There’s a well-known cognitive bias called the curse of knowledge: once we know something, we have trouble imagining what it’s like not to know it.
That’s a real problem when you’re trying to evaluate a library website.
Staff may look at a navigation menu and think, “Of course someone looking for downloadable audiobooks would click Digital Resources.”
But… would they?
Maybe they’d click “Books & More.” Maybe they’d look for “Audiobooks.” Maybe they’d type “download books” into the search box. Or maybe they’d just give up.
The problem is, if you work at the library, you can’t really answer that question. You already know what the labels mean. You know where things live. Your users don’t.
Let someone else try it
Actual usability testing doesn’t have to mean hiring a research firm or building a lab with one-way glass. You really can learn a tremendous amount by putting a website in front of just a few people who don’t work in the library and giving them realistic tasks.
In a public library, those tasks might look something like this:
“Find out whether the library has Consumer Reports.”
“See if you can reserve a meeting room.”
“Figure out what time the library closes Saturday.”
“Find an eBook version of To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Then stop talking and watch. Don’t cue them. Don’t explain anything. Don’t rescue them if they seem stuck. Nothing.
This can be seriously eye-opening.
Where did they click first? Did they even use the menu, or did they go straight to the site search? What did they completely miss? What made them stop? Where did they backtrack?
Those behaviors can tell you a lot more about how people actually use your website than a room full of staff saying, “I think that makes sense.”
Your expertise is useful, but it’s also a blind spot
Knowing your library inside and out is part of being good at your job. It is also exactly what makes it hard to experience the website the way a patron does.
So when you want to know whether people can actually use the site, bring in people who don’t already know how. It’s probably the simplest kind of usability testing a library can do, and it is absolutely worth it.