Wednesday 28 July 2010

iFind Discover Training

I gave the first major "in house" training session today. I hope it was useful for staff but it was also useful for me as users were able to look at their specfic field of enquiry and highlight potential improvements and errors. Perhaps the major issue to look at will be the Advanced Search as several members of staff felt is was a little confusing. The advanced search is very powerful but it does use non-standard terms and concepts. Perhaps we require a two pronged advanced search - one feature a standard boolean drop down for each field and one with the Group Search facility?

What do you think?


iFind Discover Advanced Search


Luke

1 comment:

  1. Hello :)

    I've just had a quick play with your advanced search and it does seem quite complex. Of course search functionality is notoriously difficult to get right so I'll be watching with interest as you work to improve the usability.

    We can talk about this more in Glasgow but one thing worth considering is how you can help users if they end up at a 'failed search' screen e.g. http://ifind.swwhep.ac.uk/discover/Search/Results?join=AND&bool0[]=AND&lookfor0[]=art&type0[]=AllFields&lookfor0[]=&type0[]=AllFields&lookfor0[]=&type0[]=AllFields&submit=Find&illustration=-1 ... if you can help them broaden out their search so that it returns some useful results then that would avoid the 'dead end'/'user error' feeling.

    All the best for now,

    Helen (Project Synthesis Liaison, #JISClms)
    http://lmsmash.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete