Discussion - from 10/1/2012 meeting: NH, SH, LH
These drafts are based on input from our Sept. card-sorting survey, looking at some peer institutions, and knowledge of our own services and what the Libraries want to promote about our services.
It's also based on the answers card-sorting partipants gave to "what are the top 3 things you come to the MIT Libraries website to do or find?" Highest counts were for 1.finding e-resources, 2. looking up known items in Barton, 3. ILB (but they didn't call it that), 4. hours, 5. Barton Your Account features (renewals, holds, due dates, etc).
-----
Considerations:
A. Navbars follow you wherever you go (on most pages) and serve as useful, quick ways to get to frequently used pages.
B. Categories on the home page have a dual purpose: 1) to show what the libraries are about and can do for you, and 2) they provide a quick way to get to frequently used pages.
... therefore.... should the home page categories always match exactly the 2nd level nav bars? (maybe, maybe not)
C. We may want to use this as an opportunity to emphasize some of the things we do for people that are beyond how they usually think of libraries. (personal content management, scholarly publishing support, managing data, etc).
Navbar draft 1
Search | Locations/Hours | Borrow/Request | Research Support | Recommended Tools | About Us
Navbar draft 2
Search | Locations/Hours | Using the Libraries | Help | Recommended Tools | About Us
------
Areas of agreement:
1. We agree that there needs to be a Search category. Later it may become a "discovery" search box that gets embedded into the top of pages. For now it could have a drop-down nav with names similar to our home page search box tabs.
2. We agree that there needs to be a Locations/Hours category. It will contain links to each library location and hours, and also links to info about visiting non-MIT libraries, study spaces, and all things involving the use of our physical spaces.
3. We agree that there needs to be an About Us category. This is something people come to expect on every site and can hold all the general information that doesn't fit into other categories, such as staff directories, jobs, giving, etc.
Areas we're not sure about: