Study on the Usability of Digital Library

Yaohua Yu , Zhengjie Liu, Ronglong Xu
Sino European Usability Center , School of Computer , Dalian Maritime University, Dalian ,China

Abstract: The paper presents a usability research project for SuperStar Digital Library. At present, SuperStar Digital Library is the largest Chinese online digital library in the world. The study aims to evaluate the usability of SuperStar Digital Library and make improvement suggestions to develop the usability of digital library. The applied usability engineering methods were expert evaluation, user testing and thinking-aloud method. These three usability engineering methods were complementary in detecting usability problems because actual users usually have a different viewpoint from experts. Some design problems of SuperStar Digital Library are listed. And the reasons of problems are analyzed. Then some improvement suggestions are given. The study is helpful to develop and improve a digital library.

Keyword: digital library, usability, expert evaluation, user testing