<p>The purpose of this thesis is to examine the usability of the Umeå University library catalogue Album. The aim is to evaluate the catalogue in order to establish if there are any problems that could be solved by modifying the catalogue. The following questions are answered: How should a good catalogue be designed? Which problems are common when using a library catalogue? Is Album user friendly? Are there any problems that occur when using Album and how can the catalogue be changed to avoid the problems? To answer these questions I have performed a usability test in which five persons, all students, got to carry out twenty tasks in the catalogue and talk about what they were doing and thinking while doing the test. This method is a usability method called Think Aloud. After the test the users got to answer twenty interview questions about the catalogue. The material obtained from the test was analyzed and positive factors, problems and courses of action were picked out. The results of the study show that the hardest thing for the users is to perform subject searches. It is not clear what subject and classification is and the users don’t know how to search the Index. They also think it’s hard to know in which fields to search and which words to use. In this thesis I give suggestions to things that could be changed in Album to make it more user friendly and easy to use. Although there are some problems with the catalogue, the overall impression of Album seems to be positive among the users.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the usability of the Umeå University library catalogue Album. The aim is to evaluate the catalogue in order to establish if there are any problems that could be solved by modifying the catalogue. The following questions are answered: How should a good catalogue be designed? Which problems are common when using a library catalogue? Is Album user friendly? Are there any problems that occur when using Album and how can the catalogue be changed to avoid the problems? To answer these questions I have performed a usability test in which five persons, all students, got to carry out twenty tasks in the catalogue and talk about what they were doing and thinking while doing the test. This method is a usability method called Think Aloud. After the test the users got to answer twenty interview questions about the catalogue. The material obtained from the test was analyzed and positive factors, problems and courses of action were picked out. The results of the study show that the hardest thing for the users is to perform subject searches. It is not clear what subject and classification is and the users don’t know how to search the Index. They also think it’s hard to know in which fields to search and which words to use. In this thesis I give suggestions to things that could be changed in Album to make it more user friendly and easy to use. Although there are some problems with the catalogue, the overall impression of Album seems to be positive among the users.