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Abstract

There's something magical about interface design. The research done to determine user behavior that leads to design decisions is positively fascinating. This time round we have a group at Penn State testing the proficiency of users on their brand new OPAC. The users were divided into two groups, "experienced" and "first-time". Results confirm other studies in this area, namely, that when confronting an OPAC, users both experienced and not, assume they're in front of something similar to Google. They go for keywords by default, expect results ranked by relevancy (as opposed to chronology), make no use of Boolean Operators, have no idea of what information is actually indexed, and lack the curiosity or time to "learn the system". "We can either abandon this population," the author stresses, "or design systems that do not require expert knowledge to be used effectively.