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The New York Times had a great article a few months ago about redesigning the font used on highway signs.  You’ve probably seen the current font, Highway Gothic, a million times without ever thinking about it - it’s been in use for more than 50 years.

Worrying about the font on the signs seems pretty silly compared to all the engineering and resources that go into a single bridge, let alone the entire highway system.  Why does this merit an article in the Times and what does this have to do with programing, web development, social software, or any of the topics many visitors to this blog are interested in?

Programmers and analysts sometimes doubt the value of design.  It’s hard work gathering all the requirements and writing all the code - we don’t have time to worry about how pretty it looks.  A lot of projects we work on, though, involve creating user interfaces, often web applications.  That means that, when it comes down to it, your job is to support the user’s tasks.

Now if someone wanted to add 10% to your hours to pick just the right shade of chartruse, you would be justifiably miffed.  But good interface designers will have good, empirically-tested reasons for their work and the guidelines they live by.  Highway signs are a great example of this kind of empirical benefit:

Intrigued by the early positive results, the researchers took the prototype out onto the test track. Drivers recruited from the nearby town of State College drove around the mock highway. From the back seat, Pietrucha and Garvey recorded at what distance the subjects could read a pair of highway signs, one printed in Highway Gothic and the other in Clearview. Researchers from 3M came up with the text, made-up names like Dorset and Conyer ? words that were easy to read. In nighttime tests, Clearview showed a 16 percent improvement in recognition over Highway Gothic, meaning drivers traveling at 60 miles per hour would have an extra one to two seconds to make a decision.

A one or two second gain in legibility matters a lot when your life depends on it.  Few web applications present the same kind of physical danger, but multiply a small gain over an application with 10,000 users, operating 24 hours a day for a year, and you can see how this can impact the business.  Good design is part of the larger concept of usability.  As anyone who’s done any usability testing can tell you, most applications have many small, easy-to-change pitfalls that can quickly add up to huge wastes of time and effort.

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When I was a kid, computers were slow. They had little or no storage, the most reliable connection was sneakernet, and having more than four colors on the screen at the same time was amazing. So the user experience looked a lot like this…

For quite some time now we really haven’t had those same excuses, so why does this video remind you of the point-of-sale system at work, or the database HR is still using, or the software that came with your MP3 player?

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Abstract

Diet can have a great effect on health, but few people keep track of what they eat each day, let alone how much fat, protein, Calcium, or other nutrients. Although most food items have nutrition information printed on the packaging, few people can tell you whether or not the 10 grams of fat in their candy bar is acceptable, or whether it has put them over the edge.

In this project the author assumes that a big part of the reason people do not keep track of their diet is that there is no easy way to do so. The final product of this project is Mealographer, a simple interface that allows users to enter in the foods and meals they eat each day, set simple nutrition goals, and see reports of their progress. Mealographer was created by implementing a large number of improvements to the product of a previous investigation, WhatYouEat. A usability test was conducted to evaluate Mealographer and find specific usability problems.

Previous Work – The WhatYouEat Project

Mealographer inherits much of its functionality from a previous project, titled WhatYouEat, part of an individual investigation from fall, 2005. The original project had two goals: to create an application that allows users to track their dietary intake, and to make the application as easy to use as possible.

WhatYouEat allowed users to record their meals, set simple goals for different nutrients, and

track their diet through simple reports. Supporting functionality included a simple user sign up and login system, and systems allowing users to indicate favorite foods and “usuals” – foods eaten on a regular basis.

WhatYouEat was demonstrated informally to several groups and an informal usability test was run with four participants. Although this style of evaluation was not rigorous, users were asked to use the site and comment on any confusion or difficulties. Many users also commented on design and additional functionality. Usability issues included difficulty in:

Targeting

• Even with a large screen size and large font, it was hard for one subject to click on fields before entering text.
• Field labels were used to enlarge the clickable area. It may be possible to have the cursor will default to the first field.

Layout

• Two users were a little confused about the two-column layout of input forms.
• A thin line was added to help make the grid more clear.

Forms

• Three users forgot to set the meal date at least once. The submit button was easy to miss. One user hit enter to submit the search form and didn’t expect the entire meal to be submitted. There were problems using the back button.
• The submit button was made more visible
• The forms were be broken up so that the submit button for a particular field only submits that field.
• Required fields could be made more clear with a symbol and some JavaScript.

