Usability testing of VuFind at an academic library

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of an academic library's implementation of a discovery layer (VuFind 1.0 RC1) as a next-generation catalogue, based on usability testing and an online survey. Design/methodology/approach We performed usability tests on ten students (eight undergraduates, two graduates), asking a set of fourteen task-oriented questions about our customized VuFind interface. Task completion was scored using a simple formula to generate a percentage indicating success or failure. Changes to the interface were made based on resulting scores and on feedback and observations of users during testing. We also ran an online survey for three weeks, to which seventy-five people responded. The results were analyzed, compared and cross-tested with the findings of the usability testing. Findings Both the usability testing and survey demonstrated that users preferred VuFind's interface over the classic catalogue. They particularly liked the facets and the richness of the search results listings. Users intuitively understood how to us