Usability Testing to Improve Research Data Services

Usability refers to the ease and accessibility of a system. Usability testing seeks to study how users interact with a system in order to improve the users’ experience and satisfaction in achieving their objectives with the system. Usability testing is an important metric for improving a library’s online services, including research data services. Libraries can help make research data available by providing repositories and data curation services for researchers to house their collected data. Providing services throughout the science data life cycle (i.e. plan, collect, share, and preserve) is important for producing higher quality research, expanding its impact, and data reuse. The Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE) is supported by the US National Science Foundation and seeks to provide the framework and cyber-infrastructure to meet the needs of the science community to provide constant and secure access to Earth observational data. The DataONE network has heavily invested and implemented a comprehensive Usability Program to ensure user-centric software and components are made available to the variety of DataONE stakeholders. DataONE’s ONEMercury is a search tool for scientific data, and the ONEDrive is a mounted workspace on the user’s computer that works with ONEMercury. In 2012, a usability test was performed of the DataONE’s ONEMercury tool to evaluate how scientists engage with its content and information. Twenty-six participants performed a series of tasks using the tool. MORAE software recorded the sessions, including screen display, keystrokes, and mouse movements. Participants were also asked to think aloud as they completed the tasks. The results were analyzed by observation, think aloud, time on task, and number of errors. Another usability test was performed of the DataONE’s ONEDrive to assess user impressions as the tool was in development. Six participants were shown a wireframe of the tool and asked for their feedback. This paper proposes to examine the results from the ONEMercury and ONEDrive tests and draw implications for libraries and other data providers wishing to implement and utilize usability practices and principles

Measuring and Applying Data about Users in the Seton Hall Library

We present data on how faculty and students at Seton Hall University use scholarly articles and books, how the library can present its findings to stakeholders, and how librarians can learn from these findings to better meet user needs. The data were gathered using questionnaire surveys of university faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students as part of the IMLS Lib-Value project and based on Tenopir and King Studies conducted since 1977. Many questions used the critical incident of the last article and book reading to enable analysis of the characteristics of readings, in addition to characteristics of readers. Seton Hall’s ejournal collection is vital to its users, supporting faculty research and teaching and student coursework. However, high use of books from non-library sources suggests some deficiencies in the collection. Findings show an opportunity to brand library material to clearly distinguish it from what is perceived as ‘free on the web,’ examine use of both print and e-books, and work with professors to increase student awareness and use of library resources

Scholarly article seeking, reading, and use: a continuing evolution from print to electronic in the sciences and social sciences

Electronic journals are now the norm for accessing and reading scholarly articles. This article examines scholarly article reading patterns by faculty in five US universities in 2012. Selected findings are also compared to some general trends from studies conducted periodically since 1977. In the 2012 survey, over threequarters (76%) of the scholarly readings were obtained through electronic means and just over half (51%) of readings were read on a screen rather than from a print source or being printed out. Readings from library sources are overwhelmingly from e-sources. The average number of articles read per month was 20.66, with most articles read by the medical and other sciences, and on average each article was read for 32 minutes

UX-AHM 2016

A presentation for the DataONE 2016 All-Hands Meeting on UX activities, deliverables, and strategic plan