Modern impressions: Getting to know your library website users

Academic library websites need to support a variety of users (student, faculty, staff, administrator, alumni, etc.) with intellectual pursuits related to research, teaching, and learning, in addition to being user-friendly, valuable and informative. Although the CUNY Queens College Library (QCL) website has been redesigned multiple times, there has not been a formal user research study of the website and its users to inform the redesign. Taking a user-centered approach, specifically the user-centered design (UCD) methodology, this study explores users of an urban academic library website in the United States through the use of triangulation, a mixed-methods approach that includes user survey, user interviews, and website analysis. The findings reveal that the majority of users like the QCL website and find the content valuable for teaching and research, but users also thought the website design was dated (not a modern design), some of the content was inconsistent, and access of all types emerged as a major theme. The results provide recommendations for the library website redesign and are important in helping librarians of similar libraries use triangulation of data to gain a multidimensional understanding of their users in order to inform the design and development of library websites