Steph Lee, Cody Dennard, Nico Alcalde, A good start overall, based more upon the quality of the research than the reporting. You have misunderstood the co: line in the letter of transmittal - you don't co: the primary reader. Use her correct job title, also, in the address block Any illustration that is not a table is a figure. Provide a number and title for each. Your research did discover problems, but best to phrase those as opportunities to improve the next generation of the application. Don't be too hard on the developers or they won't give due consideration to your recommendations. This, is a tone issue, Label the units in your table, and drop the fractions of a second (they don’t matter in this case). The pull quotes in italics are effectively presented and convincing. You could do even more of this. The comparison with Google's billions is too harsh, and this search interface has a different and more academic purpose. Your arguments could also be strengthened by showing that you had done more reading about the earlier versions of the interface than just reviewing the one student-authored report. There are publications about the usability of the earlier WorldCat Local interface that you could locate and quote fromTo: Greg Wickiiff From: Stephanie Lee, Cody Dennard, Nicholas Alcalde Date: 2/29/2015 Subject: Project Assessment 1) Process & Technical Goals for the Project ‘© We wanted to lear how comfortable the basic format was to users especially firs time users to see ifthe basic usability of the system is user friendly. We learned that Quicktime allowed screen and sound capture in the same file. Learned that the computers in the library don't have any browsers with up-to-date software to handle Google Drive which has become a large part of our school’s system since the Google Migration. Learned that Google Docs don't always transfer to Word Documents smoothly. ¢ We learned that it is easier to keep titles with a consistent formatting. We learned that Google Docs does not include columns in formatting but itis possible through using tables. Learned that Word has a function to add borders to pictures. Learned how to make different footer sections in a document in Word by using page breaks 2) Audience Members’ Goals for the Project ‘* Most of our audience members had some prior experience working with the library database and all of them have experience with search engines like Google. They all understood that their search may not have necessarily led to the correct result and were prepared to continue looking by applying more filters or trying out different keywords. 3) Key Results of Peer Review and/or User Tests ‘* Number and types of reviews/ tests (user testing, peer review, editing) = Our four user tests helped to verify some of the issues that we assumed they would run into while using the program. These included problems with things such as the search interface not responding with the appropriate results or the information they were looking for. We also noticed half of our users had to result to the advanced search feature to find what they were looking for even though they had the search item's title and author name. - Our peer review with other groups from class helped point out some organizational issues with our report, although no major errors that required big substantial changes were found. 4) Your Overall Assessment of the Final Document and the Design Process '* Do you believe the report meets your own and your audience members’ goals overall?- Yes, we believe that our project has met all requirements and is also serving as a valuable outside assessment for the library staff. The general and specific features of your document that seem to be working well - Our document has beeryprganized so that any member of the library staff would easily be able to, our findings and suggestions from the report. We also included numerous graphics and other imagines to help with the overall visualization The general and specific features that seem to not be working well and ideas for revision as time allows + We addressed all of the issues that we could find from our user tests and left the suggestions we felt were most appropriate for fixing those issues. How the group work succeeded and how it presented obstacles (a paragraph from each group member) = Our group was able to work and correspond very well with each other. There were days when we didn't have all 3:members of the group present but we were still able to complete all of our work according to our schedule and make up for any missed time.Style Sheet Stephanie Lee Nicholas Alcalde Cody Dennard Substantive Edits © VisuaVFormatting Edits © Design © Centered Title Heading © Left Aligned Heading 1 © Multiple line spacing at | with space between paragraphs of the same style. © Typeface ©. Title Heading: Calibri pt. 18 © Title Heading 2: Calibri Bold pt. 24 © Title Subheading: Calibri pt. 14 Heading 1: Calibri Bold pt. 18 Heading 2: Times New Roman Bold pt. 14 Content Text: Times New Roman pt. 12 = Quotes: Times New Roman Italics pt. 12 = Labeling: Times New Roman Bold pt. 12 = Columns: Justified Alignment ooo Basie Copyediting Document should be approached as a professional report © Language should be understood by the intended audiences. © Leave out some articles, pronouns, and some verbs if clarity is unaffected. © Voice, Mood, Tense, Point of View: © Active Voice © Imperative Mood © Second Person Point of ViewFebruary 22,2016 gist wie He Sin Tite Rachael Winterling &Libraryxdministration J. Murrey Atkins Library University of North Car 9201 University City Blvd Charlotte, NC 28223-0001 at Charlotte Re: Usability Tests of Atkins Library OCLC Interface We would first like to express our