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Web Client- DeLIver

Notes from Librarian Mini-Focus Groups

Ignacio

July 7, 1997

Likes

• · the icons on the bottom are better
• · liked the overall look of the page (the feel and colors)
• · thought that the search page seemed understandable in general in terms of what she needed to do
• · the software screen seemed inviting and friendly
• · the tips pages seemed very thorough

I. Header stuff/Colors/Text:

• OK, but the Browse is not prominent enough, does not suggest a search mode parallel to Search
• Icons on the top of the screen take up too much room. Would like to see more of the search form.
• the text on the main page should be bigger (the text in the tables such as the examples)
• the text on the main page should be darker - it was hard to read (Mac screen)

• Search button placement ok, since prominent and if can see from bottom of page. But a search button at the very bottom of the page is more natural- if she gets all the way through the form she doesn't want to have to scroll up to hit the search button
• Most people will know what the * wildcard means but not all; need to explain this up front
• Put the search examples in a column, e.g.:
  • luminescence
  • enhanced luminescence
  • Stillman, G.
• not strung across as a row. Otherwise it 1) is hard to really see these and 2) makes it look like you are supposed to string all your search terms across in this one box (rather than using the additional search term boxes)
• Is there assumed adjacency in phrase searching? Explain in tips if not right here or put in parantheses how close the terms are
• Is it case sensitive? Tell people this in the tips, if not right here.

• Does Òtable textÓ really search the text of the table or does it search the table caption? She wasn't sure if it only searched the caption or if it searched the text in the tables or figures
• What does Òorganization nameÓ really search? It pulled up uiuc in a figure url or something, so it does not seem to be searching particular organization-related fields, like the author affiliation. And if it is just searching the string ANYWHERE, why is this even a separate option? Better to just tell people they can enter org names as well as author names when they do a search.
• What is the difference between ÒAnywhere in articleÓ and ÒAnywhere in article bodyÓ? Change the former to ÒAnywhereÓ or ÒAnywhere in textÓ - she wasn't really sure where this searched and if it included figures/tables or only body text.
• Having ÒAnywhere in articleÓ the default is not good if youÕre searching for primary authors. ItÕs a nice catch-all window, but not for author searching.
• ÒClick here to search parts of the articleÓ is too vague. Wants to see all parts of the article listed on the first box. Then in the other search boxes, they can put ÒClick hereÉÓ (Wished there was a way to check whichever boxes he wants to search, but we told him that this couldnÕt be done. Better yet, give them a spatial idea of how the article looks like, and put check boxes near those parts. IÕll show you his drawing tomorrow.)
• if possible, have a combination of Òtitle/abstractÓ. (We told him that we didnÕt think this is possible.) not sure of the difference between Òcited authorÓ vs Òcited referenceÓ (need a good example)
• she suggested grouping the types of searches by function rather than by frequency of use

• ÒClick here to refineÓ not obviousÉIs there any way to list four options in the first box then put Òclick here to refine optionsÓ in the second box?
• Click here to refine -- what is default? Tell people in the tips if not right here
• For the Additional Search Terms section, arrange the boxes so that they follow the same arrangement used in the first search input section (you have trained me to enter the search terms on the left and then select article parts immediately to the right: ---------------- -------------------- Refine search Select parts ---------------- -------------------- ---------------- -------------------- Refine search Select parts ---------------- --------------------

• For Years: Give an example, some people write Ò1995Ó, not Ò95Ó. Also, boxes are way too long... makes it look like you SHOULD enter months. Actually, it would be better to just make these pull down boxes with the options 1995, 1996, and 1997 given.
• Why are ÒfromÓ and ÒtoÓ in italics? This is just a small consistency thing, but still it is distracting/confusing

• Refine and New Search options in weird place; they interrupt related stuff about the citation and why do you need these for each citation anyway? Better to place at top left of screen, over Documents 1 to 25 of x
• after a search was performed, the refine redo button did not take them back to the original form (with the info filled in) it took them to a blank form (I think it took them to search6.htm instead of search7.htm)
• When got zero results, it was difficult to tell he got no results because the icons around the text were so large. Make the font larger - need to make the results stand out more.
• Question about ÒView terms in contextÓ: Will it show all occurrences?
• How about listing the format options NOT after each citation, but as big buttons down the left side or at the bottom? That way you could fit more citations on the screen.
• a general question - How would people know if they were on a public terminal if the machine had Acrobat or Panorama installed?
• some of the citations on the results were not written in standard format. For example, on one occasion (when he searched the term ÒiridiumÓ), an article cam up with the authors names separated only by commas. It was difficult to tell which were first names and which were last names, so when he wanted to search an author from that list, it was difficult.

