Making Library Web Sites Usable

This is a librarian-friendly guide to creating user-friendly websites.If your library's website is not as user-friendly as it could or should be, you need this book. A ""LITA"" guide, it is the most authoritative, current reference on usability testing for libraries. It gives you practical advice in clear, non-technical prose, plus success stories from 18 academic, public, corporate, and government libraries. Read it and you will learn what usability assessments are, why they are important for libraries, why you should do them regularly, and what the most common challenges are. You will also learn all of the necessary how-tos, whats, and whys for the most common assessment techniques and how to interpret your results, document findings, and effectively communicate results and recommendations.Usability-in-action success stories from Purdue, the University of Virginia, and Wright State University libraries; the Clinton Macomb Public Library in Michigan; the MITRE corporate library; and the library at NASA Goddard offer rare insights and practical advice for facing challenges like limited time, working within a budget, and rallying support for website changes. For library webmasters, members of library Web or usability teams, and library administrators committed to putting their patrons at the center of their website design strategy but unsure of how to begin - this book will show you how.