Prototypes
As a result of our focus groups and online survey, we proposed 3 concepts to test as interactive prototypes. Our initial prototype testing was done remotely using Skype and a desk-top sharing facility (Unyte). Our final phase of prototype testing will be conducted face-to-face.
Interviews were conducted before testing, here are some brief findings:
- People often get to the JISC website by following links from other places.
- Typical things they come directly to the website for are: getting up to speed in a particular topic, finding a specific publication or checking funding opportunities
- The JISC site is the first place to go for News and Events
- They wanted more ‘push’ of relevant content in advance and audience specific communication
- They wanted more user-friendly language and labelling throughout the site
- They wanted less text and more multimedia
Here’s how our 3 prototype concepts went down in the initial round of prototype testing:
Microsite concept
This concept proposes a separate tailored mini-website for a specific audience (i.e. one for Librarians, one for e-Learning etc.)
This tested as the 2nd favourite concept.
Users appreciated the authoritative view of what JISC thinks is relevant to someone in their role. However, they were concerned that if they started just using the microsite they would miss out on interesting but ‘not related’ content
iGoogle / BBC style filter concept
In this concept, users are able to personalise their JISC homepage using widgets (i.e. a news widget, an events widget) in the style of i-Google or the BBC homepage.
This tested as the most popular concept.
First impressions were that this was useful, innovative and appropriate for JISC. Users liked the balance between authority (JISC’s authoritative view of suggested selection of content) and autonomy (selecting their information view)
Full Filter concept
In this concept users would filter the content that is shown throughout the entire site, not just the homepage.
This was the least popular concept.
The first impression was that this was dangerous. Users felt that filtering gave them too much power and they risked missing information.
Next steps
As a result of the remote-testing, we’re developing the BBC/iGoogle concept. This will be fine-tuned in face-to-face user testing.
Online survey results
A huge thank you to all those people who completed our website survey launched in May 2008. We have now collated our findings and have received some really interesting results. It’s always enlightening to find out people’s views on the JISC website. The goal of this particular user research is to identify the key tasks and information needs of 3 different sections of the JISC audience. Our largest response was from Librarians (64 survey responses) and e-Learning specialists (29 survey responses) and so I will cover the findings from these communities here.
Our online survey covered:
- Perceptions of JISC
- Content preferences
- How users keep up-to-date
- Key tasks
- Perceptions of the JISC website
- Demographics
- Web2.0 awareness
More than 90% of Librarians and e-Learning specialists considered it at least fairly important to keep-up-to-date with the latest JISC developments. Mailing lists and email updates were the preferred method. People also rely a lot on word of mouth.
The major strengths of the site were seen as:
Reliable content / clean design / ease of use
The major weaknesses of the site were:
Too much content / hard to find information
Subject keywords
Survey respondents identified 10 keywords that described their particular areas of interest and from this we’ve generated a tag cloud for each audience.
e-Learning keywords
There seems to be a reasonable degree of overlap between the language and labels used by e-Learning specialists and Librarians.
Which pages are most important?
For e-Learning specialists, funding opportunities and publications were particularly important, along with high-level pages relating to specific JISC themes or programmes.
For Librarians, funding opportunities and publications were again important, as was news. There was also more of a focus on specific JISC Services.
The results from the survey revealed that there is a lot of overlap between the information needs of Librarians and e-Learning specialists – for example, the most popular self-described tag for both groups was ‘e-Learning’.
Next steps
The findings, from our online survey and expert focus groups held in February, have led our brilliant usability experts from Pure Usability to 3 potential solutions. We are now in the process of conducting a third round of testing, which involves some prototypes. We are hoping to do a lot of this testing remotely using Skype and desktop-sharing. If you’re interested in taking part, you can register your interest.
Online surveys now launched
As part our continuing research to find out about the goals, needs and behaviors of our target groups, we’ve now put together 3 online surveys. If you fall into one of these categories, we’d be really grateful if you could help us out by spending 15 minutes or so completing the survey.
- Survey for librarians and information professionals
- Survey for e-learning and learning technologists
- Survey for IT, computing and information systems professionals
The surveys run until 23rd May.Thanks for your help.
Audience Experts Focus Groups
In February, we held two Audience Experts Focus Groups in Birmingham. One was for librarians and information professionals, the other for (e)Learning Technologists. Issues that were explored included
- Perceptions of JISC
- Views of the current website
- Social affiliations
- JISC’s personality
- Classification and categorization of content
- Motivating factors
- “Design your own JISC page”
Here are number of whiteboard scribblings from the day that outline some of the main views of the two audiences.
What does JISC mean to you?
Initially, focus group members were asked why they had chosen to volunteer to take part and what JISC meant to them.
Librarians
Learning technologists
Perceptions of the JISC website
Attendees were asked to list their perceptions of the current JISC website.
Librarians
Learning technologists
What motivates you?
Attendees were asked to discuss and explore factors that motivate them.
Librarians
Learning technologists
Your own JISC Home page
Attendees were asked to design their own home JISC home page, with content personalised to their own preferences. Here are some samples.
Librarian
Librarian 2
Learning technologist 1
Learning technologist 2
Welcome to the JISC Audience Experts Panel blog
As part of our continual review of the JISC website, we are considering tailoring our content to specific communities. This will have the benefit of providing easy access to key information and resources.
The broad goal of the Audience Experts Panel is bring together regular users of the JISC website to help us identify the key tasks and information needs of three communities:
- (Digital) Librarian / Information Professional / Repositories
- e-Learning / ILT / Learning Technologists
- IT / Computing / Information Systems