07/28/2006
by:Beth Lang, UMass Amherst
RIO Minutes, May 8, 2006
Present: Bryan Goodwin, Margaret Groesbeck, Sherre Harrington, Beth Lang (recorder), Barbara Polowy, Bonnie Vigeland (chair).
Guests: Cheri Cross (Slate Roof Design), Chris Hannon, Jan Jourdain
Main discussion topic: “Last chance” review of the Aleph OPAC interface design from Slate Roof. Since the last RIO meeting on April 10, each institution has conducted another round of testing on the OPAC design screens (3-5 users each.) Overall, the response to the design was very positive, with only a few suggested changes coming out of the design testing:
o On the Full Record page, where to place the Click here for call numbers box for greatest visibility was discussed. Several people reported that users are not finding the button. We discussed moving it, changing the text, size, or the color. Final decision is to add a second button to the bottom of the Full Record, and move the top button so it is now below the thin horizontal line, and lined up with the Author’s name.
o On the Basic Search Result page, add little downward-pointing arrows by each choice in the “sort by” bar. This should make the various sort options more obvious. Also, in order to highlight the fact that the library names in the “Library (Owned/Out)” column are live links to the call numbers and locations, RIO wants to underline each library name. We discussed making changes to some of the text on this page, (i.e. "For author search, click author name" – could this be shortened?) but decided against making anymore changes.
o Change the text on the Download/Email button to Email/ Save
o Text on Header changes:
1. In the black bar, replace the words “Display Options” with “Preferences”, and reverse the position of the commands, Logoff and Help. The bar should read as follows:
My Account | My Folder | Preferences | Help | Logoff
o Journal Locator tab: There was a lengthy discussion about the proper name for this tab. Some institutions want to use this as strictly an ejournal locator, while others plan to use this to link to both print and ejournal records. A suggestion was made to insert a slash in the term: e/journals and delete the term “locator”. Using e/journals on the tab suggests that either print or electronic journals may be found here. RIO agreed to this compromise.
Other discussion topics:
Slate Roof explained about the use of screen readers/ADA compliancy with the new pages. Any functionality that is graphic will not enlarge or display correctly in screen readers, but web coding will. They will have keep displays text-based if at all possible to ensure proper functionality with screen readers.
Slate Roof will make RIO’s requested design changes within the week, and then arrange for the “hand off’ to the HTML coders (A. Addison of UMass library and others) so the designs can be added to the Aleph test catalog. This process of HTML coding will take several weeks (3 or more), and is tentatively expected to be completed by mid-June. Due to the tight timeline, there will not be any live usability testing, unless some really major problem is observed. RIO will encourage librarians at each institution to examine the Aleph test database now available at:
http://fcat.library.umass.edu:8991/F
Regarding the My Account Page (also know as the “My Library Card” page:
Slate Roof will apply the design to the generic page, and the Circulation group will grapple with which fields are needed on the page. At a later date, once the page is set up, RIO will go over vocabulary.
Next RIO meeting: June 5, 9am, at Hampshire College Library.
