Usability Testing Your Circulation FAQ

Abstract

We expect our users to adhere to library policy, at the same time that we expect them to educate themselves on the pertinent policies and procedures. We spend countless hours documenting every access services question under the sun to ensure the information is convenient, clear, and relevant to our users' needs, resulting in a circulation FAQ for the library community. , , Usage numbers show that users find the FAQ but the questions we receive through our Ask Us service and at the service desks make you wonder: just because they found the FAQ, does that mean they are they finding the answers they need? If staff are overwhelmed by the breadth of information in the FAQ, what is the experience of a user with far less library knowledge?, , A small team of MIT Libraries' staff endeavored to find out. We developed a usability test, administered to a handful of MIT students and Libraries' staff to observe how they navigated the FAQ; whether they could understand the library lingo that inevitably sneaks into everything we write and, perhaps most important, if they could find the answers they were seeking., , The results of the usability study lead to a complete revamping of our FAQ to help us meet our community's needs and bring us a little bit closer to providing core information to our users at their point of need.,