Labeling

• Some labels were unclear or hard to read. In particular, dates presented in yyyy-mm-dd format and names of nutrients.
• The labels should be changed to reflect user expectations.

Measurements

• Many users had a hard time determining how much they had eaten, or understanding how much food each measurement amount actually represented. Few of them knew what an ounce or gram of a given food looked like, or how much of non-fluid items made up a cup.
• Some graphic representation of food amounts should be available in the system, as well as a conversion application. See Future Plans for more information on the approach to this problem.

Missing items

• Users more than once looked for food items that did not appear to be in the database at all. This included brand-name items or items from specific restaurants. This is a limitation for the USDA database.
• There is no simple or quick solution to this problem. See Future Plans for more information on the approach to this problem.

Mealographer Features and Functionality

Mealogapher includes a number of improvements to the existing WhatYouEat functionality as well as some additional features. Major new and improved features include:

Information Design

WhatYouEat had simple, somewhat consistent design that did not convey much information about the content of each page. Mealographer was designed to

Action blocks – on each page where a series of actions are appropriate next steps, those actions are placed in a lighter-colored box with a descriptive title.

Simple icons – small icons are used throughout the site to quickly convey small bits of information. For example, purple arrows replace list bullets on action items in blocks. The Calendar employs icons to indicate whether or not a goal has been met.

Nutrition information – The nutrition information for foods and meal totals has been designed to match the familiar nutrition information boxes on foods.

Link highlighting – Many links, including the navigation bar and action items, have been given a highlight when the user’s mouse hovers over.

Language

Care was taken to make the verbiage used on the site straightforward, concise, consistent, and in line with the site’s brand. For example, when users are presented with options they are asked, “would you like to… Add another item to your usuals.” Users are addressed directly by the site, and not given static items like “Add usuals,” or “My usuals.”

Home Page

The homepage has been redesigned to be a central gateway, allowing easy access to site features, as well as an introduction to the site. The homepage has two different configurations: a “general public” version for site visitors and new users that have not yet logged in, and a “personal” version for logged-in users.

Public Homepage

The general public homepage was created with two goals in mind: first, to introduce new users to the site; and second, to intrigue and draw them in by giving them features to try out. The first goal makes sense since new users must know what the site does if they are to ever use it. The second goal was inspired by the fact that when presented with a choice, people generally chose to stay with the status quo (Stafford & Webb, 2005, p. 246). The status quo in effect when a user reaches a new, possibly complex web application for the first time is simple—do nothing. Mealographer presents an additional challenge, because most people do not actively track their diets. Using a diet-tracking site will be a big divergence from the status quo for many new users.

Illustration 1: Public home page

The public homepage is intended to break visitors out of the status quo by giving them a simple, quick way to try the site out. The interface must be immediately apparent because users can make decisions about web designs in as little as 50 ms (Lindgaard, Fernandes, Dudek, and Brown, 2006). The way to make it apparent that a user can interact with a site is by presenting clear affordances, or visual impressions that imply likely use (Gibson, 1979, p.127). Cultural, learned conventions can be used to help users perceive affordances on a computer screen (Norman, 2004).

Visitors are presented with two elements to try. The first is the “What did you eat today?” quick meal entry form, which allows users to begin using the site’s functionality with as little investment of time and effort as possible. The second is a “Search for a food” form that acts as a simple search engine. In order to take advantage of cultural conventions, a multi-line text area was chosen to allow visitors to type in items they’ve eaten, and a single-line text input was used for the food search.

Personal Homepage

The personal homepage both acts as a central location for registered users to find and discover functionality and a top-level view of the actions they are most likely to want to do at the current time. Entering meals and watching diet changes are both activities with strong temporal dimensions. Accordingly, a daily “to do” calendar was chosen as the metaphor for the list of meals entered and yet to be entered, and a monthly calendar is used to display a high level view of progress. Both employ simple visual cues to give users an immediate impression. Completed activities are marked off the to do list with check marks, and smiling or frowning faces are displayed on the days of the monthly calendar to show if a goal has been met for each day.

Illustration 2: Personal home page

The rest of the items on the personal homepage are organized into the action blocks “Connect to People,” “More Options,” “Goals and Reports,” and “Foods and Facts.”

Food Pages

Nutrition information about the food items in the database was used to generate a detailed page for each food. The pages include the nutrition information box, a food search form, and links to other similar foods in the database. They serve three purposes: first, users can search for and find information about a specific food. Second, the pages can be linked to from multiple locations in the site, wherever users might see a food name and want additional information. Third, the pages would be available to outside search engines, and might therefore act as landing pages for visitors and new users.

