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Creating a User-Centered Culture of Assessment
Stella Bentley and Bill MyersUniversity of Kansas
EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference 2005
Dilbert Cartoon
• Problem: Bicycle seats are hard. They hurt.
• Analysis: There must be something wrong with your pants
• Solution: Dorky pants.
Scott Adams, 7/18/94
North Central AssociationCriterion 2: Preparing for the
future
• Appropriate data and feedback loops are available and used throughout the organization to support continuous improvement.
• The organization provides adequate support for its evaluation and assessment processes.
Why Do Assessment
• Benchmark current services and use data to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
• Measure users’ perceptions and satisfactions with services.
• Establish what services and resources are needed and desired.
• Increase dialogue with users.
The User-Centered Organization
• Quality services and user satisfaction are goals recognized and shared by all staff.
• User services are given emphasis through ongoing assessment, implementation of user feedback, and empowerment of staff to respond to and solve problems.
• There is a high level of interaction with users.
We may have a GAP in our Assessment Activities
• What we think the customer wants• GAP• What the customer really needs
– Amos Lakos, ”Implementing a Culture of Assessment”, Conference presentation, 2004
Listen To Your Users!
Culture of Assessment
• Integrate assessment into the work process
• Build organizational framework to collect data, analyze facts, conduct research
• Focus on outcomes and impacts• Take action on what you measure
Culture of Assessment
• Continue what you do well• Concentrate on what you need
to improve• Experimentation is OK! – Take
risks!!!
Effective Assessment Methods
• Benchmarking: identification of best practices.
• Quantitative methods – statistics, questionnaires, user surveys.
• Qualitative methods – focus groups, interviews, unobtrusive observations.
Last year
1,154,460 people
visited our website
1,444,300 people
came through our doors
Did they find what they were looking for?
Did they get the help they needed?
We want to know
Our objective...
Creating a culture of assessment based on
evidence…
which leads to evidence in action.
Assessment council duties:
• Foster and promote culture of assessment
• Provide counsel• Advise libraries administration• Facilitate staff development• Act as clearinghouse
Assessment coordinator duties:
• Act as liaison to administration• Serve as initial point of contact• Convene and direct assessment
council• Maintain currency on assessment
practices and issues
• Work with colleagues to develop, conduct, and follow through on assessment priorities to demonstrate evidence in action
Some guiding questions...
What do we need to know?
Who can tell us?
How can we get the information?
What will it enable us to do?
What we have done:
• Developed and conducted staff development workshops on surveys & focus groups
• Reported on assessment activities• Brought in assessment experts from
other institutions• Participated in LibQUAL+• Participating in ECAR Study of
Students and Information Technology
• Worked with leadership to determine assessment priorities based on primary initiatives
• Sought to work collaboratively with other Information Services units and other campus partners
• Inventory data-gathering and assessment activities already in process
The specific charges of the Public Interface Design
Group (PID) are:
Review the public interface design of
enterprise Library systems and work with developers to continuously improve
service to users.
Review should include formal assessment
activities that assure our services meet our users needs and expectations.
Usability Study #1 of the Libraries Web Site
Goal:
Simplify the page
• Gathered and reviewed suggestions from the group
• Created mockups of new home page design
• Decided on a page design to test for usability
Web Usability Questions
Usability Study #2 of the Libraries Web Site
Average Question Completion Times
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Average
Question
Tim
e (s
ec)
Old
New
Evidence in action
Questions & comments
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