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Towards a more inclusive technical website: Knowledge gaps, performance, experience, and perception differences among various user groups
Author(s) -
Tang Rong,
Lu Wenqing,
Gregg Will,
Gentry Steven,
Humeston Stephen E.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
proceedings of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 14
ISSN - 2373-9231
DOI - 10.1002/pra2.2018.14505501054
Subject(s) - usability , terminology , computer science , world wide web , perception , metadata , task (project management) , technical communication , user experience design , inclusion (mineral) , user group , web usability , human–computer interaction , psychology , engineering , social psychology , philosophy , linguistics , electrical engineering , systems engineering , neuroscience
This paper reports a usability and user experience research study of PBCore.org , a WGBH website supporting the PBCore metadata dictionary. Usability testing was conducted with 53 participants who worked in audiovisual processing and archiving. Significant differences in task performances and interaction experiences among user groups were found, most notably between broadcast and information professionals, archivists/librarians and other staff, and participants who had an LIS degree and those who did not. Qualitative observations afforded a deeper understanding of the difficulties that non‐LIS participants encountered. Recommendations for designing a more inclusive technical website include providing contextual and practical information on the homepage, delivering technical content visually and interactively, offering understandable definitions of terminology, and building a vibrant user community. Further research documenting users' knowledge gaps would be valuable. The paper concludes with a call for developing specific usability requirements for technical websites to create an inclusive and accessible user experience.