Illustration 3: Example food page

Although the information is from the database, these pages are not dynamic. Instead, static HTML pages are generated from the database and then saved and uploaded to the web host. Nutrition information is unlikely to change, so this technique saves web server processing time and database access.

Food Search and Folksonomies

One of the most apparent usability problems of WhatYouEat was the food search. Food search is a standalone function and is an inherent part of meal entry, so it is critical that it be improved. Problems stem from three main areas:

Missing items – although the USDA database contains thousands of foods, it is missing many items users are looking for. Many brand-name items are not in the list, as well as ethnic foods and composite foods (there is no general entry for “sandwich” or “salad”). Possible fixes to this problem include searching for and entering new foods, allowing users to enter new foods, and allowing users to build recipes from multiple foods. None of these options were implemented in this time frame.

Naming and Labeling – the USDA database uses very precise names for many foods. These names are very useful for professionals, but do not match language used by typical users. For example, a user might search for “Coke,” when the database has “Carbonated beverage, cola, contains caffeine.” The solution to this problem implemented in Mealographer is a behind-the-scenes tagging system to build up a folksonomy for foods. Tagging systems can allow for both majority consensus on labels or search terms while maintaining minority opinions as well, and allow sites to harness information entered by users for personal use for wider benefit (Golder and Huberman 2006).

The tagging system implemented in Mealographer does not directly ask users for keywords for each food—that would be an extra step, and it is hard to see the immediate benefit a user would receive for their tagging work. Instead, as users perform searches, the system silently remembers the keywords used and the food ultimately chosen and builds tags automatically. A robust tag set requires many users, so it may be difficult to judge the value of the tagging system at this time.

Technical Limitations – by default, the search engine included in MySQL uses a fairly simple search engine which does not meet high expectations users have gained from using advanced engines like Google. In addition, the MySQL full text search ignores all works three characters or less. This can be useful in screening out words like “and” or “for,” but is less helpful when a user searches for “Big Mac.” As the folksonomy grows and tags are added, these limitations might become less important.

Healthy Food Search

In addition to searching for foods by keyword, an interface was created to allow users to search for foods by nutrient content. For example, a user can search for foods that are high in protein, or low in fat and high in fiber. Users may also filter by food group.

New User Invitations

A simple interfaces has been added to allow current users to send invitations to others via email.

Navigation

One finding from the presentations of WhatYouEat was the strong expectation among users to have a navigation bar near the top or left side of the screen. A navigation bar has been added with links to “Home,” “Foods,” “Meals,” “Favorites,” and “Reports.” Because the latter three items only work for registered users, those items are removed from the navigation bar for visitors.

Navigation is also facilitated by the user of appropriate action item links in an action box on most pages. For example, after a user enters a meal, they are given four options: “Make changes to this meal,” “Enter in a new meal,” “See your daily report,” and “Return home.” Users can use these to move from activity to activity in a logical progression.

Help and Validation

Originally Mealographer was going to include a help system such as a FAQ page. In order to more directly user test the interface, the help system was left out. A few new features do provide some user support, however:

Form hints and validation – On several forms, such as the new user form, required items are marked with “* required.” As the user completes each form field, the text turns from red to green.

Bug reports – Users are able to report bugs using the “Report a Problem” link in the footer of each page.

Tour – a page was added explaining the major functions of the site. The tour is shown as an action link after a new user signs up and is available on the footer.

Reports

WhatYouEat had a simple reporting system that allowed users to see bar charts for a particular nutrient for a particular time period. A user could see their total Calcium intake for each meal on a particular day, each day of a week, or each day of a month. A number of improvements have been made to the report system for Mealographer. Users are given a better system to see if they have met their goals, with bars falling short colored red and those meeting the goal in green. The monthly report has the calendar from the personal home page integrated into it. The reports now support a complete drill-down capability, with users able to go from month, to day, to nutrition details about a single meal.

Illustration 4: Nutrition information report for a meal

The nutrition information report for meals is a new feature, reached via the other reports and displayed after a meal is entered. It includes a nutrition information box for the meal, a list of foods and amounts eaten, and a meal size graphic relating the size of the meal to an equivalent number of apples. The meal size graphic can help users judge their portion sizes.

Charts and Statistics

One benefit of building Mealographer as a web application is that the data for all users is available in the same database. This database allows the generation of interesting charts and statistics. For example, queries could be written find the most popular food in a particular state or city, the average calories consumed each day by users, or the weight of all meals entered all together.

