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Search Assistant Working Group Meeting Minutes

August 21, 2007

Present:  Susan Avery, Bill Mischo, Katie Newman, Nancy O’Brien, Peggy Steele, Nathan Yarasavage

1.   Easy Search home page:

We agree that Nathan’s version 3a is the cleanest design thus far.  User tests show, however, that users tend to read screens from left to right and, thus, the location of the search options at the bottom of screen could be a problem.  Users may tend to just enter search terms and take the default search options ignoring the other choices.

Nathan offered to do additional mockups.  Since we like the clean horizontal look of 3a, he’ll do another horizontal version with the search options above the search box instead of below.  He’ll also do a fresh vertical layout with the search options on the left, and a version that includes numbered steps.

2. Search options:

We still need to finalize the resources to be included for each of the search options.

3. Testing:

Bill mentioned that the new Gateway roll out may be postponed until October.  If this is the case it may give us time to get in some testing of Easy Search.  As soon as we have a version that we feel is ready for prime time, we should have it moved into the Gateway and post a note on libnews asking Library personnel for feedback.

4. Gateway top level page:

Katie suggested, and all agreed, that there should be a search options dropdown box on the Journals tab as well as on the Easy Search tab.

5. Future meetings:

We agreed to begin meeting bi-weekly, at least until Easy Search is rolled out.

 

Peggy Steele, Recorder