Developing a User-Centered Article Discovery Environment

Abstract

This chapter discusses the user-focused research conducted at the University of Michigan Library to help make decisions about selecting and implementing a Web-scale article discovery service. A combination of methods—persona analysis, comparative evaluations, surveys, and guerrilla usability tests—were applied to bring a user-centered approach to the article discovery service decision-making process. After the selection of the Serials Solutions®1 SummonTM2 service and developing a custom interface to this resource using the SummonTM API, a follow-up user survey was conducted and search log data were analyzed to gauge the impact of the Library’s decisions on users’ research habits and their perceptions of the library. Users reported a high rate of satisfaction with the new article discovery service and, as a result, reported being more likely to use library online resources again.