Because of the limited number of users, only one such feature was implemented at this time – the popular foods list. The homepage includes this list, ranked by the number of times the food was used in a meal.

Social Features

Eating is a social activity, and dietary changes are often prompted and monitored by medical professionals. Two features were partially implemented (and are currently disabled) in Mealographer to address these facts. Users would be able to form social groups by inviting each other into their “circle,” and another feature would allow users to make their data available to their doctor, dietitian, or trainer.

Sphere: Related Content

Note: This was originally created for an information architecture class - the project was to redesign the Kent State School of Library Science web site. You can also see a usability study of the site.

Executive Summary

The current Kent State University School of Library Science (SLIS) does not meet the needs of the department. This project outlines a plan and strategy for designing a new site. The new site will better communicate the department’s image and core attributes to the outside world and better meet the needs of users. This report covers the entire process, from research and project goals, through the development of a new design and how to measure success. Major recommendations include the use of a simple content management system (CMS), a new navigation structure and graphic design, and a few new content elements such as news, video, and podcasts.

Introduction

This report will cover the overall strategy for the redesign of the Kent State University SLIS web site, including the site’s audiences, the vision for the site, and analysis of the content and maintenance. Finally, recommendation are made for the content, information architecture, and design of the new site. The ultimate goal of this project is to create a coherent analysis and plan for the SLIS department to execute. The result will be a site that better projects the image of the department, better serves the users, and, if possible, makes the staff’s job a little bit easier.

Site content has been updated, but the organization and design of the site has been the same since 2000. The web has changed a great deal in the last 5 years, and the Kent SLIS site look and feel is not exactly cutting edge. The faculty and staff have voiced a desire to update the site, and there is anecdotal evidence that at least some students find the site lacking. Any new design must better address the needs of the site’s audiences and should better project the image of the department to the outside world. Also, the process used to update the current site is slow and unwieldy. The new site will solve three main problems: poor ease of use, an image that does not fit the department, and difficulty updating the site and communicating with users.

The process followed in creating this report has included requirements-gathering meetings with SLIS faculty and staff, content analysis of the current site, analysis of server logs, brainstorming sessions with Information Architecture Knowledge Management (IAKM) students, analysis of similar sites, academic usability research, the creation of persona, card sorting exercises, wireframing, prototyping and other techniques. The report will recommend additional steps such as formal usability testing be taken as well.

Audience and Vision

Methods

Information about the site’s major audiences and the vision for the site were gathered through three methods. First the current site was carefully reviewed for content and organization. Second, a requirements meeting was conducted 9/14/04 with members of the department staff, including Rick Rubin, SLIS Director, Cheryl Tennant, Student Services, Anna Gower, Senior Secretary, and Rhonda Filipan, Academic Program Coordinator. In this meeting we discussed both who the site should serve and what the department want the site to convey. Third, a number of brainstorming sessions were conducted with IAKM students in the Foundational Principles of Information Architecture class with professor David Robins. This section presents the findings of these efforts and lays the groundwork for the site as a whole.

Audiences and user groups

This site must address the needs of a number of different user groups, including:

Current Students – This web site is, after all, the first place that many students will look for information about department policies, classes, faculty and staff, and other information. It can serve as an important means of communication between the department and students along with mailings and email.

Possible subgroups include full-time/part-time, new students/returning students, and students attending the various programs or attending at the different campuses. We believe that these distinctions should be addressed, but that often all students will be performing similar tasks and searching for the same kinds of information. New students will be given special attention, since they may have specific information needs. The different campuses (Kent vs. Columbus) will not be as separated as they are in the current site, although it is important that users not need to guess which information is campus-specific.

Prospective Students – Although the department did not identify recruiting as a problem area, the web site is a natural vehicle for prospective students to find information about the program, how to apply, deadlines, and other information. If the site addresses prospective students we can achieve two goals: first, bringing in a larger, more diverse pool of applicants, and second, saving time spent answering common questions and providing a central location to point prospective students to for all their needs.

Possible subgroups include recent graduates/returning professionals, and applicants could be grouped by the program they wish to pursue (for example, the K-12 program vs. the MLIS/MBA degree). We believe these groups will have a number of tasks in common and can be best addressed as lower-level subdivisions of the prospective student area.

