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Articles 31 - 40 of 40

Full-Text Articles in Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces

Website Accessibility Issues In Western Australian Public Libraries, Vivienne L. Conway Jan 2010

Website Accessibility Issues In Western Australian Public Libraries, Vivienne L. Conway

Theses : Honours

Website accessibility is a very real and pressing issue for public libraries internationally. Tim Berners-Lee credited with founding the Web, states "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." (Henry & McGee, 2010). There is wide-spread support for adherence to the Web Content Advisory Guidelines Version 1.0 and 2.0 (WCAG) throughout Federal, State and Local levels of government in Australia. The Guidelines have also been affirmed by the Australian Human Rights Commission, disability advocacy groups such as Vision Australia, and the Australian Library and Information Association. The Australian Government …


Eliciting User Requirements Using Appreciative Inquiry, Carol Kernitzki Gonzales Jan 2010

Eliciting User Requirements Using Appreciative Inquiry, Carol Kernitzki Gonzales

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Many software development projects fail because they do not meet the needs of users, are over-budget, and abandoned. To address this problem, the user requirements elicitation process was modified based on principles of Appreciative Inquiry. Appreciative Inquiry, commonly used in organizational development, aims to build organizations, processes, or systems based on success stories using a hopeful vision for an ideal future. Spanning five studies, Appreciative Inquiry was evaluated for its effectiveness with eliciting user requirements. In the first two cases, it was compared with traditional approaches with end-users and proxy-users. The third study was a quasi-experiment comparing the use of …


Second Life Complements The Internet For Reference Librarians, Florence Tang Oct 2009

Second Life Complements The Internet For Reference Librarians, Florence Tang

Georgia Library Quarterly

The article describes the Second Life culture as an interactive virtual environment from the perspective of a reference librarian. The cited advantages of using Second Life are synchronous interaction with other people, clearer appearance of chat text messages, incorporation of social norms, and accessibility. Among the noted obstacles to using Second Life are its price, intentional distress of other avatars, empty virtual public places, less hierarchy among participants, chatting via rapid typing, and quick change of landscapes and avatars.


Location, Location, Location: A Transaction Comparison Of Catalog Searches Originating From The Library Homepage And Aleph, Jimmy Ghaphery, Thomas Mcnulty, Susan Teague Rector Jan 2009

Location, Location, Location: A Transaction Comparison Of Catalog Searches Originating From The Library Homepage And Aleph, Jimmy Ghaphery, Thomas Mcnulty, Susan Teague Rector

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Jimmy Ghaphery, Head, Library Information Systems, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU); Thomas McNulty, Integrated Library Systems Librarian, VCU; Susan Teague-Rector, Web Applications Manager, VCU. We will analyze several weeks of search terms from February 2009 in order to determine how different points of entry impact user searches. Specifically we will compare user searches originating from a search tool on the library homepage and searches originating directly from Aleph. This session should be of interest to those who are involved with usability and OPAC design as well as system administrators tasked with measuring OPAC activity.


What A User Wants: Redesigning A Library's Web Site Based On A Card-Sort Analysis, Laura Pope Robbins, Lisa Esposito, Christ Kretz, Michael Aloi Oct 2008

What A User Wants: Redesigning A Library's Web Site Based On A Card-Sort Analysis, Laura Pope Robbins, Lisa Esposito, Christ Kretz, Michael Aloi

Publications

Web site usability concerns anyone with a web site to maintain. Libraries, however, are often the biggest offenders in terms of usability. In our efforts to provide users with everything they need to do research, we often overwhelm them with sites that are confusing in structure, difficult to navigate, and weighed down with jargon. Dowling College Library recently completed a redesign of its web site based upon the concept of usability. For smaller libraries in particular, this can be a challenge. The web site is often maintained by one or two people and finding the time and resources to conduct …


Designing Search: Effective Search Interfaces For Academic Library Websites, Susan Teague Rector, Jimmy Ghaphery Jan 2008

Designing Search: Effective Search Interfaces For Academic Library Websites, Susan Teague Rector, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Academic libraries customize, support and provide access to myriad information systems, each with complex graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The number of possible information entry points on an academic library Web site is both daunting to the end user and consistently challenging to library Web site designers. Faced with the challenges inherent in designing online search interfaces and the ever-growing amount of resources available online, VCU Libraries sought to explore how to build effective search interfaces that, at the same time, support a wide variety of computer users and provide comprehensive access to assorted collections of electronic resources. Over a 9 …


Too Quick? Log Analysis Of Quick Links From An Academic Library Website, Jimmy Ghaphery Jan 2005

Too Quick? Log Analysis Of Quick Links From An Academic Library Website, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Since the summer of 2001, Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries has offered a “Quick Links” menu in the top right-hand side of many of its pages. Transaction log files have been run in order to analyze the use of the Quick Links, and several changes have been made based on those logs. This article will discuss those findings and offer contextual ideas for the use of Quick Links in comparison to the rest of the library website.


My Library At Virginia Commonwealth University: Third Year Evaluation, Jimmy Ghaphery Jan 2002

My Library At Virginia Commonwealth University: Third Year Evaluation, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

My Library is a personalization tool that allows the library user to consolidate frequently used library resources and services. Since 1998, My Library has been available as a web page to users of the Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries. An evaluation of My Library use at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was completed and published in 2000. This article reports on a follow up study that took place between March 2000 and December 2001. The article also discusses the value of My Library as a teaching tool at VCU.


Advanced Searchers???, Jimmy Ghaphery Jan 2001

Advanced Searchers???, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Log analysis from 2001 focused on use and popularity of advanced search features of an online library catalog (OPAC).


Vcu's My Library: Librarians Love It. . . . Users? Well, Maybe, Jimmy Ghaphery, Dan Ream Jan 2000

Vcu's My Library: Librarians Love It. . . . Users? Well, Maybe, Jimmy Ghaphery, Dan Ream

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Virginia Commonwealth University's My Library project (circa 1998-1999) has chosen "ease of use" as its primary design criteria. The development of this tool using Perl scripting is described, and reports derived from usage logs are analyzed here. My Library tends to appeal a great deal to a small number of users as a personal tool. Librarians have found it popular as a class teaching tool, with pages designed for specific classes in library instruction receiving the heaviest use.