Page History

General:

Follow existing web guidelines whenever possible, including use of color and recommended fonts.

Keep consistent with rest of Libraries' pages.

Make font in box titles bigger and bolder.  (Darcy's working on.)

Set apart the title from the rest of box content.

Use "friendly" URLs (shortcut URLs) for all pages.

Easier for users to remember, cleaner looking on page

You can use LibGuides to create any sort of research guide: publication types, subject pages, databases cheatsheets, course pages, etc.

Setting up your profile:

Contact information should always display in top right.  People shouldn't be required to use the designated profile box.

To make the location of contact info consistent.  Different guides/groups have different needs, and default profile box is limiting.

http://libguides.mit.edu/aecontent.php?pid=9490^{Image Removed}

Label the profile box (and all boxes!) wisely:

• Keep default "My Profile"
• Ask Us
• Subject Specialist
• Dewey Library (or other library name)
• Questions?

Make content of box obvious to users.

Keep your profile box in the top right of the home page, so profiles on all guides are in a consistent place. You can hide the default profile box, as long as you add a new box in the top right with contact info. Contact information does not have to be included on every page of the guide.

Use your Kerberos ID for your profile shortcut.

Only include your name in the "Display Name" field.

If you haven't made a custom profile (ex., http://libraries.mit.edu/profile/darcy), check the box marked "Disable my LibGuides profile page but still allow my profile box to be displayed on guides that I create" to turn off the "Profile and Guides" link.

We strongly encourage you to add your photo to your profile. Usability tests showed that a photo made it VERY easy to see the contact info and made the profiles stand out. Staff Staff photo use guidelines should be followed, but people should hide .  No avatars!  Hide the photo box on each guide, if they you don't use it.  No avatars! 

Some people are adamantly opposed to posting their picture, but some like putting a face to the library.  Avatars are distracting, and could vary wildly.

a picture. 

Changing your photo in the staff directory does NOT change the image shown on your LibGuides.  To change the photo in your guides:

• Save the image somewhere on your computer, & log in^.^
• Click on "Customize Your Profile," and click into the grey "General" section.
• In the "Profile image" field, pick "Use a file from my computer" and attach your new photo.
• Click "Save profile."
  If you go into one of your guides and your profile photo doesn't appear, you may have to click on an icon in the top right of that profile box on the guide to update the profile photo on that page.

http://libguides.mit.edu/usability^{Image Removed}

Adding chat contact info is optional.  People are welcome to embed Meebo boxes, but color should match with our color scheme .

Not everyone likes chat!  Meebo offers some gaudy color schemes, so some guidelines would help.

Set a maximum of one row of tabs (5 or 6, max).  Subtabs may be used, but should be kept as simple as possible and labelled wisely.

To make navigation easy, and to reduce clutter. 

(black, meebo, mac, meebome).

If you would like to make a full staff profile page (listed here ), submit info and photo to Georgiana.  To link to your profile page from your profile box:

• After you log-in, click on “Customize Profile Page,” then in the "Profile Guide URL“ link, add the URL for your shortcut, ex. http://libraries.mit.edu/profile/remlee, and save.  (Marion can give you the shortcut for your profile; should be: http://libraries.mit.edu/

Image Removed

When given an option, people should have links open in a new tab/window.

To make navigating back to the page easier.

No limits on comments feature, besides being set to "moderated."

Some people may find this useful, but others might not want comments on their page.

• profile/\[your kerberos-name])  This will redirect the link for "Profile and Guides" to go to your custom profile, instead of the LibGuides default profile.
• After you’re done, go to one of your guides and look at the profile box.  When you click on "Profile and Guides," make sure it goes to your custom profile page.  You may have to go to your guides and tweak the info on that profile box. 
• If you don't see the "Profiles and Guides" link in your profile box, click on "My Admin", "Customize Your Profile," then make sure that the check box is unchecked by "Disable my LibGuides profile page but still allow my profile box to be displayed on guides that I create."
• If you have questions about this, ask for Marion’s help

Page layout:

The fewer boxes, the better!  Keep it simple.  No set limit to number of boxes allowed on page, but if it looks cluttered or if scrolling is excessive, creator should consider reorganizing or using Dreamweaver

Allow freedom of choice and allow content to govern design

the page by using tabs.

1, 2, and 3 column layouts are all ok to use.  

Set a maximum of 5 or 6 tabs per page.  Subtabs may be used as a last resort, but should be kept as simple as possible and labeled wisely.  Make sure the tab name and the page name match.  Don't link tabs to URLs outside of your guide, since the tabs are meant for navigating within your guide. 

