Summary of Discovery Service Usability Studies --
Allison O'Dell - Metadata Librarian
Erin Dorris Cassidy et al., “Student Searching with EBSCO Discovery: A Usability Study,” Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship 26, no. 1 (2014): 17-35.
Compares: EDS to library catalog
Participants: undergraduate students
Tasks:
- find books by author
- find articles on subject
- find known item (book)
- find known item (article)
Findings:
- Users have trouble using the facets in EDS / are not sure which ones will help
- Users won’t bother to expand facet options or click to second page of results
- EDS was significantly worse than library catalog for finding books
- EDS was significantly better than library catalog for finding articles
JoLinda L. Thompson, Kathe S. Obrig, and Laure E. Abate, “Web-scale Discovery in an Academic Health Sciences Library: Development and Implementation of the EBSCO Discovery Service,” Medical Reference Services Quarterly 31, no. 1 (2013): 26-41.
Compares: no comparison to other tools as part of study. Used literature review on tests done for Endeca, Primo, Aquabrowser, and VuFind.
Participants: students, faculty
Tasks:
- Find peer-reviewed articles on topic
- Find electronic version of journal
- Find article by author
- Find resources on topic
Problems identified:
- Difficulty finding/using advanced (Boolean) search features
- Search history overshadows search results in display
- Difficulty finding link resolver
- Users don’t bother to scroll through facets
- Previously applied facets carry forward, skew new searches
Andrew D. Asher, Lynda M. Duke, and Suzanne Wilson, “Paths of Discovery: Comparing the Search Effectiveness of EBSCO Discovery Service, Summon, Google Scholar, and Conventional Library Resources,” College & Research Libraries (Sept. 2013): 464-488.
Compares: EDS, Summon, Google Scholar, library catalog/databases
Participants: students (undergrad and grad)
Tasks:
- Find general information about a historical research topic
- Find information to support a sociological argument
- Find explanatory scientific information
- Find a peer-reviewed scholarly source
Findings:
- EDS outperformed in almost every category, although not always in a statistically significant way
- Resources located using EDS were judged as having higher average quality
COMMENTS:
- Libraries should definitely tweak design and facet options during implementation
- Consistent problems with facets (users don’t understand what they mean, or don’t realize they can expand and scroll for more)
- Did not find any studies on using EDS to locate digitized, special, or archival collections
- EDS best for finding articles
- Library catalog better for finding books (but EDS is still better than Summon)