gratitude to Rachael Winterling and the J. Murrey Atkins Library team for visiting our class. The information provided to us has given us some valuable information regarding the library's online interface, enabling us to design our usability tests to yield the best results possible. This assignment was given to us by Associate English Professor Dr. Gregory Wickliff in our ENGL 4181, Writing User Documents class. The main goal of this assignment was to perform usability tests on the Atkins/ WorldCat Local user interface, so that we may analyze the results (successes and difficulties) and present our findings to the library team, ur analysis produced several key findings. For the most part, our participants were able to use the interface fairfy-effectively and aN they did encounter any problems, the interface provided them with the tools necessary to complete their task. However, we believe that our testing and analysis has given us some valuable insight into some of the deficiencies of the interface. Due to this, we feel that we can provide the library team with a few recommendations that will further improve the interface, Our findings include: - Users that were new to the interface encountered some difficulties with their first task - As these first-time users complete each task, the amount of problems quickly became less frequent. ~The basic, or default, search generally failed to produce the correct results. ~ Afier first attempting to use the default search function, the majority of users moved to the advanced search function in order to successfully complete their search. As these findings indicate, there are some opportunities for improvement that would help streamline the user experience and lessen the amount of frustration they experience when utilizing the library interface. Sincerely, Cody Dennard, Stephanie Lee, & Nicholas Alealde Authors : pt Ce Boeowe SUE 16 aD, Reawae~ - ~Rachael Wintertinng, Usability Specialist for the J. Murrey Atkins Library ~ Gregory Wickliff, Assoc. Professor of Englishy ‘Search UNC Charlotte Libraries and beyond. UNC Charlotte J. Murrey Atkins Library Website Beta Version: Usability Testing Report ENGL 4181 February 23, 2016 By: Cody Dennard Stephanie Lee Nicholas Alcalde Submitted to: - Rachael Winterling, Usability Specialist for the J. Murrey Atkins Library = Gregory Wiekliff, Assoc. Professor of EnglishExecutive Summary stey The purpose of this Ayabitity-repest was to test a user’s ability to navigate and successfully use the WorldCat Local search program and report our findings back to the Atkins Library team, We Jearned—a—lot—from—this—report_and» hopefHy our findings will help to improve the usability of the program itself. We asked multiple students with different levels of experience with WorldCat to complete 3-Aasks for our usability test? These “fasks included finding out which schools have a certain book when given title and author name, finding the first edition year of a certain book when given the title, and finding how many copies/different editions of a certain book were at the UNC Charlotte J. Murrey Atkins library when given title and author. After each test was over, we asked the students a series of questions to get them to discuss the problems they were having during the actual test. We also monitored their actions during the test so we could see the exact parts that they were struggling with. Some of the test subjects struggled more than others with certain tasks, but they were all able to ultimately complete them, Some of the main issues we discovered were that when you searched a book by its exact name it would not be the first result’ © and-—-more searching/filtering had to be done to find it. Another big issue we found was that many of our users found themselves having to resort to the advanced search options because the default search bar would rarely find what they were looking for. After some discussion with each of the participants, they all seemed to agree that while they were ultimately able to find what they needed, they think it should have been much easier to do so. ‘There were a lot of unnecessary steps in the process and at times it got frustrating, Just about everyone regularly uses Google and it serves as the standard for which all other search engines are compared. When a student goes from Google to using WorldCat they will find a major drop off in ease of use as well as search result success It is clear that WorldCat is still in its early stages and has much to improve on. The biggest suggestion our group would make after completing this report would be to get rid of the default search bar altogether until the search result algorithm has been _ significantly improved. We believe replacing it and having the advanced search options from the beginning would save students a lot of time and effort since many of our users found themselves resorting to advanced search after unsuccessful use of the default search bar,Fu. | Fame fil 2 fos Table of Contents Executive Summary... Introduction and Procedure ..... Key Findings 1. Not user friendly for first time users er-tookies? 2, Advanced search was more useful than using the ba: search after adding filters to-yourresults Conclusions and Recommendations . Appendices ........:.csceec L.A: Usability Tests ....escseeesees 2. B: Follow Questions .. References ..........cceceeeseeseesese reese eeeeteteeeeserees O List of Tables and Figures Graph A: Prior Experience with Interface Table A: Task Times and Averages .... 2 Image A: Google Search \..........