Enhancing the Usability of SVA’s Library Catalogue for Self-Service
Client:
School of Visual Arts
Role:
UX Researcher
Team:
3 UX Consultants
Duration:
4 months
The School of Visual Art's online Library Collections system is meant to be a self-service tool to browse, find, and request items in the catalog — but staff are inundated with requests for assistance. Our client was interested in identifying usability issues for a redesign of the digital system to better support independent use.
We conducted a series of eye-tracking studies to develop design recommendations aimed at improving the user experience. Our main decisions included streamlining the landing page, improving the visibility and labeling of core functions so users could find and understand them more easily, and making navigation more intuitive across the system.
DEFINING OUR DIRECTION
"We keep getting questions about placing holds and renewing items. It's like people don't even review the FAQ."
— Client
The SVA Libraries team had observed recurring user requests around certain catalogue functions, so we kicked off with a stakeholder meeting to clarify their priorities and focus areas for research.
01
Determine if users can easily find and navigate to the Library Collections page.
02
Assess how efficiently the site allows users to search for and locate items in SVA’s library collection.
03
Understand how easily users can check an item's status, such as on hold, in transit, or available, before deciding to visit the library.
04
Assess how well the Library Collections page provide users with readily available help and guidance to perform their tasks.
We also identified the constraints we’d be working within — such as the site’s CMS and layout restrictions — to ensure our resultant recommendations would be feasible in their current system.
Elements like text blocks and search radio buttons could be updated. Others, like the landing page layout, were off limits.
HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
To begin unraveling pain points, we conducted an internal evaluation of the current website.
Our takeaway: The catalog’s interface lacks the clarity and structure needed to support intuitive, self-guided use.
01
Poor visual hierarchy across the website makes system actions difficult to identify.
02
Unclear terminology such as search filter options and "Map It" don't effectively convey intended functions.
03
Self-service is deprioritized by placing the assistance request form above browsable FAQ information.
Are these problems just our impressions, or do they actually translate to observable usability issues?
USER TESTING
Our client wanted to pinpoint where users were getting stuck, so we used eye-tracking via Tobii technology to reveal attention patterns. We paired the observational data with interviews and retrospective think-aloud to understand why those issues were happening.
To explore the client’s concerns and test our assumptions about what wasn’t working, we designed study tasks that addressed the most critical knowledge gaps:
01
Entry points into the catalog.
02
Browsing the collection to find a specific record.
03
Completing key tasks such as identifying an item's physical location, placing holds and renewals, and checking item status.
04
Finding guidance and support.
One type of data doesn't tell the whole story, so we also captured qualitative user input and quantitative metrics to triangulate the findings.
01
Pre- and post-test questions to gather general habits around catalog use.
02
Ease-of-use metrics for each task to identify where users were struggling the most.
03
System Usability Score to assess the website overall against the industry average and standard.
Since the client wanted solutions that would impact the most people possible, we segmented users according to their input and prioritized the main user group (SVA students) for 12 user tests:
7 Desktop Users
5 Mobile Users
FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Users gave SVA's Catalog a 54.8 average on the SUS — indicating the website is lower than the industry average of 68 and well below "good" usability (75).
We analyzed eye-tracking and user interview data to identify where it was falling short:
Problem 01
The catalog landing page suffers from poor visual hierarchy and inefficient use of space.
Text-heavy content is hard to skim and takes up significant page space.
Headers and buttons don't stand out to users, making key actions unclear.
Blank space is underutilized; users expect to see more useful content.
Users begin glancing through text blocks but their attention diminishes quickly as they skip through the content.
The issue is even worse on mobile, as the smaller width of the phone screen elongates text blocks even more; "As a Librarian" is buried at the end of the page.
Recommendation 01
01
Use bolder headings and buttons so important functions are more visually prominent.
02
Link to content statements or make them collapsible to reduce clutter.
03
Make better use of space with interactive elements like recommended content and visual overview of catalog functions.
