Naming buttons on websites feels so very agonizing.....we wring our hands and gnash our teeth and wonder, wonder, wonder if we've made the right decision. Do all web people do this?
I have a funny story to share about naming. When I was pregnant the 2nd time, we had already chosen a boy's name but could not put together a girl's name for the life of us. We turned to a baby name book in desperation which finally provided inspiration for us........until our little gem was in 4th grade and decided she did not like her first name any more. She wanted to be known by her middle name instead. Public schools being what they are, her elementary teacher denied this request but her kind P.E. teacher gave in. I was heartbroken for all of the time and effort put into naming such a willful child. For websites, the work isn't so permanent and my child got over this phase and is onto other willful things............
John Kupersmith has done some wonderful work in library jargon and what is meaningful vs not so meaningful to those not of the library world. He says that "find books and more" is more descriptive than saying "catalog." His study also says that "research databases" is not a good term, too vague and un-descriptive. "Find articles & newspapers" is a better term to describe these gems. I just finished reading Steve Krug's book called Don't Make Me Think. He loves the way Amazon sets up their pages via labelling and navigation.
So to all you faithful blog readers - what do you think of these terms? Other sites you use where the labelling is crystal clear and you don't have to think twice before deciding where to go?
By the way, happy Friday!
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5 comments:
Cynthia, I have to agree with changing the name of the "catalog" button. Too many people don't have a clue what that means, and I'm all for changing it to something easier for everyone to understand such as "find books and more".
The caveat is that the button must take you directly to the catalog and not to a selected list of popular books and movies. Now that would be confusing!
As for "find articles and newspapers" instead of "research databases" - I think that's a no-brainer and should have been done yesterday.
My pet peeve though is the Prospector Search button. Very few patrons know what this is for. My library-savvy (so I thought) neighor didn't know what it was for until I told her. Why not name it something like "Can't find it? Search here."
The current "Can't find it" link takes patrons directly to a page that encourages them to make patron requests for purchase or ILO. Why overwhelm the budget and staff with these requests when a patron could probably get them through Prospector if they only knew what that was.
For the change to the "Research Databases" button, I agree that our patrons could benefit from a better idea of what that button can offer them. But does the inclusion of "newspapers" in the label give the impression that they will be seeing what newspapers are in the libraries? I would suggest simplifying that button further to "Find Articles". Maybe that is too simple, especially now that our databases cover so much more than just journals and newspapers. Foreign language instruction, stock quotes, etc. I hate to think patrons will miss out on what some of our databases can offer because they aren't looking specifically for articles.
I agree with Mary's point that we need to promote Prospector, and this is a definite goal for the near future for the III team. Although ALD is one of the highest users of Prospector (usually we are only a close 2nd to Jeffco), we could certainly ease the burden of our ILO department, and get more patrons using that catalog by promoting it more thoroughly. I don't think we are going to re-name the "Search Prospector" button. I'll research it more, but I seem to recall we are obligated as a member of Prospector to use the "Prospector" name. I could be wrong. If we were to change the button to something like "Search Another Library" the patron ends up on a page with a huge "PROSPECTOR" logo anyway, so rather than remove the Prospector name from our catalog I think we need to educate the patrons about what Prospector is, and what it can do for them.
On the full-record display we plan to put something next to the button like "All our copies checked out? Click on the 'Search Prospector' to have a copy sent from another Colorado library." Something like that. Also a "What is Prospector?" link to an informational page. We will also be adding information to the main search page, the "Can't Find It" page, the "no results found" page, and perhaps a few more places in the catalog.
Our goal will be to get complaints from patrons that they are sick of seeing so much about Prospector on the web catalog.
Definitely a good topic for discussion.
-David.
I still think just adding something like "search other libraries through prospector" would help, and still keep prospector on the button.
A what is prospector page I think would be great.
I like the simple terms suggested. Simple is a good thing! ;)
I found it interesting that Google changed the name of its Product search page from "Froogle" to "Products."
Froogle was catchy & funny, but users probably didn't know what the heck it was about.
I agree with Amanda - keep it simple.
I personally like the term "catalog", especially when used as "Search the Library Catalog" because it describes a search for items that are owned by the library. To me,"Find books and more" is too open-ended.
One note in favor of "Databases" - after three focus groups of teens about the teen site, it seems that they are familiar with the term. School websites label them databases and students are being taught the difference between searching the web and searching a database.
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