• somewhere we should explain what ÒDeLIverÓ means
• she was not sure what was a link and what wasn't - something needs to be done to make it clear when a graphic or text can be clicked on. Try to make the color of the link distinct on both the graphics and the text.
• the Panorama link takes the person to the Panorama site - the subject thought that this would allow her to download Panorama - we need to either get rid of the link or make it download the software (or make it clearer where the link goes) [I think that you could download Panorama from here, but itÕs just not obvious that you can.]

• Need button so that you can go directly to the next article or back up easily. Say ÒView next articleÓ and ÒGo back to article listingÓ
• Also want to be able to go to the extended citation page from here

• Use more white space. Make it less text-thick (people are used to the web so they will not read a lot); the text still seemed dense
• she would like a shortcut page where she did not have to read all the text if she didn't want to (she liked the 10 things that the system does idea but she also wanted a shortcut page for entering search terms)
• give a quick and dirty view of the basics and then a more in depth explanation
• she suggested on this page to tell people that Acrobat would be a better choice if you want to print out a copy
• she identified a short cut we could use - you can use partial names for the journal title and it will pull up the correct journal type
• she liked the netscape find tip

• we should link to the free physics subscription that the University had (there is a link to that on one of the pages)
• On-line catalogs - the term wasn't clear
• Make it clear what are uiuc sources; non-UIUC people may be confused when they cannot actually get into some of these; it would help to give a sentence of description for each resource listed
• G. R. is the new webmaster for Grainger. We have done a lot of work to update and reorganize the other internet resources section of the Grainger website already, plus G will keep doing this next year. [Anns comment: Since the original reason we did this was because the Grainger listing were not very good, there is no reason for us to keep maintaining this page--we would not have wanted to anyway. Cece should just contact G and show him what she has done, in case he wants to use any of her ideas. Then we should remove this link and just keep the links to the Grainger and Physics library websites.

• Good to have ÒGo to previous documentÓ and Ònext document hereÓ, but they are not very noticeable. Put these at both top and bottom of the page (both the go to... and refine search options) and use an icon/button that is more readily visible than the plain small text
• Each section on this page has a label (e.g., Authors:) EXCEPT the citation at the top. Give this the label Citation. This is esp. important bec. people often forget to take the citation with them and this is a problem if the citation is not automatically printed with the fulltext of the article
• For the overall header, do not use Search Results, which is also used at the top of other results pages. use instead ÒExtended CitationÓ: _AUTHORS_, _ABSTRACTS_, _REFERENCES_, _FIGURES_, _TABLES_ with each of these as a link to that part of the page. Otherwise, people might not remember what all is on this page and things like the figures might not show up on the first screen.
• Table icon (looks like sheet of note paper) does not suggest a table. Some tables do not have table captions? Question arose because one article just had blank space next to the table icon. Table links did not work on one article

• Need more aesthetics here, such as use of icons, more white space, better use of different fonts (this looks like a gopher page -- ugghh!). Maybe use frames?
  • At least get a better icon than the folder
  • The page headed UIUC DLI Testbed Collection is ok, but others should be made more attractive
• Is the ToC any different from the listing that appears on this screen?
• Are dates dynamically updated? Do you really just have through Dec. 1996?
• Use reverse chronological order
• Is there any way to search for individual issues or volume numbers of journals?

• Capitalization typos
• Physical Research Letters should be Physical Review Letters (may already have been fixed)
• Somewhere you should have an alphabetical listing of the journals available

• Lots of people do not know what IO+ is. So use IO+ (University of Illinois Online Catalog)
• Be consistent: use Grainger _Engineering_ Library (insert Engineering esp. to help off-campus users) and Physics _Library_
• Use a line or something to separate these icons from the rest of the stuff on the screen. Otherwise its confusing if the screen real estate is not separated in this expected fashion

• Is there a way to save a search, so I can redo it later?
• Is there a way to search only items added since last time I searched?
• For the extended refs, it would be great to have a tagged field option (implicit or explicit), so that you could download the text and then upload into Bib Tex.
• Would like controlled vocabulary...
• But, if canÕt have controlled vocabulary, wants more input windows in order to enter all the synonyms which would normally be dealt with if there was controlled vocabulary.
• But, he stressed (quite vehemently, I might add), more input windows would not really address the problem. Instead, he wants to be able to enter Òcommand languageÓ searching so that he can do complex combinations up to 40 (or more) words long.
• Want to be able to email citations, or citations and abstracts, to myself
• Should make use of keywords (i.e., any controlled vocabulary or available subject terms). Why not use the PACS codes and the keywords that appear after the abstracts in some journals?
• wants to be able to link directly to cites already available on the web. (e.g., the cites that contain the word ÒconmatÓ are available on the Los Alamos Server)