Alumni – The department maintains active contact with alumni and there are alumni events, dinners, a newsletter, and an Alumni and Friends Council. None of this is immediately apparent from the current web site, although there is some alumni information under the “People” section. Although not a primary audience like current and prospective students, the Alumni are an important group with very different tasks and information needs that should be addressed.

Faculty and Staff – There is some information on the site that would be of particular use to faculty and staff, for example the “Request Software” form. The most important task that some faculty and staff members have, however relate to adding and updating content on the site. Because we recommend using a content management system (CMS) for the site, it is important to directly the needs of those who will be updating the site and handle issues like access control.

Other LIS Programs and Professionals – This is in some ways a catch-all category for other users with more general, informational tasks. Individuals in other LIS programs may be interested in the department’s mission statement, contact information for a specific faculty member, etc. Researchers, educators and journalists may also use the site to find description and contact information.

Persona

One way to specifically address the needs of users is by developing and applying persona—architypical users that help put a face on who will be visiting the new site. For this report, we give the example of Sally, a member of the prospective student audience.

Persona: Sally 25 years old / female / single / Stow, OH “I want to do something in science or academia, but I’m sick of short-term jobs and moving around the country.” Current profession: manager at Wal-Mart Background: Sally graduated with a BA in Biology in 2002 and has since had a number of short-term positions in and out of her field. She’s worked as a lab tech, as a park guide, and even worked for a large zoo (mostly shoveling manure). In between “real” jobs, she has to do something to pay the bills-hence he current position at Wal-Mart. Goals: Sally has heard about science librarianship and wants to find out more. She’d like to stay in Ohio but is willing to move. She wants to find a good school that will give her good job prospects. Tasks: 1) Find out a little more about library science to see if it looks like something she wants to do. 2) Find out about requirements - GPA, GRE, etc. 3) Find out about deadlines for application. 4) Make sure a LIS degree from Kent can get her a job-what’s the placement rate? 5) Look at courses to see if any sound interesting. 6) Find a professor who teaches a science library course and get contact information. 7) Apply for admission.

Vision

Now that we have established who will be using the site, it’s important to determine what the department wishes the site to convey. A site can only convey so much information at once, and it is important to pare down the attributes we are trying to communicate so that they are clear and effective.

Most of this section comes from the requirements meeting, where the staff in attendance agreed that the site should convey the following.

Cutting Edge – this is a library and information science program after all, the faculty are conducting research and teaching methods on the cutting edge of the field, and this site should reflect that. Kent’s SLIS program that leans more toward technology than the humanities. This has implications for the site design—the site must be visually modern and striking, and employ an advanced information architecture and standards-based coding. The site should be accessible and printable.

Professional – Kent State’s SLIS program is specifically geared toward training professionals to go out into the world and work, whether it be in a public library, K-12 or even the private sector. Research and grants are not as important as quality teaching and placement. The site should project a very professional image. This should modify the Cutting edge aspect of the site somewhat—that means no fancy, pointless Flash animations—we are not here just to show off.

Caring – The library profession requires constant interpersonal interaction and few librarians get into the field because of money—instead they wish to educate others, spread knowledge, and support the democratic process. Kent State’s program is a nurturing place, a community, and the site should reflect that. An important aspect of this attribute that must be stated is a respect for Diversity. The panel members specifically mentioned their wish to reach out to groups and communities that are not currently well represented in the field.

These three attributes should be supported when making decisions on content and features, information architecture, and graphic design. How do we integrate all three of these attributes? Providing streaming video of professors would be a perfect example. Video is cutting edge, but can be done very professionally, and puts a face, voice and personality to the list of names on the faculty page.

Another example would be sample podcasts of lectures. This would have to be done on a volunteer basis, perhaps with permission of the university, but podcasts are one of the hottest new media on the web, allowing people to download audio programs to their MP3 players and listen at their leisure. Reputable organizations like NPR are making podcasts available and they also give a much more personal introduction to a course than a syllabus.

One more attribute should be mentioned, although this one is directed at specific user groups.

Authoritative – This is the official site of the program, and students should be able to trust the information they find here. That has important implications: content must remain up-to-date, content must be under editorial control, and content should be reasonably complete. It also means that highly interactive features like message boards, student blogs, and chat should probably be avoided if they can’t be kept under strict control.

Content Analysis

Content must be driven by two factors: what do audiences want to know, and what does the organization want to communicate? The SLIS site’s audiences are described in detail above. The new site’s content will be primarily composed of current content, reorganized, with a few new features. We believe that this fits well with the scope of the project.

