Usability Test of the Communication - ZOTERO Project - Case Study Example

Report on usability test of communication-ZOTERO project Student’s name Lecturer’s name Date Contents Executive summary The paper talks about the usability test of Zotero. It was designed with a specific goal of passing the information on common usability problems and frustrations, as well as the design of the product. Above all, the findings of the test might be used as a guideline against which any future version of the product designs and functionality can be judged. Two participants who had never used Zotero products before were selected to perform thirteen common tasks using the product. These included the addition of items to the library, notes and tags addition, creation of bibliographies. Time taken to perform the allocated task was recorded as well as careful observation of the participant's attitudes and reactions. This information on data and observable expression collected from the participants were used to derive obstacles and recommendation on ways through they can be in the future. Introduction Zotero has been dubbed to be the modern citation program of the century. It is a free, open-source citation program that is used to help users in collecting, organizing, and formatting research citation sources including books, articles from journals, web pages, images among many other sources. This program is an extension of Firefox, and it has several functions that include organizing tools, tagging, searching library, exported formatted citations and bibliographies creation and citation from within word and open office (Vanhecke 2008. pp.275- 276). Students form the primary users of Zotero. They range from high school to Ph.D. students. Other people who lie in the category of Zotero users include librarians and professors. Among all its users, Zotero does not target to serve any in particular. Instead, all the viewer’s view Zotero as a program that is used to serve all researchers in general (Clark & Stierman 2009. pp.54- 56, 58). In addition, the program was designed to be used by anyone who feels to be in need of organizing reference sources and citation formats, as well as bibliographies. Despite this, it has been seen that most of the users of Zotero are of advanced graduate students and faculty. The goal of this project on the usability of Zotero was to collect both qualitative and quantitative data of new Zotero users who are learning on how to perform the task regarded as common for their first time. In a submission of the project, I am hoping that the outcome of the usability testing project will be by the designers of the program to understand in depth the weaknesses and strengths of the usability of the program. The result will also be in the evaluation of the ability of new users to learn and be used as a guideline point for any future testing of usability (Duong 2010. pp.315- 324). Method One week was used to test the users of the program. Two participants who had never used the program before but had the need to know how to use Zotero for citation management were selected. The testing session was lasting for one hour. During this time-period, participants were allocated thirteen tasks that were realistic and ran them through the entire process of Zotero functions in a predetermined order that a new user might use. From each participant, time taken on each task was taken as well as the qualitative comments. Post- test satisfaction survey was also conducted. Because the ultimate point of the project was to how easy is it for one to use the Zotero functions, there was a need to recruit new users who had never used the program. The findings were to be analyzed to find out how easy was the program interface for them. However, there was a need to for the participants to be students, faculty or researchers who have the existing need to manage academic sources so that they could perfectly fit in the targeted audience of the Zotero program. The participants were selected for the project with email. Out of the several participants who responded, only two were selected for the project basing on their diversity in terms of the characteristics they possessed. Participant Occupation Age Current method of Citation U01 Professor 45- 54 Puts citations in form of a text file and then copies and paste it on research paper U03 Master’s student 25- 34 None The duration taken for every test was one hour long. Both participants signed a consent form to recording the session before it began. Offices on campus, which were considered to offer some privacy, were used to conduct the test. This allowed the observation watch test to be conducted in a remote place without having distractions in the room. Both qualitative and quantitative information were collected from the participants during the session. Performance data of the total time the participant took in performing a single task as well as the results on satisfaction formed part of the qualitative data. The qualitative data taken from the participants included quotes, comments, and observations that were noted during the project session. Results The date collected from the study project showed that the time the participants were using was mainly derived from the screencast length that is irrelevant. The result also showed the participants taking long time due to difficulties on multiple item additions to the library. The data showed that