A User Information Needs Study of the McMaster University Library Web Site

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Wagner ◽  
Brian Detlor
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
University Library ◽  
Site Development ◽  
Site Web ◽  
User Perspectives ◽  
Mcmaster University

This paper discusses an information needs study of the McMaster University Library web site in an effort to improve the design and utility of the site from various user perspectives. Study findings and recommendations for future web site development are discussed, many generalizable to academic library web sites at large.Cette communication présente une étude sur les besoins informationnels des utilisateurs sur le site Web de la bibliothèque de l’Université McMaster afin d’améliorer la conception et l’utilité du site Web selon le point de vue de différents utilisateurs. On y discute des résultats de l’étude et des recommandations pour la conception de futurs sites Web, dont plusieurs peuvent être généralisés à l’ensemble des sites Web de bibliothèques universitaires.

scholarly journals Testing the Competition: Usability of Commercial Information Sites Compared with Academic Library Web Sites

2002 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 433-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffini Anne Travis ◽  
Elaina Norlin
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Research Library ◽  
Usability Study ◽  
Design Features ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
University Library ◽  
User Friendly

With the growing size of academic library Web sites, constant updating, authentication issues, and organization are increasingly difficult for libraries to maintain user-friendly sites. This usability study examines how students use electronic research libraries such as Questia, which has been designed to replace traditional libraries and compare it with large university library Web sites. Students were asked to perform tasks at two electronic research library sites and then at two large university library Web sites. Major implications of this study are that design features incorporated by Web site designers can drastically affect the success of students doing research.

CONTEMPORARY ASPECTS IN THE SELECTION OF TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR DEVELOPING WEB SITES

2018 ◽  
pp. 125-131
Author(s):  
Petar Halachev ◽  
Aleksandra Todeva ◽  
Gergana Georgieva ◽  
Marina Jekova
Keyword(s):  
Programming Languages ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Work Process ◽  
Design And Development ◽  
Site Development ◽  
Complicated Process ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Guidelines And Recommendations ◽  
Selection Of

he report explores and analyzes the application of the most popular programming languages from different organizations: GitHub; Stackoverflow; the TIOBE's Community index. The main client technologies: HTML; CSS; JavaScript; Typescript are presented and analysed. Features are characterized and the advantages and the disadvantages of the server technologies are described: Java; PHP; Python; Ruby. The application areas for web site development technologies have been defined. The creation of a quality web site is a complex and complicated process, but by observing some guidelines and recommendations in the work process can help to select the tools and the technologies in its design and development.

Usability Engineering of User-Centered Web Sites

2011 ◽  
pp. 3890-3896
Author(s):  
Theresa A. O’Connell ◽  
Elizabeth D. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Software Engineering ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Usability Engineering ◽  
Site Development ◽  
User Centered

For Web sites to succeed, they must be user-centered. A user-centered focus throughout Web site development life cycles promotes Web site usability. This is accomplished through usability engineering carried out within the context of software engineering.

A User-Centered Approach to the Retrieval of Information in an Adaptive Web Site

2011 ◽  
pp. 142-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Gena ◽  
Liliana Arissono
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Data Retrieval ◽  
User Centered Design ◽  
Online Search ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Recent Project ◽  
Guiding System ◽  
User Centered

This chapter describes the user-centered design approach we adopted in the development and evaluation of an adaptive Web site. The development of usable Web sites, offering easy and efficient services to heterogeneous users, is a hot topic and a challenging issue for adaptive hypermedia and human-computer interaction. User-centered design promises to facilitate this task by guiding system designers in making decisions, which take the user’s needs in serious account. Within a recent project funded by the Italian Public Administration, we developed a prototype information system supporting the online search of data about water resources. As the system was targeted to different types of users, including generic citizens and specialized technicians, we adopted a user-centered approach to identify their information needs and interaction requirements. Moreover, we applied query analysis techniques to identify further information needs and speed up the data retrieval activity. In this chapter, we describe the requirements analysis, the system design, and its evaluation.

The Development of Web Sites

2011 ◽  
pp. 42-62
Author(s):  
Xueli Huang ◽  
Elaine K.F. Leong
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Corporate Image ◽  
Customer Relationships ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Site Development ◽  
Site Planning ◽  
Important Objective ◽  
The Web

Setting objectives precedes strategic planning and evaluation. Given the importance of setting objectives prior to any other marketing campaign planning and evaluation tasks, research into the objectives of Web sites is a necessary precursor of Web site planning and evaluation. This chapter seeks to gain insights into the Web site objectives of Australian SMEs and to provide a typology of the SMEs based on their Web objectives. The results of multivariate analyses, based on 139 Perth-based SMEs, have revealed that these businesses are motivated to develop their Web site to achieve three fundamental objectives: promoting corporate image or product branding, building customer relationships, and enhancing financial performance. At this early stage of Web site development, the most important objective for SMEs is to promote corporate image. Using the factor scores of these three dimensions as input, a further cluster analysis revealed four different segments in terms of SMEs’ Web site objectives. These four segments are image builder, harvester, servant, and optimistic explorer. The characteristics of SMEs in each segment are described and the reasons explained.

