Usability and Image Resource Interfaces: five steps to plan your own study

  • Melanie Clark Texas Tech University
Keywords: usability, digital images, user experience

Abstract

Usability testing, a systematic approach to finding out what parts of a tool or resource are difficult to use, can be particularly useful with digital image systems and other visual resources. This article explains the benefits of observing how patrons use our resources and provides five steps to performing a simple usability test on an image database.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank Joy Perrin, Esther De Leon, and Lynne Edgar for helping spearhead usability initiatives at the TTU Libraries, and Krista Brown for her assistance with my image database usability study.

Author Biography

Melanie Clark, Texas Tech University

Melanie Clark is the Architecture Image Librarian at Texas Tech University. Her research interests include usability in libraries, and the Impostor Phenomenon among librarians.

Published
2020-02-09