Measuring the reader_Martha Sedgwick

Measuring the Reader

Martha Sedgwick
Senior Manager Online Products, SAGE Los Angeles | London | New Delhi
Singapore | Washington DC

@coffeepot

Engaging with our Users

● User Personas
● Usability Testing
● Market Research – Interviews,
Surveys etc.
● Usage data / web analytics

SAGE Online Products Los Angeles | London | New Delhi

Developing the SAGE Knowledge
book page


The challenge
● Develop a site to host over 2,500 books and
reference works
● Titles are social science titles
● Books are supplementary and modular texts,
typically aimed at postgraduate and academic
researcher
● Encyclopedias are typically aimed at
undergraduate students
● Titles will be sold in bundled packages to
libraries

User Personas
 Define key user types for potential products
 What do users want?
 Helps clarify if/why a product is required
 Identify actions users will undertake on our
sites
 Helps us develop useful feature sets to
support users


SAGE Knowledge User Personas
Anna (Undergraduate)
“I’m a directed ebook seeker: I’m told
where to go, I find it and I leave”

Jenny (Masters student – distance learner)
“I’m a ebook grabber: I will take everything and
anything concerning my subject that I can get a hold of”

David (PhD student)
“I’m a specialised ebook reader: I need to
read everything available with a specific
research area”
Graham (Advanced researcher)
“I am an begrudging ebook user. I am
Agatha (Faculty teaching) looking for the print version really, but
“I’m a ebook aggregator: I need to compile enjoy the tool”
lists of everything available for my students”

Jo (Librarian)
“I’m an ebook gatekeeper. I need to know about ebook
destinations, access restrictions and new content”


Surveys


Interviews
‘A couple of times I’ve asked the library to buy a book and
they’ve bought the eBook version… I read them at home… I can
imagine a scenario where I might use my iPhone if I needed to…
but my worry is that you would lose the book”
Paul (PhD student, History) 2011
“I use PDF downloads of ebooks constantly. We have
copiers at AU that send PDFs to my email so I’m contantly
scanning sections and chapters of books and then I search
through the PDFs. I read the PDFs online, I rarely print
them.”
Kit, History, PhD, American University, 2011

“I always read on paper. I’ve got a Mac and so when I find a paper I’m
interested in I save the PDF within a project folder and then I’ll print it off and
read it later.”
Daniel, Lecturer, De Paul University, USA, 2008
“Ebooks are a bit like an added feature of print books. You can use them to search and
find things, but then you ultimately want the print book to read.”
James, PhD student, University of York, 2011

Saturday
Tuesday 5.54pm -
Friday 10.04am 2.30pm - Living room
- Living room Library Book: An
Ebook: Family Book: introduction to
relationships in Cognitive brain and
middle Psychology behavior
childhood

Tuesday 5.30 Sun
Saturday
- Library cafe 9.40_Train
3.08pm -Dining
Book: The station
table
memory Book:
Book: How
keeper's Cognitive
children develop
daughter psychology

Saturday Sunday
Tuesday
3.10pm - Dining 9.50pm –
6.30 - Living
table Train
room
Book: Cognitive Book:
Book: How
psychology Cognitive
children
develop Psychology

Wednesday Thursday
Monday 9.45am 1.24pm
- Dining table 5.33 - Living
Living room room
Book: How Book:An
children develop Book: The
introdcution memory
to brain and keeper's
SAGE Online Products behavior Los Angeles | London | New Delhi
daughter

Jenny (Masters student – distance learner)
“I’m a ebook grabber: I will take everything and anything concerning
my subject that I can get a hold of”
Age: 24
Location: University of Belgrade Ebook use: HIGH
Occupation: Masters
Discipline: Special Education High use throughout the year
(behaviour disorders)

Research/study characteristics:
My course is a taught course set up for distance learning
students and with very few contact hours. As a result I am
heavily reliant on the e-resources that my library provide and I
use my initiative to discover what else is available to me. With
no immediate access to an academic library, the course
attempts to make most of the content available online or
through a reader-pack. Alongside the study of these key texts, l
am beginning to work on a research project, which is also
limited by what I can discover online.

Goal:
I need to be able to get hold of as much content as possible.
Online access to key texts is particularly important to me and as
is the scope of topics that are covered within my discipline. I
need to be able to browse around the available content related to
my subject so that I can get ideas for my research project.

Engagement with ebooks:
I have moderate knowledge of academic searching online and I
can easily orientate myself around website. I rarely save content
or searches. Because I share my computer, I cannot dedicate
too much time to reading online. I need to be able to quickly print
the content to read later. I will often search within texts to find out
the relevant section that I should print. But sometimes I want to
print the entire text.

Usability Testing

• Do users notice/understand/use
key features?
• Do users know how to navigate to
desired content?
• Where do users look when
landing on our sites? etc.

• Test throughout product
development, early testing can be
carried out on mock up wireframes


Insert sage knowledge content page


The challenge
● Develop a statistical tool to display state-level
data, allowing users to compare data over
time and to compare data across states
● Develop a tool to be used primarily by US
political science undergraduate students


Product Development – State Stats


The challenge
● Improve the usability of the methods map in
SAGE Research Methods Online
● Increase effectiveness of the methods map as
a browse tool to discover content
● Enhance the user experience of the methods
map for the purpose of the discovery of new
methods
● The product will be used by a spectrum of
users from advanced undergrad, postgrad,
academic researchers and faculty

Usability Testing Case Study: Methods Map
First iteration of Methods Map


Usability Testing Case Study: Methods Map
Second iteration of Methods Map


Google Analytics - % Conversion from Methods Map
to Content, November 2010


Usability Testing Feedback: SRM Methods Map

1. Suppress the “Choose from the
„Show Content‟…” line at the
bottom of the Methods Map
when on the default Research
Methods view (where no content
will ever appear).

2. Change color or size of
breadcrumb on Methods Map to
have it stand out.

3. Enlarge arrows or separate them slightly from terms to reduce clicking errors that
get users to the wrong term (or make them go backwards).

4. Perhaps redesign the Methods Map content page – testers find it too busy


Results from Usability Testing
● User testing showed users didn‟t know where to access content
from the Methods Map


Results from Usability Testing
● Adding the „View Content‟ arrow increased the amount of content
accessed through the Methods Map by 31%


Google Analytics - % Conversion from Methods Map
to Content, January 2012 & November 2010


Thank you!

Any Questions?

Measuring the reader_Martha Sedgwick

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