+ 3 Image B: Advanced Beta Search aese UNC Charlotte J. Murrey Atkins Library Website Beta Version: Usability Testing Report Introduction The University of North Carolina at Charlote J. Murrey Atkins Library introduced the new interface and online worldwide catalog WorldCat Local in the fall semester of the 2013 school year. Since then, many problems with the system were found and reported. ‘The system has changed somewhat since then and is always under observation for future problems to be addressed so that the system can evolve to better serve the students and faculty of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "At the beginning of this spring semester, Rachael Winterling came to speak to our class about the system and how she would like our help in improving it. She showed us the different aspects of the system inclu the Beta search option which would be the focus of our project Dr. Wickliff assigned us groups; ours made up of undergraduate students Stephanie Lee, Cody Dennard, And Nicholas Alcalde. He en gave us the instructions for our project. Three undergraduate students and one graduate student participated in our studies and all of the sessions went very well, Each user was able to complete each task that was given to them. Our findings specified in the following report show details of usef' experience including when they struggled and succeeded with the interface. The evidence we provide will help the J. Murrey Atkins Library and WorldCat to improve the system and its usability so it is a better fit for the faculty and students of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Procedure Each member of our group reached out to friends and colleagues to find participants for our study. The usability tests we created allowed us to observe students performing specific searches using the beta library interface on a computer that the library provides for study rooms. We created specific tasks that we tested befofe hand to ensure that the user could have a chance to complete them: We planned for each test session to take no more than thirty minutes to allow us time to communicate and discuss the tasks with the users before, during, and after the tests The sessions were recorded on camera and we recorded the screen and audiggwhieh- was-our-main-use of material to gatherdatg.. After the tasks were completed, we asked 1, edeh- usesStollow-up questions teZagy how P heir experience went. We reviewed the recordings of each session to collect and evaluate data to then write this report, which was written and designed in Google Documents, omer ap.Key Findings 1. Not user friendly for first time er rookie.users. A common answer to our follow up question, “Did you feel uncomfortable with completing any of the tasksZ, was that they struggled at first, but with each task, the system became easier to use because they were more familiar with it. Most of the users had barely used the system before the test. Experience Graph A: Prior Experience With Interface It also took the users quite some time to complete tasks or even to realize that they hhad completed a task. The interface just wasn’t straight forward to them and they struggled to manipulate the system to find exactly what they were looking for. One user stated, “The first task made me feel dumb... I feel like searching for the title exactly should have brought up the book.” 2, Advanced search was more useful than using the basic search after adding filters to your results. Our results indicated that users ended up using the advanced search quite a bit to complete their tasks. ‘The search results produced by using the default search rarely yielded the correct results. While the advanced search function itself is quite useful, we feel that our participants were required to utilize it far too often. To be specific, our participants weren't satisfied with the basic search results and, therefore, switched to the advanced search ‘50% of the time. In our team’s opinion, this far too often It is our recommendation that the basic, or default, search function needs to be improved upon so that it produces better, more accurate, results. This would save users valuable time and effort, making their experience with the interface much more enjoyable. ee asks 1:00 0:50 044 Max. Time Mas 3:19 2:20 4:53 Avg. Time il 13978 1 2:04, Table A: Task Times and Averages 2 "ey mn wae ie teConclusions and Recommendations In conclusion, the beta Version of the WorldCat Local database for the J. Murrey Atkins Library is a work in progress, While it can definitely be helpful in finding resources in the library database, it has a lot of things that need to improved to help with the overall usability of the search engine. If it is able to make the accommodations that our group recommended in addition to fixing a few other minor problems, it would make it much easier and less frustrating for Image A: Google Search We believe that any search tool online should be held to the standard of using Google. It simply always knows what the user is looking for and is able to display its results based on relevance to the user, and this is what WorldCat should strive to accomplish. When a user types in the exact name of a book or article it should be the first result that comes up, period. It should not be necessary to apply more filters or even resort to the advanced search feature when you already have all the necessary information to fi mething, ‘As we stated above, our biggest recommendation for improving WorldCat would be to remove the default search bar and replace it with the advanced search option until the default search algorithm can be significantly improved. Since half of our users needed to resort to the advanced search option in order to find what they were looking for, we think they should have access to it from the beginning of their search. It was originally designed as something that the user may use if they