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OPAC Usability

OPAC Usability. Ava Gutwein Karen Grondin Tim Konieczny Sarah Kaufman. Problem:. The usability of an OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) and how perceived usability was affected by age, computer skills, and educational level. Importance:. An OPAC is a representation of the library.

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OPAC Usability

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  1. OPAC Usability Ava Gutwein Karen Grondin Tim Konieczny Sarah Kaufman

  2. Problem: • The usability of an OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) and how perceived usability was affected by age, computer skills, and educational level.

  3. Importance: • An OPAC is a representation of the library. • Human Computer Interaction • Huge variety of users • Design of the user interface.

  4. Who Cares?: • Librarians and information professionals. • Library staff • Vendors, designers, and creators of OPACs. • Most of all… patrons.

  5. Our Approach: • We looked at several OPACs and chose one – the Tempe Public Library. http://catalog.tempe.gov • Informal online survey using freeonlinesurveys.com http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?id=57474 • Participants were recruited from each group member’s e-mail list of family and friends

  6. Our Approach: con’t… • Assumed that none of participants had ever used TPL’s OPAC • Asked participants to do a search in TPL’s catalog and then answer questions regarding this experience. http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?id=57474

  7. Why Tempe Public Library: • We have an insider. • We wanted to look at an OPAC that used Innovative’s Millennium product. • We felt that TPL’s OPAC would be easy for most people to use. • We felt it was among the easiest to navigate. • The children’s catalog “KidsOnline” appeared to be easy to use. (at least to us) http://catalog.tempe.gov:90/kids

  8. Outcomes of Survey • 30 responses total (as of April 9th, 2004) • Majority of respondents were: 36-45 yr. old 4 year college graduates Moderately skilled at computers

  9. Age and Usability

  10. Education

  11. Computer Skills and Usability:

  12. Analysis: There were several unexpected results: • Computer skills did not correlate with searching success. • Users from age ranges 22-35, 36-45, and 46-55 were comparatively similar in their searching success. • There was a correlation between educational level and search success.

  13. New Insights / Future Ideas • Digital Divide: those who have daily access to computers and internet have more experience with technology and thus may have an advantage when searching OPACs. • Only those who had online access to the survey were able to take it. What if we had paper copies available? • In repeating this experiment we would aim to survey equal amounts of individuals with in the age groups. This would affect data. We could request survey takers to tell us what their search terms were.

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