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The Getty Research directory is a subdirectory of www.getty.edu and is the Web presence of the Getty Research Institute. It contains wide variety of art historical research content, including research tools (like the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the Union List of Artist Names, the Thesaurus of Geographic Names, the Bibliography of the History of Art, etc.) an on line library catalog, links to special collections information, public lectures, and more.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usability of the Research directory design and functionality. The Research directory usability test was conducted over a three-day period, April 16th18th, 2002. Eight users were recruited to investigate the twelve key research questions identified by representatives from the Getty Research Institute and the Web team. Following the test, each user filled out a post-test questionnaire. Usability objectives included:
- User performance when searching for an event or project.
- Reading and understanding content.
- Interpreting links from the home page.
- Suitability of design to audience objectives.
- Standard search options.
- Clicking on links to find content in a database.
- The users overall subjective satisfaction in using the directory was also tested.
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