From October to December 2011, the User Interfaces Unit (UI) conducted a series of study asking stakeholders and end-users about their experiences in using the now 5 years old UNT Libraries’ website. So what did our users tell us? 

Brief Summary:

Our internal stakeholders told us that the following areas of the website could use some improvements: 

• Marketing features, and eye-catching visuals are lacking
• Locating division/department-oriented information is sometimes difficult
• Services and policies content provided/maintained by various groups could be integrated more cohesively
• Access to hours, locations, maps and contact information could be designed more efficiently
• Representation of the new organizational structure of the library is lacking
• Staff Directory can use some improvement to make it easier to use. 

Our end-users told us that they: 

• Are less likely to stay within the site as soon as they found what they need, and they have no time to explore the site. 
• Prefer a set of prominently located tabbed search boxes for finding resources from the library homepage.
• Are not in favor of the Single Search Box that only offers combined search options. They need to know the search options, and what they are searching in
• Believe the “Ask Us” is an important feature to have, however only less than 25% indicated that they have used “Ask Us” before. 
• Like the features that show today’s hour, and/or the upcoming hours at the library website homepage.

 To find out more, please feel free to check out our Tech TAlk presentation.

What are our actions in response?

Based on our study finding, the User Interfaces Unit went on to completely re-design our website’s user interface. Here were a list of the visual mockups we developed for demonstating how those study results have influenced the interface redesign of our website.