The findings below are a result of careful analysis of the current content and navigation structure, other SLIS program web sites, and traffic logs.

Current content

The current content supports many of the user tasks identified and does a fair job of meeting the organization’s goals, if the site design and organization does not. This makes sense because of the organic way in which the site has grown: most content has probably been added as new programs, facilities, faculty, etc. appeared or as staff members noticed users looking for it. Most of the changes we propose involve rearranging, reorganizing, and presenting the content more effectively.

The current content is divided into seven major categories. A sitemap diagram shows the first two levels of organization (Attachment 1). Other, similar SLIS programs have similar content. (See attachment 2). ….

New content

We recommend five major pieces of new content for the site:

1) News – The current site has a small news page, but it is not very visible, not regularly updated, and primarily consists of press releases. Creating a more visible and interesting news section can serve a number of site goals and a number of user groups. Regular notices about faculty publications and scholarships will look attractive to prospective students. Current student and other users that repeatedly visit the site, will notice the regular updates—credibility is enhanced by timeliness. Also, this will help serve the departments communications needs, working along side mailings, emails, and other methods of contact. It is important to note that this requires an additional commitment for the department.

Since this is not a portal, there is no need to update daily or on-the hour. The department should try to update the news section at least once a week, either with a press release-type item, important dates and deadlines on the academic calendar, new content available on the site, or even links to interesting library and information science articles in magazines or journals. If the CMS ultimately used for the site supports it, RSS feeds should be made available to highlight the department’s awareness of new and interesting technologies.

2) About library and information science – This content would be targeted specifically at prospective students. Although a large number of incoming students are already in the field, many come from different undergrad backgrounds or are looking for a later career change. The department has expressed a desire to attract a wider and more diverse field of applicants, and information about the field—what is studied, what careers in library and information science look like, descriptions of different programs—would help a great deal.

Unlike news content, this section would require a bit of work up front but could be useful without frequent updates. The new content would need to be written by someone in the department with an understanding of the different programs and the field. It’s possible the department already has flyers or mailings that could be used here. It is important to consider the main attributes listed above when creating this content—writing should be professional but personal. We are not selling library science, we are describing and explaining it.

3) Video – We highly recommend adding appropriate video to the site because it helps support the sites’ core attributes and goals. This idea was brought up during the requirements meeting. Right now each faculty member has the standard C.V. and list of interests. Adding a video clip where the faculty member introduces themselves and talks a little bit about their interests and classes would add a much more personal touch. In addition to pointing out the technological savvy of the department a simple, polished video presentation with decent lighting and sound would look very professional. Other areas that could benefit from a video introduction would be the distributed learning classroom, the Reinberger Children’s Library Center, and other facilities. It is important to constrain video to only subjects interesting to users, specifically prospective students.

Creating of this content would require further investigation, but it is very likely the department already has the resources to do this (or if not, can access resources elsewhere in the university). Faculty videos should be fairly simple to produce, but other videos might require a little more work to script and edit. Technical issues regarding video format and bandwidth should be left up to the web developers with the guideline that the end result be as easy to use as possible.

4) Existing documents not currently on the site – One measure of a site’s credibility is breadth in coverage. It is hard to convince current students that the web site is a “one-stop shop” for information if they find items missing. This includes additional forms, pamphlets, mailers, etc. produced by the department. At the very least, PDF copies of other publications should be made available on the web site. Anything produced for public release should be on the site, with exceptions made for documents that are confidential, must be placed elsewhere (on the university home page, Vista, etc.), or are otherwise inappropriate.

5) Podcasts – Although audio on the web is nothing new, podcasting has grown quickly since it’s start in 2003 and Apple’s addition of podcasts to iTunes in June. “Podcasting” is a misleading term, since they are not limited to iPods and do not employ traditional broadcasting. In essence audio is recorded and then published online where users are able to subscribe, download, and listen at their leisure. We believe podcasting a few lectures each semester would give a big boost to the department’s cutting-edge image and might create interest in the department and classes in new ways. Faculty members would be encouraged to take a look at their lesson plans and pick a class they wouldn’t mind having recorded and made available—the first day of class, for example, or a lecture on a subject they’ve done research on.

This content presents a few challenges that would have to be overcome. Any participants being recorded would need to know ahead of time about the recording and volunteer. The university’s legal department should be consulted. Recording should not be too difficult, with computers available in almost every classroom, although a microphone and software might need to be purchased (or borrowed). The web developers will need to make sure that uploading and publishing of podcasts is possible through the site’s CMS.