Factors Influencing Marketing Performance on the Web

2001 ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashok Ranchhod ◽  
Julie Tinson ◽  
Fan Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Site Development ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Commercial Company ◽  
On Line ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Marketing Executives

Despite the current development of Internet marketing, understanding the effective use of the Internet still poses problems for academic researchers and marketers (Kassaye, 1999). This research attempts to empirically explore some aspects of the factors influencing commercial company Internet and Web development. The key factors considered for company Internet and Web site development are technology capacity, the use of different developers, company on-line measurement patterns and marketing executives’ Web site knowledge. As a result of a cross-sectional comparative study of ‘effective’ and ‘ineffective’ companies, the findings indicate that companies with better performance from Web sites tend to possess higher technological capabilities for Internet-based marketing. It seems that their marketing executives have more knowledge of technical aspects of Web site development. They tend to be early Internet adopters using a multiple approach to measure their on-line performance. These results help to improve general understanding of company effectiveness in developing on-line marketing strategies.

Web Site: Web Sites about G-Protein-Coupled Receptors

ChemBioChem ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 1029-1030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aphrodite Anastasiadis-Pool ◽  
Harald Schwalbe
Keyword(s):  
G Protein ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
G Protein Coupled Receptors ◽  
Site Web ◽  
G Protein Coupled

scholarly journals Using Server-Side Include Commands for Subject Web-Page Management: An Alternative to Database-Driven Technologies for the Smaller Academic Library

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 192-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Northrup ◽  
Ed Cherry ◽  
Della Darby
Keyword(s):  
Web Site ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Web Page ◽  
Server Side ◽  
University Library ◽  
Elegant Solution

Frustrated by the time-consuming process of updating subject Web pages, librarians at Samford University Library (SUL) developed a process for streamlining updates using Server-Side Include (SST) commands. They created text files on the library server that corresponded to each of 143 online resources. Include commands within the HTML document for each subject page refer to these text files, which are pulled into the page as it loads on the user's browser. For the user, the process is seamless. For librarians, time spent in updating Web pages is greatly reduced; changes to text files on the server result in simultaneous changes to the edited resources across the library's Web site. For small libraries with limited online resources, this process may provide an elegant solution to an ongoing problem.

Improving academic library website accessibility for people with disabilities

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (8/9) ◽  
pp. 565-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Billingham
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Initial Testing ◽  
Wcag 2.0 ◽  
Version 2.0 ◽  
Accessibility Guidelines ◽  
The Web

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain how Edith Cowan University (ECU) Library improved the accessibility of their web site, aiming for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0 Level AA. It describes the results obtained. Design/methodology/approach – Initial testing by consultants was conducted in October 2012. The web site was defined as all webpages which appear part of the library web site, including supplier webpages, plus pages from the university web site and library web site. Library staff applied the recommendations to pages which they could edit, and discussed the recommendations with suppliers to improve their product ' s accessibility. The web site was re-tested in June 2013. Findings – ECU Library web site failed WCAG 2.0 Level A standard in the initial testing and re-testing. Many individual pages which failed initially passed the re-test. The smallest improvement was seen in suppliers’ web sites. Practical implications – This paper could help libraries to improve web site accessibility, as it covers negotiating with suppliers to upgrade their web sites, plus upgrading editable webpages. It shows initial and re-test results, allowing libraries to compare their results to those of ECU. Legislation and guidelines state web sites should be accessible to all users and organisations providing non-accessible web sites risk being sued. Social implications – A web site not complying with WCAG version 2.0 would be very difficult for people with disabilities to access. Upgrading ECU Library ' s web site will provide all users with more equal access to the resources. Originality/value – This study describes problems in upgrading academic library webpages and related supplier web sites and organisation web site to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.

Layers of Navigation for Hypermedia Environments

2000 ◽  
pp. 217-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia L. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Instructional Design ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Instructional Medium ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Cd Rom ◽  
Site Development ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Novice Learner ◽  
Instructional Design Principles

As an instructional medium, computer-based hypermedia environments (e.g., Web sites or CD-ROM materials) enable distinct and enriched activities that facilitate learning. With the pressure on educators to produce Web-based courseware and other distance educational materials, more and more instructional Web sites have been developed. However, simple access to the World Wide Web (WWW) in any course does not guarantee that learning takes place: “No computer technology in and of itself can be made to affect thinking” (Salomon, Perkins, & Globerson, 1991, p. 3). Too often, Web sites are developed for instructional uses without the aid of sound instructional design principles. Content is presented as static, verbal information pages linked to other information pages that may or may not include obvious or intuitive navigational cues for making the cognitive connections necessary for knowledge construction. That is, critical information is delivered in a potentially rich learning environment but the format of the presentation confuses or “loses” the novice learner. Such environments are most often the result of an educator’s first few attempts at Web site development. Even with the use of Web site builders and intranet templates, designing instruction for instructional hypermedia requires thoughtful attention to certain aspects of learning. Over-simplification of the complexities of an ill-structured or even a well-defined domain encourages novices to reduce the “solutions” of domain-specific problems to simplified or cookbook answers, which is known as reductive bias (Spiro, Feltovich, & Coulson, 1992). Thus what is learned from some Web sites is often not what the designer or educator intended. A deliberate instructional design strategy for educational hypermedia environments is needed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document