Problem 02
Users overlook key features like placing holds, item status, and Map It because they do not stand out enough or are labeled unclearly.
Users struggled to find/identify the item status label and place hold CTA.
"Request" and "Map It" button labels don't align with user expectations.
Map It's use is particularly unclear since location information is already shown in dropdown.
Users often spend excessive time searching for the button to place a hold because it is not visually prominent and labeled unintuitively.
"The word 'Request' — for me, it feels like the library doesn't own it, like a request to buy it. I would think, 'Hold' — they already have it." (D6)
"I didn't think I needed to click on 'Map It' because the [location] info was already right there, so I just scrolled down." (DP3)
Recommendation 02
01
Relabel "Request" as "Place Hold" to match user expectations and make the button larger.
02
Increase the visual prominence of item status by making it larger and bolder.
03
Update wording of "Map It" to make its function less ambiguous, e.g., "Find It in the Library".
Problem 03
Users expected the FAQ to appear more prominently; they also found the filtering labels confusing and content hard to navigate.
Users often overlooked the FAQ since it's lower down on the page.
They expected it to appear above the question submission form to prioritize self-service.
Users expressed that "Featured" and "Popular" don't feel like intuitive groupings for an FAQ.
Users expected to see the FAQ higher so they can find answers on their own before asking for help.
Recommendation 03
Move the FAQ to the top of the Ask a Librarian page to encourage self-service, and group information by topic or user need.
Problem 04
The Ask a Librarian page lacks a clear path back to the catalog or main library homepage, leaving users stuck and unsure how to return.
The Help page has no navigation bar, forcing users to use their browser's back button.
The lack of navigation breaks consistency with the system, which includes a top navigation bar elsewhere.
25% of users could not find their way back from the Ask a Librarian page or called out the lack of clear navigation.
Recommendation 04
Add a breadcrumb trail on the Ask a Librarian page to allow for easy back-navigation.
Problem 05
On mobile, users frequently overlooked key navigation elements, like the hamburger menu and the search bar on the Ask a Librarian page.
The search bar on the Ask a Librian page is hidden by default on mobile and easy to miss.
Users don't recognize the hamburger menu as site navigation, mistaking it for page-specific settings.
Ask a Librarian search bar isn't immediately accessible.
Hamburger menu on mobile doesn't match user expectations for site navigation.
Recommendation 05
01
Increase the visibility of the Ask a Librarian search bar by displaying it upfront and outside of the dropdown menu.
02
Redesign the menu icon on mobile with a clearer label for easy recognition.
SHAREOUT
We delivered our findings in-person to the client — see the presentation here.
We recommended the following next steps to address the issues we identified:
01
Now: Prioritize Problems
Use task completion rates and ease-of-use metrics (provided in final deliverables) to prioritize the most critical issues to address.
02
Future: System-Wide Improvements
A key insight was that inconsistent navigation across the SVA Library systems made the different interfaces difficult to use. Unifying the navigation design is a valuable long-term goal to create a more seamless user experience.
Our findings and recommendations received a positive client response:
“I loved [the] idea to standardize the top menu bar across all of the systems we use, even if we continue to use the vendor's native environment. Just having the same links in the menu across our catalog, website and research guides will create a level of familiarity that's currently lacking.” (SVA Libraries Team)
— Client
LEARNINGS
Key takeaways from this engagement:
01
Align with client goals early to focus your research.
In client-based work, your initial stakeholder meeting is key to level-setting. Taking time to surface observations, assumptions, and priorities ensures you're investigating the right things — not just what seems interesting.
02
Know your constraints so your recommendations can land.
Great ideas don’t mean much if they’re not realistic. Understanding technical limitations upfront helps you tailor your solutions to what’s actually doable.
03
Design with the system in mind.
Zooming out to understand how each piece connects to the larger experience helps ensure your recommendations don’t just work in isolation, but support the system as a whole. The client found our recommendation to unify navigation across the site particularly insightful, showing how that big picture view can surface impactful opportunities.