quicker feeds of information which don’t necessarily need to be on the site for a
prolonged period.
Finally, having discussed the navigation it is thought that ‘Workspace’ and ‘API’
should be more intuitively named. The group was told that this was likely to be
the case, but section names had not yet been decided on.
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