If you use tabs, make sure to link to the tabs somewhere on the main page.  Users don't always see tabs, so providing alternate navigation helps.  Note: When you link to the tab, don't just copy the link to the tab in edit or preview mode.  You can either copy the tab's URL on a live page, or you can copy tab's URL in edit mode, and delete the "ae" from the URL. 
Example:
link for a tab you'd see in live mode: http://libguides.mit.edu/content.php?pid=18306&sid=126406
link for a tab you'd see in edit mode: http://libguides.mit.edu/aecontent.php?pid=18306&sid=126406
(You'd want to delete the "ae" before the "content.php" in the link, so that the URL is correct.)

When given an option to have links open in a new tab/window, you should usually choose to have the link open in the same tab, since users often don't like to have multiple tabs.  The only situation where you should choose to open in a new tab is when you think that user will really want to keep the original window open.

Choose Creators should choose to "link to" or "copy" wisely.  Any time the content should be maintained by one person, use link to (ex., search box on template tools page)

People won't have to maintain content unnecessarily.

. 

To add an "info link" to your list of databases:

• Easy way: Copy an existing info link on a LibGuide, and change the URL to the correct URL.  (ex., if you need to find the info link for PubMed, but you know the get URL is http://

• libraries.mit.edu

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Don't use tags feature for now.

Looks cluttered, could get unwieldy quickly.  If some people use tags more than others, it could seem as if certain topics are underrepresented. 

2 and 3 column layouts are both usable.

Lets the content inform design.

Members of the task force (& Nicole & Darcy?) will offer 4 or 5 hour-long sessions in July to teach procedures & policies for using LibGuides.  Training will be aimed at people making pages for public use, but anyone is welcome.

Learning is fun!  Focusing on training people to make public pages is manageable.

• /get/pubmed, then substitute the "get" for "info".  The info link it http://libraries.mit.edu/info/pubmed)
• Hard way: Follow the instructions on this page: https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/x/sQVsAQ

Why do we have info links?

• To include information about a database or journal (years of access, info on how to get access, etc.)
• If the info link to a resource doesn’t include helpful info, then don’t include it!
• If the information supplied on the info link page is really important, then you might consider just adding that text to your LibGuide.  (But don’t overdo it – you’ll be responsible for updating this info!)

Content:

Less is more!  Usability tests show that users get overwhelmed with a lot of content, so keep text to a minimum.  Organize your content so that you can have fewer boxes and columns.

Users tend to choose databases based on names - if the name of the database doesn't indicate the content (like Compendex), they don't go there.  Use descriptive words in or near the database titles if not clear.

Example of a clear way to do this:

Find articles related to...

• biology: BIOSIS
• chemistry: SciFinder
• computer science, electrical engineering, physics: Inspec
• engineering: Compendex
• math: MathSciNet
• medicine: PubMed
• science: Web of Science

Put databases in order by importance, not in alphabetical order.  Users tend to choose the first databases in the list, not the most relevant.  

Users get confused with too much contact information, so make it clear by providing one way to contact us for help.  (ex., Don't include links to Ask Us AND ask-dewey.)  LibGuides has an option for joint ownership of pages, and it will automatically add 2 profile boxes on that page.  We ask that you don’t show both profile boxes, since that's confusing and cluttered, but create a new box with contact info instead.

When new databases and journals are purchased, Sally will email subject selectors, and you’ll be able to add relevant titles to your list without asking Marion.  If you need help making info links, ask Marion or Georgiana.

When we cancel databases or when URL/title changes are made, Sally will email subject specialists.  Marion will check to see if any LibGuides have listed the cancelled or changed database and will delete it from the LibGuide, or will consult with subject specialists as needed.

Other features:

Don't use tags feature.

You can either upload images and images through LibGuides (in edit mode), or store them on the Libraries server, and you can link to them from your LibGuide.  If you need permissions, or if you don't know how to upload, ask Marion to do it for you.  Upload to:

• www/guides/libguides/img
• www/guides/libguides/files

Making pages live:

Make sure to add a "friendly" shortcut URL for each page.  If you're making a test page, end the URL with "-test".  LibGuides won't let you use a "dot", so if you're creating a course page in LibGuides, use a hyphen in the friendly URL in place of the dot.

If you want to save an old version of a page, change the page title to include the date, or some other identifier that will show that it's an old page (ex., "Product Engineering Processes, 2007"). Also, change the shortcut URL to "pagetitle-old" (ex., biology-old), and change the status to "private."  If you have more than one old version saved, you could use "pagetitle-old-2007" or something else that would make sense.

Add one or more subject categories per page.

Keep pages public or private.  Don't bother with unpublished.

No need to get approval to post pages.  Tell Marion when it's live so she can update links to it from pages on our site that link to it, including our Site Index.

If you don't want a guide anymore, delete it!  (You can delete the page that Marion made for you originally, too, if you're not using it anymore.)