It's not enough to be good, they also have to like you: why libraries need to think about usability

In the two years between 2006 and 2008, Swinburne Library users’ ratings of the library catalogue dropped noticeably, despite no changes having been made to the catalogue. The only possible reason for this drop is our users’ increasing expectation that we provide modern, user-friendly, and attractive user interfaces---which our 25 year-old catalogue, replaced in early 2010, definitely was not. This expectation is reflected more widely; information seekers are no longer content to use information systems that require the help of a librarian, and the fractured nature of library resources has been a source of confusion and frustration. Trends toward the use of Google have been berated by some commentators as heralding an age of stupidity; the reality is that the majority of information seekers are ‘satisficers’---they are happy with the easiest way to find answer to their information need, even if it isn’t the best one. Despite the fact that libraries are now only rarely the first port of call for information seekers, libraries are still well-respected as sites of authoritative, trustworthy information. So how can we reconcile information seekers’ frustrations with library systems and their respect for library information resources?