participant one took more time than participant two I general during the entire period of testing. We came to learn that participants one was eager to learn and understand the program in depth. During the testing session, participant one was trying to find tutorials using the website on how he could complete the given task. On the other hand, participants two was rather trying to function on trial and error basis. After looking at the tutorial, it was noted that participant one found out a more efficient way of doing most of the tasks. Probably, participant [ant one would be in a position to use Zotero more efficiently compared to participant two. Discussion The Zotero basic functions are so easy for new users to understand how they function. There are several good information that came up during the session for example addition of screen shot task, the button for camera forms part of a good indicate. Considering the important navigation bar on the browser, many Zotero users may not find it helpful within the main interface (Fernandez 2011. pp.5- 7). The participants argued that its placement in the browser made one to be less intuitive and therefore difficult to locate it and remember its location. Both participants experienced a similar problem of generating a report. They were mistakenly choosing to export library information for the report generation. The main reason as to why they opted for this is that the process of exporting library seems to be easier to find and locate. It appears to be the most thing that is related among all the actions that are seen or can be seen in the menus or the buttons. Additionally, it was also noted that the left corner button of the program interface that is used for creating a new collection was hard to be found by the participants. When the participants find it they could only hover over it. Conclusion The main tasks are just revolving around the basics in the functioning of the Zotero program, and this was easy. Both participants were able to complete their task successfully. Both experienced bits of difficulties and hitches during the session but were able to figure their way out on how they could overcome the problem. For both the participants, the most difficult time of the session was on generating the report. The first thing that they did when it came to generating a report was “export Library." Despite this, they both figured out steadfastly that they were not on the right way to solving the problem. This is so because, mainly it has been observed that new users of programs do learn through hovering over every icon just to find out exactly what they do; the last thing these new users can do is by clicking on those icons. They rarely remember adding from the URL bar therefore it would serve to be better if the button can both be placed in the Zotero interface and URL bar (Cohen 2008. pp.1). Zotero is considered the hardest program for most of its new users to learn but easy for those who are experienced. It is probably easier for any new user who has experienced citing with other citation programs and managers when it comes to using Zotero program. It is considered to be hard for those who are new to management citation softwares whereas for those with slight experience they tend to do it manually thinking that’s the way to go (Murimboh & Hollingdale 2012. pp.173- 174). For those who do not have any experience with citation softwares but have a need they get confused on how items are being added. For those with experience gathered from other softwares used for citation purposes, they still cling to their old styles of working around that they are most familiar with failing to note better ways of working things out using the Zotero program. Recommendations From the study results and conclusion the following recommendations were suggested to the Zotero program:- a) Providing a hint or a pop-up window letting the user be aware that the report is being generated, and they can view it in the browser. b) Providing a more in-depth tutorials on the functions of “new item," “create a new item”, and” save link from page” buttons to help in explaining the differences to new users c) Providing a menu or a button that is visible for new users to generate their final report while this action is still maintained in the right clicking menu command. d) Provide a suggestion on a save button in the interface at the point of adding a note either putting it in the menu or the same way MS word does. e) Suggests that it is important for the different actions to be separated into different menus rather than putting them in a single button that makes it hard for new users to locate. References Clark, B. & Stierman, J., 2009. Identify, Organize, and Retrieve Items Using Zotero. Teacher Librarian, 37, pp.54–56,58. Cohen, D.J., 2008. Creating Scholarly Tools and Resources for the Digital Ecosystem: Building Connections in the Zotero Project. First Monday, 13, p.1. Duong, K., 2010. Rolling Out Zotero Across Campus as a Part of a Science Librarian’s Outreach Efforts. Science & Technology Libraries, 29, pp.315–324. Fernandez, P., 2011. Zotero: information management software 2.0. Library Hi Tech News, 28, pp.5–7. Murimboh, J.D. & Hollingdale, C.R., 2012. Zotero: A reference manager for everyone. Journal of Chemical Education, 89, pp.173–174. Vanhecke, T.E., 2008. Zotero. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 96, pp.275–276. Read More