2. Infomaki is an open-
source, lightweight
usability tool developed
for and by the New York
Public Library.
Launched in February
2009
It presents respondents
with a single question
at a time from a pool of
active questions.
In its first seven months
of use, it had fielded
over 100,000 responses
from over 10,000
respondents.
3. • Traditionally, the NYPL had used surveys to get customer feedback.
• It was a regular, please-answer-these-questions pitch with 19
questions about web usage habits spread across 8 pages.
• Over 14 days, that survey received 7,341 individual answers to
questions from 520 respondents, just 60% of whom completed
the whole survey.
• But, in November of 2008 with a re-design launch looming,
they wanted to look for new feedback tools.
5. NYPL learned about the Five Second
Test (open source usability software),
which allows users to upload two
designs and polls users on preference,
upload one design and ask participants
to recall elements after initial sighting.
(http://fivesecondtest.com/)
6. Designed to act as a “one question” survey, it
presents respondents with a randomly selected
questions from a pool of active questions.
Initially, two types of questions were supported:
multiple choice and “Where would you click
to…?” (attached to a screenshot or other
image).
Recently, they have added five-second tests for
comparing two designs and for testing recall of
a design’s features. Response times for each
answer are also recorded.
All of the language used in the project is
“geared towards lowering the cognitive load on
the respondent.”
The link from the main web site to the tool
reads, “Answer a single question and help us
improve our web site!” “The sales pitch makes it
clear that even if you only answer one question,
it will be welcomed.” - Michael Lascarides,
Code4Lib
After answering a single question, participants
are taken to a “thank you” page where they are
asked if they’d like to answer additional
questions.
90% of respondents answer more than one
question, and the average number of questions
answered per respondent is nearly 11. - NYPL
7. • The application stores all
results from varied types of
questions in a single database
table, which makes it
extremely easy to analyze
response statistics and ensure
that no respondent sees the
same question more than once.
• Response data is displayed in
tables and histograms (for
multiple choice-type
questions) and heat maps (for
“click on this”-style
questions).
• Heat maps can show up as
individual clicks or a
percentage grid overlay,
Infomaki sample Histogram results
and colors are adjustable
for contrast with different
designs.
