Faster, Effortless Research Resource Discovery

The School of Visual Arts (SVA) is a leading art and design college in NYC. Its library offers 44 unique research guide pages to help students start their research with curated resources and tips across various subjects.

SVA Library faced a high volume of inquiries and aimed to make its services more self-serve, reducing reliance on direct librarian support. It also hoped to increase effective use of research guides, but a lack of insight into how users navigate the site made it challenging to improve.

Used behavioral research methods to understand how users navigate.

Eye-Tracking

We chose eye-tracking because it is well-suited to the client's need to get insights into natural user behavior.

Retrospective Think-Aloud (RTA)

After seeing natural behavior using eye-tracking, we conducted interviews, using the RTA methods to gain insight into behaviors observed.

Metrics

• Task completion rate (for checking effectiveness)
• Time on task (for checking efficiency)
• System Usability Scale (for checking satisfaction)

Participant

We recruited college students, who are the primary users, through personal networks, school mailing lists and on-site recruiting.

Sessions

We conducted 12 sessions (8 desktops and 4 mobiles).

As a first step in our analysis, we used a rainbow sheet to synthesize common behavioral patterns and RTA feedback, giving us a broad overview of the core findings. Next, we triangulated quantitative metrics, eye-tracking data, and user quotes to extract insights and craft the story. Eye-tracking revealed what users actually did; quotes explained why they behaved that way, uncovering their needs; and quantitative metrics quantified the impact and severity of each issue.

While 79% of students could complete the tasks, SUS score of just 41.3 indicates the user satisfaction of the research guide pages is poor. We identified 2 major UX issues each for the online resources and design archives pages.

Discovering relevant databases is difficult without prior knowledge due to search and skim difficulties.

Insight

Students prefer to use the search bar to find the relevant databases

In the testing sessions, we identified that users prefer to use the search bar because they expected the search bar could show them the related resources sooner, like they experience in other websites.

67

%

Mentioned the preference for search

50

%

Searched immediately during the task

2.37

min

Average time on task

I would wish that the search bar can just immediately take me there. I don't want to spend time looking at everything.

Insight

Despite preferring the search bar, some students still couldn't get a relevant database result using it

Students often try to search, but the current functionality fails to return relevant databases when keywords are complex, such as those with multiple words or typographic errors.

67

%

Got NO matching database result from search bar (among participants who tried search)

Insight

Students struggled with information overload when skimming

Instead of using the search bar, students attempted to skim the page, but the dense text and lack of information hierarchy made this difficult.

67

%

Mentioned information overload issue

I'm someone who's not very like patient, especially text. So this amount of, small text, I don't want to read it.

First, I recommended fixing the search bar functionality. As a quicker, easier improvement, I also suggested making the content more skimmable to help students understand each database and identify those relevant to their research. Specifically, I proposed increasing logo size, enhancing the font size and weight of database labels, adding short keywords, and reducing descriptive text.

Before

The lack of visual hierarchy and excessive text made the content difficult to skim.

Recommendation

Visual hierarchy and reduced text help minimize information overload, allowing users to quickly skim database overviews using keywords.

I recommended enhancing the search functionality to be more robust, regardless of the keywords used, for example, by better handling complex queries and correcting typographic errors.

Recommendation

Allow multiple keywords in the search bar.

Recommendation

Make search bar robust to typographic errors.

Resources in the third column and below the fold often go unnoticed.

Insight

The column labels are too small and vague to distinguish between categories

Many students navigated the page without grasping how columns were divided by category. The labels were too small to see, and the categories themselves were unclear and sometimes overlapped, offering no reliable cues to help users focus their search.

83%

Mentioned the issues related to the column labels

It isn't clear how these columns are separated, and sometimes their categories overlap.

Insight

Lack of category focus in 3-column layout caused inefficient exploration & attention gaps between columns

Because there was no clear category focus, many users scrolled inconsistently between columns. They often had to scroll back up multiple times to catch skipped resources, affecting efficiency. More importantly, the layout created unexpected attention gaps, with the third column receiving less attention than the first two columns.

It was like shopping at a market. I had to go from column to column.

We recommended using the existing tab component to group resources, making categories more visible and ensuring feasibility. We also advised switching to a single-column layout so users don't have to jump between columns, which enhances efficiency and eliminates unexpected attention gaps.

At the end of the project, we presented our research findings and recommendations to the client and shared Slide deck, Problem list, Video reel, and Visual summary. They found our insights both interesting and helpful. Despite website constraints and a limited timeframe, we successfully focused on high-impact areas and delivered recommendations applicable to other research guides, as reflected in the following client quote.