Langsdale Link
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About Langsdale’s New Look
As you have probably noticed, Langsdale Library’s Web site underwent a facelift just before the fall semester. Our desire to make Langsdale’s Web site consistent with UB’s new design and logo was certainly a catalyst for our new look, but we also took the opportunity to critically examine our Web site content and navigational structure.
Part of the new design includes several “quick search” boxes on the right of the home page that can allow you to search our catalog, search some of our databases and see which journals we have available in full text all right from the home page.
We were very fortunate that UB’s Information Arts and Information Design program provides so many resources and instruction on Web site design. We were able to have students from Kathryn Summers’ spring 2006 Research Methods class conduct observations of people using the former Langsdale Web site and perform usability testing on a preliminary draft of our redesign. The reaction to our first attempt at a redesign was lukewarm, at best. So, using data from these two class projects, Langsdale staff created a second version of the new site. We then conducted usability testing on this revised Web site using equipment in the usability lab, also run by Summers. The reactions to this second revision were much more positive, but we still had a number of things to fix before producing the page that is now online.
Even though we did multiple rounds of testing, we realize there are things that could still be improved; some things that worked well for some people but not as much for others. If you have comments or suggestions on the new look, please contact Langsdale’s webmaster, Michael Shochet, at mshochet@ubalt.edu.