Publishing Content

The current method of publishing content on the site must be improved in order to support the goals of the department and reduce workload. Currently different sections of the site are the responsibility of different staff members. When an update needs to be made to an existing page, the staff member in charge prints out the page, makes the changes, then hands it to the network administrator. New content is sent to the network administrator as well. This results in a time lag to get any changes on the site and some duplication of efforts.

In order to keep the site up-to-date, support new content mentioned above, and cut down on the amount of work, we highly recommend the new site use a CMS instead of static web pages. The network administrator’s time is often limited (and upcoming organizational changes may leave the department without their own administrator). Training a staff member to update and manage a static HTML web site would take time and none of those present at the requirements meeting expressed real interest.

We believe one staff member should be designated as the main contact for web site updates with others serving as backups. The main contact would be in charge of the news section and most updating, although different staff members may still be in charge of their own section.

The CMS must meet the following requirements:

1) Stable – once the web developers have set it up, it must require minimum maintenance work. That means we should limit our search to well-regarded commercial software or mature open-source applications.

2) Affordable – some commercial CMS’s cost tens of thousands of dollars. This system must fit well within the department’s budget.

3) Simple – This site does not require many of the features and functionality that some CMS’s provide. For example we have no need for message boards, live chat, student logins, and blogs. It should be as easy as possible for the staff to update the site.

4) Functional – the CMS must support the site’s requirements, meaning we must be able to update a front-page news section, post files such as PDFs and Word documents, link to video and audio, and support the desired information architecture.

Site Redesign

Requirements

We have three overarching requirements. First, the department’s web site must support the tasks of user groups we have identified:

• Current students
• Prospective students
• Alumni
• Faculty and staff
• Other programs and professionals

The five groups have one thing in common: their task sets are by and large limited to information-seeking. Some times this is part of a larger task, such as prospective students wishing to apply of admission or current students wishing to select classes. The SLIS website, however, is used in information gathering stages of these tasks rather than final execution.

Second, the site must actively project the key attributes of the department:

• Cutting Edge
• Professional
• Caring

Finally, the site must support the department’s need to communicate effectively. This includes different kinds of communication to different user groups. For example the department may wish to use the website to both answer current student’s questions about graduation while also attracting prospective students doing general web searches.

Functional Requirements

We believe the requirements listed above imply that the new site:

• Contain a user and task-driven primary navigation structure, with other parallel navigation structures a possibility.
• Contain content to address those users’ needs, including the current content and new content identified above.
• Be designed to express the department’s attributed visually.
• Have a CMS so that updating and managing content is much easier.
• Support serving and organizing PDF documents, audio, video, and other files.
• Support modern, accessible, standards-based markup that is search-engine friendly.

Goals and Measurement

Without measurement we cannot be certain that the new site has met our goals. Three key areas of interest brought up during the requirements gathering meeting included:

1) Ease of use – Users must be able to find what they are looking for easily. This was phrased mostly in terms of task completion, although other measures (such as time to complete or steps to complete) may be useful as well. We recommend running a formal, but small usability test with the current site and then with the new design, comparing results. For the test, four or five members of each group should run through a small number of representative tasks. If it is necessary to cut corners due to time constraints we would recommend running the test with the current student user group, since they would be the easiest to recruit and work with. For each task we will record and compare the completion rate, the average time per user, and the average path length (number of clicks) to completion. It would be nice to run a usability test with content creators (staff members) as well, but we would have no earlier system to compare to and (depending on the CMS chosen) less flexibility to make changes in the future. One other measure might be the number of calls and emails sent to staff about information already available on the site. Staff members could be asked to keep a count of such contacts for a few months while the current site is in operation, then keep a count after the new site has come online to compare.

2) User opinion – Users should be polled about the old site and the new site to determine two things: do they like it, and what does it say to them? The former can be measured with a Likert-type scale and the latter by word association. Users could be asked to simply list words to describe the site, or pick words from a list, and the results matched against the site’s attributes. This could be folded in as part of the usability study.

3) Comparison to other SLIS sites – this is a broader area but could be measured in several ways. The first would be a survey asking appropriate user groups (prospective students for example) to look at and then rate the Kent State SLIS site versus several others. Another measure could be search engine ranking—target search phrases would be run on a popular search engine like Google and the site’s page rank recorded. This last method would be easier to do and could measure the new site versus the old, but would be a less direct measurement. Another measure might be an increase or increase in diversity of the applicant pool, although it is hard to eliminate external variables from that measurement.

Site Functions

Navigation

There are a number of ways that a web site can be organized, but the most important concern for an informational site such as this is that users are able to find what they are looking for. This means that a generic, org-chart navigation will probably not be very successful—most users will not know or care how the department is organized. Many department web sites a hierarchical navigation structure using common subject areas such as “programs,” “courses,” and “people.” Three schools identified by the department as similar or competing institutions, organize their sites into major sections this way:

University of Kentucky School of Library and Information Science:	University of Pittsburgh Department of Library and Information Science	Wayne State University Library and Information Science Program:
Main Navigation Links:
General Info	Academics	About Us
Academics	Degrees	Degrees & Certificates
Admissions	People	Admission & Fin. Aid
Courses	About DLIS	Courses & Schedules
People		Services & Policies
Facilities		People & Groups
News		Calendar & Events
		Jobs & Resources
		Forms
		Student Handbook
		LISAA (alumni association)
Sidebar Links:
Mission	Prospective Students
Newsletter	Current Students
Our College	Faculty & Staff
UK Libraries	Alumni & Visitors
Student Info Update	Research Projects
Contact Us	The Fine Institute

From these examples two things are clear: first, it is common to include more than one method of navigation (with both a main navigation bar and a sidebar of links on the homepage), and second, that these departments tend to be organized into sections (by subject) similar to the current Kent SLIS site.

Since we have such well-defined user groups, however, we do not believe that is the best structure for the primary navigation scheme. Instead, we will use a faceted organizational scheme with the primary facet addressing each user group individually and a secondary navigation structure by subject.

Primary Navigation: User groups and tasks

The first four user groups are easiest to address directly, with Prospective Students and Current Students the primary and Alumni and Faculty and Staff as secondary target audiences. The more nebulous Other Programs and Professionals group is probably least important and is probably least likely to self-identify. The home page and user-group based navigation should reflect the relative importance of the different audiences, with the first two at the top of the list, taking up more screen real estate. The second level navigation will be by task. So, for example, the user might go to the home page, identify themselves as a current student, and from there choose a link labeled “find courses” in the second level. (See attachment)

On the homepage we will have a navigation area with a section for each of the user groups. Within each section will be a few top likely tasks with direct links. Clicking on the sections takes users to a landing page directed specifically at them, with the full task list, and each task-level link will either hit a further landing page or go direct to the resource that fulfills the task.

Secondary Navigation: By Subject

There will be a secondary navigation area or sidebar with the traditional subject-category scheme, similar to the current navigation structure. The subjects will include:

• About SLIS (includes current About Us section)
• Library Science (includes new content about the field)
• Programs and Degrees (includes current Programs section)
• Courses (includes current Courses section with any new content)
• People (includes current People section)
• Resources (includes current Facilities and Links sections)

Labeling

It is extremely important that labeling follows or accommodates user language as opposed to unfamiliar department or specialist language. Each of the user groups should be addressed directly. So it is less appropriate to use jargon with prospective students than current students. The page for the “12-12-12 Distance Degree Program” is a good example: a link for prospective students should identify it is “Distance Degree Program,” “Distance Learning,” “Off-campus Master’s Degree,” or something similar, since “12-12-12” will not mean anything to most incoming students. Links to the same page from the current student pages could use the “12-12-12” label, so long as it is what students use to refer to it.

We will also strive for clarity in labeling. The site’s graphic design must be able to accommodate longer labels and link titles where appropriate.

Design Ideas

Search

Search is extremely important in any site with sizable content. Although we take great pains to organize the site so that users can find what they are looking for quickly and easily, many will prefer to simply type in keywords rather than navigate.

Further, a large number of the prospective student group will come to the site by search engine rather than through the university, or department home page. Making it easier to find the department, or department pages, from the outside world can only help. That means that it is imperative that:

1. The CMS chosen or developed for the site must create standards-complaint, readily-indexable web pages
2. The CMS must create search-engine friendly URLs
3. The site’s navigation must make it clear the context of the each page within the site, in case a user comes to that page directly (this also rules out the use of frames).

We do not recommend creating a search engine from the ground up for this site. That would be a large scale project in and of itself, and the return would probably not be worth the investment. Instead we recommend using either the CMS’s built-in search capabilities or a popular engine like Google, or perhaps both (on an “Advanced search” page).

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