Raw User Logs
(notes taken by observer)

Tester#1/Interface#2: Doesn’t see list of women, thinks maybe that would be under Introduction. Since she knows she wants 1914, she clicks on the suffragist timeline. She exclaims, “oh, it’s in months,” and says she would look for Alice Paul’s name.
 She goes to Introduction->Meet the Suffragists, and says, “That was easy, there she is.” She clicks on an oral history and is told that she can browse the history. She clicks on something in the Table of Contents. She realizes that she is looking at an index on the left. She says she would click on some of the other categories.
 She next goes to Secondary sources, then immediately to Primary sources->Correspondence (“Sounds more interesting than Periodicals.”) Then she goes to Books and asks: “Are these books about her? …so these books are not obvious what they’re about.” She clicks on by suffragist and says she would write down the names of the books. She also clicks on the books. She asks for clarification about “by suffragist”—she thought she’d get books by Alice Paul. She thinks that the first book page (the title page) is confusing. From here, she would read/save/print the pages of the book.
 She goes back to the Suffragist Timeline, and the facilitator explains about the pop-up window. The tester says there is much more text in the timeline than she expected. She is overwhelmed and feels that it is too much to read; plus the layout is confusing (suggests dates be on the left instead of centered). She thought there’d be more of a list.
 She then clicks on the World Timeline->1914, saying “so then I’d see whatever’s happening in the world.”
 Clicks on Secondary again (can’t remember what was there). Says “Didn’t I see Books over here? Oh, these are secondary.”
 She goes back to Primary->Periodicals. By suffragist to look for Alice Paul, then goes to an article. She notices the index is by Periodical, not suffragist anymore.

Tester#1/Interface#1: Likes seeing what Primary and Secondary mean—having the categories right here.
 Goes to search page (with prompting from facilitator). Says she “doesn’t know what the best one for me is.” Tries to figure out her options. Doesn’t realize that browse will bring up a list of names (doesn’t notice it says browse?). “Oh, it puts the name in the box.” Tester is shown search results; she thought she’d get Alice Paul sorted by resource. She doesn’t care where Alice Paul doesn’t appear. Says it’s very different from what she thought it would do.
 Goes to Oral History and says “What is this?” Needs validity: who, when? Maybe would click on interview history.
 Overall: Tester doesn’t think knowing where you are is necessarily so important.

Tester#2/Interface#2: Clicks on Introduction first. Then goes to Meet the Suffragists. She suggests writing “biography” somewhere to indicate the contents. She suggests more explanation in general at this point. She reads the Alice Paul biography, then clicks on Oral History. She loves the photographs, but asks about the Dynaweb bullets. Suggests making the page more clear in terms of who’s who (interviewer, source); she’s unclear that it’s a primary source. She then looks at Suffrage Campaign—says, “Great, so you know where you’re at. Is there any way to mark what you’ve already seen?”  She would read the whole thing on the computer. She knows it’s an oral history, but is not clear where she would find the voice (audio). She is curious about the appendixes.
 She seems to be focusing on the Oral History and ignoring the top frames and buttons. She notes that she would encourage students (undergrads) to view actual, physical documents.
 When prompted, she goes back to the frame and clicks on Primary->Periodicals (asks first about diaries). She sorts by Suffragist to see Alice Paul. Then goes to Ephemera (she likes this stuff).
 Facilitator asks “What’s your goal in looking here?” As a historian, she likes to see historical documents, different types of publications and sources.
 She clicks on Secondary Sources->Journal Articles (we don’t have), the on Bibliography, then on Books (“Wow, a chapter from a book”). She would read the chapter online.
 Goes to Search. Would put “Alice Paul” into quick search. (Doesn’t seem to know what the rest of the search page means. Facilitator explains.) Tester goes to Home; after some prompting, clicks on 1914 in the Suffs timeline, then the World timeline. She appreciates the pop-up box.

Tester#2/Interface#1: At first she visually likes the other one better, but then determines that I2 is better because you get all the information. Clicks on Oral Histories first, likes the choices, photos of all the women. Clicks on Alice Paul,… Books,… Intro to Era,… Songs (loves the songs),… Interviews,… Bibliography.


Tester#3/Interface#2: Tester starts out by stating that she sees no list of oral histories by person, so she might start with Introduction, but she first goes to 1914 on the World timeline. She “reads” the information and closes the window.
 The then goes to Introduction->Meet the Suffragists and reads the content on Alice Paul, saying she wants to remember the National Women’s Party. She links to the Oral History. (This user recognized the SGML interface, which she knows from research at the Bancroft Library site.) She asks, “Is this the transcript? I’d print it out and read it later.” She goes back to Home in order to go back to the Alice Paul bio.
 She clicks on Primary Sources->Oral History, sees Alice Paul and clicks to get to the actual Oral History. She’s looking for a Biography of Alice Paul, and asks about the biography of Amelia Fry, which is in the Oral History TOC. She goes back to Home, looks at the Primary menu. She wants to see how the materials are organized (she questions books as secondary resources, but understands once they are explained to her). She picks Correspondence, sorted by Author to find Alice Paul.
 Now she wants to know where the National Women’s Party papers are—is there a repository name? These are the sources of some of the site material. The tester mentions at this time that she generally uses links to find information in a site before going to a search function. Next she sorts by Subject. She looks at Periodicals, sorted by subject (because that’s what we have in our low-fi prototype), and likes this. She notes that sort by Suffragist vs. sort by Subject is confusing (because aren’t the suffragists the subjects?). She reads the periodicals sorted by subject, and notes that it’s very different reading on paper vs. the Web where she’d just click all around. She goes back to Home. She asks if there are other suffragists mentioned in related to Alice Paul (active along with her)—she is looking for connections.
 She goes to Introduction->Introduction to Era to read about more women. Says that it looks like 1917 was a big year, so she clicks on 1917 on the Suffragists timeline. She reads the information, then closes the pop-up box. She goes back to Meet the Suffragists, and says she might view other women to scan for relevant information. She says that she is putting off the Secondary sources until the end.
 She clicks on Secondary->Books, and questions whether the selection of books is available somewhere. She sorts by Suffragist and looks at Alice Paul selections. Says she would spend a lot of time here (and at the All about the Suffragists, too). Finally, she goes to the Search page. She chooses to browse the list of organizations to look for the National Women’s Party. She submits using the default of all collections. She says she would next go back to Primary->Oral Histories and read the whole Alice Paul transcript.

Tester#3/Interface#1: Says that with frames she tends to navigate by going down the list, clicking on each thing that looks interesting. She first goes to Meet the Suffragists, the Introduction to the Era, then to Oral Histories (from the frame), then to Alice Paul (from the main page). The tester notes that with frames, she feels she is less likely to miss things (as long as they’re in the frame). She hates frames within frames, but says maybe there’s nothing we can do. She then picks another type of source—maybe randomly, but similar from before. She goes to Audio->Songs (says, “ooh, neat”), wants to listen to the songs and view larger images. The tester notes that on the Web she jumps around a lot. She clicks on Diaries, then any other Primary sources, then Secondary sources, then to the timelines at the top. She says that this format would prompt her to be more organized.