USABILITY STUDY OF AN ONLINE TUTORIAL FOR VOLUNTEERS AT A ...

Angelique R. Jenks-Brown. Usability Study of an Online Tutorial for Volunteers at a
Hospital Resource Library. A Master’s Paper for the M.S. in L.S. degree. April, 2004. 49
pages. Advisor: Barbara Wildemuth

An online tutorial for training volunteers at the Women’s Health Information
Center (WHIC) at the Women’s Hospital at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill was created. It was intended to be understood by all adult age groups from any walk
of life for such complex topics as the reference interview, ethics, and evaluating online
health information. Usability testing was conducted using “think aloud” protocols and a
questionnaire. This study identified specific aspects of the WHIC tutorial that can be
improved, such as creating consistent links, clarifying terms and phrases, and adding
more sample conversation dialogs. This study has implications for tutorial design
generally, because certain aspects of this tutorial worked very well for learning, such as
the sample conversation dialogs, and the lesson opening statements, summaries and
exercise reviews.
Headings:
Volunteers
Hospital libraries/Administration
Web sites/Evaluation
Web sites/Design
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill/Health Sciences Library
Personnel/Administration




USABILITY STUDY OF AN ONLINE TUTORIAL FOR VOLUNTEERS AT A
HOSPITAL RESOURCE LIBRARY
by
Angelique R. Jenks-Brown
A Master’s paper submitted to the faculty
of the School of Information and ...