run into any troubles, not something that is required half the time just to find a single item. Image B: Advanced Beta SearchAppendix A: Usability Tests [User Task 1 [Comic Book Search Publish Date Search| [Description ‘Time [Success [Summary / Issues [Which schools have a [02:20]Yes —_ ]Searehes star Wars: the last command, lcopy of “Star Wars: searches star wars, searches star wars comic [rhe Last Command” book, format - book, searches starwars the by Dark Horse Comics last command comic book, sort by relevance lonly, 1st result Year ofthe frst fo1:s0|ves [Keyword - First edition & title - the great edition of The Jgatsby, sort by - relevancy only, goes back, hitlo- the great gatsby & keyword first published, year - 1919 to 1930, Ist and only result [Copies Available |The Lord of the [00:44 ]¥es [Searches lord of the rings, Ist result library - Search Rings” by J func charlotte libraries, 4th result, format [Tolkein. How many book, Std result, sort by relevance only, 3rd lcopies and different result leditions and formats 2 [Comic Book Search] Which schools have a F¥es | Searehes star wars: the last command, format tar Wars book, goes to advanced seareh, ttle - star The Last Command” by Dark Horse Comics browser difficulties, searches dark horse wars: the last command & format - book, Jcomics, searches star wars the last command lby dark hiorse comies, 6th result Publish Date Search| Year of the first [00:50 Yes [Keyword - Great Gatsby & format - book & ledition of The Great lyear - 1919 1930, Ist result Gatsby [Copies Available |The Lord ofthe [01:50 Yes [Advanced Search, location - une charlotte Search Rings” by IRR. libraries, Keyword - the lord of the rings, [Tolkein. How many lauthor -tolkein, browser issues, [st result jUNcc, [Comic Book Search] Which copy of copies and different editions and formats are available at [The Last Command” lby Dark Horse Comics schools havea |01:00]¥es _ |Searches star wars the last command, adds | “Star Wars dark horse comics, 6th result Publish Date Search| Year of the first 00:50] ves [Title - great gatsby, years 1920 - 1930, Ist edition of The Great result Gatsby [Copies Available [The Lord ofthe [00:50 |¥es | Searches the lord of the rings, Ist result Search Rings” by JR. UNCC. |Totkein. How many copies and different editions and formats wvailable at[4 [Comic Book Search] Which schools havea [01:20]¥es — ]Searches Star Wars, refines search by books, lcopy of "Star Wars: ladds the Last Command, 6th result. {The Last Command” by Dark Horse Publish Daie Search| Year of theTirst 02:20 Yes [Keyword frst edition & tle - great gatsby, ledition of The Great back to advanced search, 1920 o 1929 forthe lGatsby yeas, 1st result but scrolls past it - we tll him it was the 1925. [Copies Available |The Lord of he [0453 Ves [Advanced search, location ~ UNC charlote Search Rings" by JAR. libraries & Keyword - ord ofthe rings, th Tolkein, How many result but scrolls past and goes tothe next copies and different page, content full tent, author - doesn’t see editions and formats iotkeln, goes hack to advanced search, tries are available at again, dth result, format - book, result Is 3rd, UNCC. author - 148. Tolkein, result is 1st ed keene lUser 1 | @ The firs task was the hardest for them, They had to search by relevance to find it. Other things \were coming up for Star Wars even though he put inthe exact ile ‘© The third task was the easiest for them. The wanted result showed up first. ‘© They bad to go through some trial and error during the frst to tasks then felt comfortable for the tied task. ‘© They finished all ofthe tasks. They suggest that when searching by an exaet name, the results should match [User 2 | © ‘The first task was tho hardest for them, The resull woulda’t show unless they added the Publisher "Dark Horse Comics" to the search. ‘© The second task was the easiest for them since they could filter their results by date ‘© The first task made them feel dumb and that he shouldn'thave been that hard to find ‘© They finshed all ofthe tasks ‘© They suggest thatthe search feature be improved by adding more options inthe advanced search lUser 3 | © The second task was hardest for them since the database did not specify thatthe result was the first published, we had to toll them that what they found was correct because we had Googled the correc first publish year. ‘© The first task was the easiest for them, They just had to add the publisher, and the result came Fight up for them ‘© They never elt uncomfortable during the tasks and they never seemed to struggle with them ‘© They finished all ofthe tasks. ‘© _ They don’t have any suggestions, that the system seems straightforward enough, fUsers [© The third tsk was the hardest for them. ‘They sad the Keyword search should be more specie. ‘© The first task was the easiest for them, They searched by Dark Horse Comics and were able to find it right away, ‘They said the second task was also easy since you could search by date. ‘© They struggled the most with the third task and it made them uncomfortable, ‘© They finished all ofthe tasks. ‘¢__ Their suggestion isto make the advanced search the defaull instead of the basic searchReferences Usability Test Participants: © Sophomore Mechanical Engineering Technology Student, UNC Charlotte, 2/5/2016 © Senior Masters of Science in Information Technology Student, UNC Charlotte, 2/5/2016 @ Senior Finance with Accounting Concentration Student, UNC Charlotte, 2/5/2016 ‘© Senior Software and Information Systems Student, UNC Charlotte, 2/10/2016 Supporting Document: © Daniel Jackson & Robert Famham, “Discover WorldCat with Faculty Scientists: A usability analysis of the discovery interface for the J. Murrey Atkins Library, March 12, 2014”