In support of the future of special collection and archival discovery at Harvard Library and MyGo 21 & 23 more broadly, we conducted user research on understanding how Duke University and University of Michigan users’ experience their respective institutions finding aids. This was done to identify the optimal finding aid presentation for the team working on the migration from Aspace to Arclight.
The URC conducted two usability studies with participants from Duke, UM, and Harvard who use archival and special collections online. We tested the UM and Duke’s Arclight installations. For UM, we had 4 Michigan participants and 4 Harvard participants. For Duke, we had 5 Duke participants and 1 Harvard participant. Participants were compensated with a $25 Amazon gift card for their time.
Throughout the testing of both platforms users preferred the grouped by collection for default view of search results even if users needed a moment to understand the format.
Participants expressed their appreciation of the different kinds of information presented on the collection page including: Summaries, Citation information, Subjects, Library location, Content warnings, Archives contact, and how researchers can use the collections.
Participants responded positively to digital materials available to them and expressed the desire for digital materials to be easily identifiable. Moments when identification of digital materials was confusing was when the language “selected digital content" was used, and when there were two icons, both the digital icon and restriction icon, used at the same time at an item, subseries, or series level.
Regardless of Arclight instance or the icon, participants were confused on what icons meant even after reading the hover text associated with the icons. An extreme example of this is the restriction icon, many participants assumed that this icon denoted something wrong with the collection opposed to it denoting a restriction.
On both Arclight instances participants didn’t understand how restriction messaging actually applied to the materials, especially if those materials were also digital materials.
On both Arclight instances participants desired box and folder information to be more visible and prioritized earlier in the experience of navigating a finding aid. For example, five clicks deep into a finding aid to see box and folder information was frustrating for participants. This led to confusion of what information was even an item or box. When the information was provided participants expressed their appreciation.
On both Arclight instances navigation choices, like navigation with multiple symbols, navigation with linked and non-linked items, and duplicative navigation, were all noted by participants as confusing. Also, participants had a hard time understanding how the navigation structure matched a finding aid structure, for example, the language 4 entries often prompted participants to think there were only 4 items underneath the series heading, opposed to 4 sub-series. Parts of the navigation well received includes the side navigation as a whole, the breadcrumbs at the top of the collection pages.