The session was extremely productive with all the students contributing and lots of ideas being discussed. To start the session the three members of Library staff introduced themselves and then the ten students did the same and told the group what they were studying. To get everyone warmed up we asked them to tell us what they do first of all when they get an assignment and have to find relevant information. This produced a lively discussion and despite a number of students using Wikipedia and Google it was reassuring to find that everyone made use of the Library’s subscribed resources too and most seemed to use MetaLib to get to the databases. There was a quick debate around the pros and cons of Wikipedia. Most students agreed that they shouldn’t reference it and many had been given strict instructions about this by their lecturers. However, a number of students found it a useful starting point and used it to find search terms about their topic to enter into the Library databases. This was an interesting aside and seemed to get everyone involved from the very start of the session.
We then gave a quick overview of what to expect from the rest of the session. We also showed the group what the Coventry Primo currently looks like and did a quick demo of a search. We had some immediate positive feedback at this point about the look of the Primo interface. It was described by one user as “very easy on the eye.” Then we told them about the usability studies that had already taken place, and highlighted one of the changes that we had made because of these studies.
We then asked the participants to suggest as many ideas as they could think of that they would like to see on the home page. The list of suggestions that the group came up with and agreed would be useful on the home page was as follows:
· Announcements (e.g. work going on in the Library at the moment)
· Room booking / availability
· Search hints, tips / Search examples
· Introduction to Primo – Tutorial
· Contacts, Profiles, Who’s Who, Who’s responsible for certain subject areas
· Advertising for the University as a whole – Student Centre, Social Events, etc.
· Opening times
· Advanced Search
· Contact IT Services for help with your password, or with signing in
· Feedback section for Primo or for anything to do with the Library
· Ask a Librarian
· Latest books added to Library stock in different subject areas
· Passwords help, change password information
· Image of the Library (maybe as a watermark with links on top)
· A video with search hints
· Autocomplete functionality when typing searches
· Link to the Centre for Academic Writing & referencing information
· Library FAQs
· CU Portal link
· CUOnline / Moodle link
We then wrote each of the suggestions on post-its and worked on a flip-chart with a hand drawn version of the Primo home page. This had five areas on it. These were the header area which includes the search box, and the footer area. These two areas will remain fixed as users carry out searches. The rest of the home page is divided into three parts: a top left and top right section and a bottom section which goes across the whole page. The group suggested whereabouts on the home page was the best place to put each of their suggestions. There was quite a bit of debate around where was the best place to put each suggestion and some ideas were even rejected and removed from the list. In the end a consensus was reached with similar items being grouped together.
It was suggested that Announcements could appear in a ‘ticker’ format scrolling across the screen. This was something to look at in the future. There was a big debate around where on the page they should appear. It was agreed this should be limited to just Library announcements, and nothing else, and maybe just the top few announcements and headlines only to keep it brief. Eventually it was agreed that links to announcements could go on the top right of the page, along with new books added to stock and room bookings information.
Search hints should be at the top on the left under the search box. Also a short introduction to Primo should be here and possibly also a link to a video introduction, which is something else to look at in the future. An Ask a Librarian link should be in this area too. There was agreement to add a link to the text at the end of the search hints.
The Ask a Librarian link should also be in the header, so it is always available. The header and footer stay on the screen when a search is carried out, so would always be available, whereas the rest of the home page would be replaced by search results, etc. There was also consensus that a link to Library Passwords information should be in this section.
Contact information for Subject Librarians could go in the footer as this is a common place to find contacts. Links to IT Services & general ITS Passwords information could also go in this section, along with Library FAQs.
There was discussion over where to put the link to the student portal (CU Portal). Suggestions were to put this in the footer, but also to put a link to this at the top of the screen. Eventually we agreed to make the Coventry University logo at the top of the screen a link to CU Portal as this is the most likely place you would want to link to from Primo and also put another link in the footer.
It was suggested that the opening hours could go in the bottom section of the home page along with links to the Centre for Academic Writing and referencing.
The group thought it would be good if an image of the Library could be included on the page, possibly as a watermark. However, it was agreed that this should only be added if it didn’t distract users from the text on the home page.
We then looked at three other Primo Version 3 home pages, that are already live, and the group gave us input into what they liked and didn’t like about these sites.
After looking at the other sites it was agreed that the amount of text on the Coventry Primo home page should be kept to a minimum. One comment was “The simpler the better.” Ideally, the group wanted headings in bold that you could click on to make the information beneath those headers display. This would mean that initially there would just be headings on the page, which would prevent it from being too cluttered. However, it needs to be clear that this is what will happen if you click on the heading. The information also needs to be spread out enough to fill the screen.
The group also commented that the out-of-the-box image of books on a shelf, that displays on several Primo sites really drew the eye. However, this was probably the least important thing on the page. They still felt it could be good to include a watermarked image of our Library. However, we would need to be careful this didn’t detract from the information on the page if we included this.
Revisiting the mock-up of the home page it was again agreed to keep similar items grouped together but where possible to just display a general heading which you can click on in order to display the links beneath that heading. A picture of the final mock-up can be seen below:
One other point of interest that was raised several times during the session was the expectation of personalised information for individual users. Participants wanted information about previous searches, books that they have looked for or used before and new books in the Library relevant to their subject. We explained that much of this information is available in the area that we have named ‘My Favourites’. We didn’t go into too much more detail about this as we were focussing on the home page for all users, initially accessing it as a guest. However, it was clear that personalisation was something that should be looked at further in the future.
Overall it was an incredibly useful session. We will now sit down with the Library Systems Manager who is working on these kinds of developments in Primo and try to turn the comments into reality.
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