Tracking the User Journey

Tracking the User Journey

In the latter half of the spring term I ran small project to track the user journey, we wanted to see where students went to first when they begin their research and we also wanted some feedback in on our library homepage. We use two methods to survey students. For the survey to find out where students went to first we use an iPAD and Qualtrics we only asked them 4 questions. With survey on our library homepage we also used Qualtrics but this was a lengthier survey that was in Blackboard. (Infograph to the left)

The response to both surveys was pretty good given that students may well be experiencing survey fatigue.

For the on the spot survey we had 116 respondents 46% of respondents go to Google first followed by Google Scholar (21%) and Library Resource 24%. The majority of respondents had accessed electronic journals (78%) and electronic books (73%), mostly via the library resources page (67%), 24% accessed electronic resources once a week (24%), followed by 2-3 times a month (20%) and 2-3 times a week (19%).

For the survey in Blackboard overall most of the responses were positive with respect to the library resources web page. The statement that received that highest number of agrees (61%) was the ease of understanding of the information on the web page, followed by 51% agreeing that the organisation is clear. However, 33% found the web site cumbersome, 32% disagreed that is clear and simple, followed by 31% finding it difficult to find information. The closest number of agrees and disagrees, was whether the web site is intuitive, 38% agreed and 35% disagreed.

With respect to describing the library resources page the highest percentage of agrees were that the webpage is credible (61%), followed by it being helpful (51%) and easy to use (47%). However, 40% disagreed that it is engaging and 31% agreed that it is frustrating.

66% thought the number of links is about right but 25% thought that there are too many, 9 % thought there are not enough. 68% thought that the content is about right where 20% thought that there is too much, where as 13% thought there is not enough. With respect to colour and image 36% thought that this does make a difference where as 38% responded that it makes no difference.

When asked to give an overall opinion 41% stated they were happy with the library resources page where as 12% were unhappy and 8% very unhappy.

When respondents were asked how they would change the library resource page most said they would change the way resources are found, followed by the look and feel and layout. Most of the respondents’ thought that the best feature is the information resources, whereas the worst feature is that there is too much content.

Although we took quite a simple approach it has helped to confirm that our library resources page requires a redesign. We had an inkling that a lot of students start with Google when they begin their research but it was reassuring that students were also using the library resources page as much as or really slightly more than Google scholar.

We are currently undertaking a redesign of the library resources page using the libguides platform. We have also decided to undertake some further tracking in the latter half of the next academic year but this time focusing on discipline and level.