Primo Development Project: Proposed Charge for “Usability and End User Assessment Team”
Project Team Membership:
- Holling Smith-Borne (project lead)
- Janice Adlington
- Sara Beutter
- Sara Byrd
- Bryan Kurowski
- Cythia Kutka
- Suellen Stringer-Hye
Project Summary/Abstract:
The Jean and Alexander Heard library has entered into a partnership agreement with Ex Libris to develop a next generation search, discovery, and delivery platform for libraries, called Primo. Several projects are underway including the development of two “pipes” for the Primo publishing platform for search and display, authentication, and the mapping for the “Delivery” phase of development. Implementation of the hardware and software is well underway.
The beta testing of version 1.0 is to occur during March – May. Testing involves several teams—those created in the preceding phases, one to test the functionality for users based on comparisons with existing ‘finding’ services (the “TestIt” team) and one to develop and conduct usability and end user assessment of the proposed service. The Usability and End User Assessment team (“Usability” for short) will carry out this last set of tasks.
The Usability project team will develop the plan for and conduct testing that will allow us to evaluate the usability of Primo by end users in our environment. While Vanderbilt is not the development partner charged with determining the overall usability of the Primo native interface, we need nevertheless to assess usability for our users.
The following usability goals should be evaluated (taken from UMN’s usability labs report):
- Users can easily find a variety of library materials about their topic
- Users feel confident that they have found the available resources that they need
- Users understand the processes of narrowing or broadening a search to find more appropriate materials
- To determine whether current Acorn (list other search services?) users see Primo as an improvement
- To determine if Amazon.com (Google or Yahoo?) users can easily transfer their knowledge to use Primo
The work can be divided into several areas:
- Develop scenarios (using those provided by UMN’s usability studies as a beginning point).
- Review major decisions made to date by the mapping teams in order to understand how we have implemented the software through our selected mappings.
- Develop a list of searching scenarios and a comprehensive list of searching features to test.
- Conduct sessions with representatives of all categories of our users (e.g., undergraduate, graduate, faculty, professional, etc.), recording results and end user observations.
- Prepare a summary report based on specific findings. Elements for consideration may be comparisons of actual results, ease of finding relevant information, perceived usefulness of added functionality.
Timeline:
- End of February: Begin work
- End of April 2007: Report due to DLSC
Statement of need:
The library has determined that there is a need for a new search, discovery and delivery platform that can assist our users in finding and using the vast and growing varieties of digital, electronic, and print resources provided through the library. We need to understand the impact this will have on users and their ability to find the information we provide. This project will be one phase of testing the functionality of the product as it is to be delivered. We need to document what works well, in addition to what doesn’t in order to make recommendations about further improving the software.
Project champion/owner: DLSC
Project leader/coordinator:
- Holling Smith-Borne
Documentation and reporting:
By May 4, the team will deliver to the DLSC a summary and detailed report. The report should contain recommendations of further development possibilities. Prior to the final report, the team will provide an activities report to the DLSC on a bi-weekly basis. The team may request consultation with the DLSC at any time during the project and, in turn, may be requested to attend DLSC meetings for consultation on other aspects of the Primo project. The team will also update the Research Services Committee at its monthly meetings and will solicit input as needed between meetings.
Other personnel involved/required: The team will consult, as needed, with the other Primo teams and library committees, especially the Research Services Committee.
Related projects:
Other projects related to the Primo development partnership, including “Data Extraction,” “Normalization,” and “Authentication and authorization,” and others to be created.
Budget:
We do not anticipate significant additional funding needs, although significant staff time will be required to successfully complete this project. There MAY be funding needs for offering incentives for end-users to participate in testing scenarios.
Assessment:
The team will deliver the requested reports by early May. A statement of self-evaluation should be included in this report.
Active participation in project teams is critical to the success of the library’s strategic plan. All project team leaders will be asked to complete an assessment form for project team members at the completion of the project. This will be given to the project team members’ supervisor for use in annual performance evaluation. The form will rate several facets of team member participation in the project.