Usability, Usefulness and Usage Data

Abstract

A pilot study of usefulness, as opposed to usability, in a digital health service library’s clinical decision portal moves the discussion of usability beyond the user interface to the practical considerations of supporting decision making at the point of care. Buchanan and McMenemy share their evaluation framework. Data mining of user behaviour is another new area for libraries. Pattern suggests using circulation data to generate recommendations and analysing OPAC keyword searches to create suggestions for search refinement. Huddersfield has released aggregated book usage data and challenges other libraries to do the same