A colleague and I at DH Hill are embarking on a usability study of our GIS website, principally focused on data searching.  The goal of the study is to improve your experience using our website.  We are looking for a few faculty, staff, and student volunteers to participate in the study.  Volunteers must have some experience using our “GIS Lookup” database and website search portal to find and download data.  We’ve got some questions to ask and a few simple tasks to work through so we can observe how you use the site, what you find confusing, and what you like and dislike.

Please consider helping us as we strive to better assist you.  This is your chance to give us feedback on what works and what doesn’t, and contribute toward future improvements.

When: Whenever suits your schedule best in the next two weeks (Feb. 8-12 and 15-19).

Where: DH Hill Library

How Long: One hour per participant

Compensation: no money budgeted, but we’ll try to have some cookies or other refreshment.

What will happen at the study? 

A facilitator will take you to the Usability Lab, where you will fill out a brief demographics questionnaire, perform several tasks with the GIS website on a computer, and answer a number of questions posed by the facilitator about your opinion on different parts of the GIS website.  Special usability software will record both a video of your computer screen and audio from the interview.  The video will not include you.  The video will be used by Library personnel only.  Your identify will remain strictly anonymous, though the data from your interview will be aggregated with that of other users in order to make recommendations and reports about the use of our website.

If you’re interested, or have any questions, please let me know!  I look forward to getting feedback on our GIS Lookup.

Thank you very much!
Jeff

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Jeff Essic, Geospatial Data Services Librarian
North Carolina State University
D.H. Hill Library, Research & Information Services
Box 7111, Raleigh, NC  27695-7111
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/gis
(919) 515-5698