This presentation was provided by Rachel Hu (California Digital Library), Chan Li (University of California - Berkeley), and Michelle Potter (University of California - Riverside) as a case study on usability assessment during the NISO hot topic virtual conference "The User Experience: Just Fix It," held on January 26, 2022. The following was provided as the abstract for their talk:
The Ebook Usability Common Knowledge Group at the University of California is a multi-campus team charged with discovering and surfacing ebook usability issues as well as advocating for improvement. This group has created an extensive (and ever-growing) set of usability criteria for ebooks that are licensed collectively or individually by UC campuses. The initial assessment focused on three major publisher platforms, and an ongoing evaluation includes ebook aggregator platforms (such as ProQuest and EBSCO). These assessments help inform purchasing decisions at individual campuses, as well as generate specific suggestions for providers. New projects include evaluating the Palace ebook platform (previously SimplyE) and looking at features and usability of specific popular PDF readers. This segment will cover the group's experiences developing their methodology, a general outline of their criteria, and the structure and key findings of their report.
Click on the arrow above to watch the embedded video or click through here to view the recorded presentation on Youtube.