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Methodologies for Assessment and Evaluation of Access to Moving Image Collections

+First

Before you can assess and evaluate you need to know what the goal is – to see if you hit benchmark Better access? More access

You need to capture baseline data before improvements are made Did you improve access? How can you measure that?

+Assessing User Needs

I know what they want They want chocolate cake!

Not really That’s what I want

How do I find out?

Do I even know who my users are???

+User wants

What do they really want? They want ice cream

What can I give them? I can’t give them ice cream

because it will melt

How do they want it? Usually immediately

+How do I find out what they want? Lurk Stealth Assume

+TALK to them

Focus groups Surveys Sit with them Pretend to be a user’

+Did I get it right?

Increased number of users An easy metric but what does it tell me?

Analytics Hard data – tells you some, not all

How long are they on the page Why are they there?

How many are on the site? Are they they the users I think they are?

What search terms are they using? Where are they? What items?

Testimonials Just flattery?

+Google Analytics

+Page views over time

+Page views % of ?

+Audience comparison over time

+Overall site stats compared

+Comparisons by year

+Referral traffic

+Referral page sources

+TALK to them

If you actually build it will they use it? Sit with them and walk through features

Ask questions – what are they looking for and why Could they find it? What would they have liked to find that didn’t What features are missing? What didn’t work the way they thought it would?

+What do you, the user, need?

Our initial questions: What do you want to find? How do you search for it? What do you need to know about it? What do you want to do with it once you find it?

Their (initial) answers Raw materials, production research Relationships between records Metadata, metadata metadata Content, not format Tools for ease of use

+Examples

+Old Open Vault home page

+Old record page

+We built what they said they wanted

+And then we realized no one used it

+Tools

Google analytics Surveys Focus groups Personal experience

+Thank you!

Web analytics Person to person

Have inquiries increased?