Adding SPICE to our library intranet site: a recipe to enhance usability

Gosford Hospital (Northern Sydney Central Coast Health), in New South Wales, is a teaching hospital of The University of Newcastle, Australia. This partnership in health education and training has been particularly successful in the area of library services, with a strong, mutually beneficial relationship maintained between Central Coast Health Library Services and The University of Newcastle libraries.

In 2004 the Central Coast Health (CCH) Library Services staff decided that their section of the CCH intranet had outgrown its original structure and purpose, and a thorough revision of both architecture and content was required. The library’s intranet site also needed to reflect more strongly the close relationship with The University of Newcastle’s library service, evidenced by a recent migration of the CCH library holdings onto the University’s catalogue, NEWCAT.

The goals of the project were to produce a highly usable library intranet site; to undertake the project according to evidence-based librarianship principles; and to present the project to the library community. Accordingly, we reframed the problem – a user-unfriendly intranet site – in terms of the following research question:

How can the usability of the Central Coast Health Library Services’ intranet site be improved to enhance to site's effectiveness as a gateway to the library’s services and resources, for the staff and students of the organisation?

A four-stage project plan was developed:

  • Stage One – bring the site up to an acceptable level to be used as a starting point from which further evidence-based improvements can be made;
  • Stage Two - locate, retrieve and examine the evidence to identify what development is required. The evidence was derived from a number of sources including research-based web design and usability guidelines; and locally based research carried out at Central Coast Health employing both qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (usability testing and analysis) methods;
  • Stage Three – redevelopment of the intranet site, a review of content and creation of guidelines for ongoing maintenance; and
  • Stage Four – establishment of an Internet site for the CCH Library Services, based upon findings of the intranet site study.

This paper will outline the progress and findings of this research project.