Incline Village Library Site Usability

Washoe County isn’t much for books; why stay inside when you have this as your back yard? As a resort community extolling outdoor adventures, the Incline Village Branch of the Washoe County Public Library needs help to draw people into services and books. It is a beautiful building with a fireplace and well stocked, but always empty... maybe a better website would help.

The Incline Village Library website provides essential information but is neither aesthetically pleasing or engaging. Compared to other library websites in nearby areas, this website could do a better job of engaging the community and encouraging reading amongst all ages.

Current Issues

Usability

  • The click-through rate is fast, however, there are so many things to click click-through to find what you are looking for that some vital information could be hidden.
  • Navigating back to the page you were on (for example going from the Incline Village Library page to the Contact Us page and then going back) is not intuitive and requires multiple steps if you don't use the back button.

Learnability

  • Depending on what users need from the library, they could find the site easy or overwhelming. If they need more than location, hours, and contact information, they could spend a lot of time scrolling and clicking through the page to find the resource they need.
  • Since a lot of the information about specific services and events are hidden behind drop down menus or click-through pages, there is a bit of a learning curve to get to the exact page a user may need.

Memorability

  • For the search feature it is very easy to recall what to do, and since it opens the result in a new tab users can return to the previous page to continue finding resources.
  • The headers on the dropdown menus are descriptive, however, there are so many options that it can be difficult to navigate to what a user might need.

Conceptual Design

  • Links change color on hover, however both the original color and hover color are difficult to see on a white background.
  • Navigation bar with drop down menus for each item in the bar.
  • Search bar for finding items within the library catalog and library resource list.
  • Additional resource links and buttons along right column and footer to navigate to more pages within the library site.

Accessibility with WebAIM Wave

Summary
90

Errors

  • Linked images were missing alternative text.
  • Missing form labels.
  • Language missing or invalid.
  • Empty buttons.
  • Empty links.
5

Contrast Errors

  • Very low contrast with the light green links on white background.
20

Alerts

  • Missing fieldset.
  • Unlabeled form control with title.
  • Skipped heading level.
  • Suspicious link text.
  • Redundant link.
  • Noscript element.
  • Very small text.
  • Underlined text.
  • Layout table.
  • YouTube video.
16

Features

  • Linked images with alternative text.
  • Form labels.
  • Language.
127

Structural Elements

  • Heading level 1.
  • Heading level 3.
  • Unordered list.
  • Inline frame.
  • Header.
  • Navigation.
  • Footer.
91

ARIA

  • ARIA.
  • ARIA lavel.
  • ARIA tabindex.
  • ARIA alert or live region.
  • ARIA hidden.
  • Most icons and images in the original page lacked alt text tags.
  • For the redesign, every visual element that isn't text should include an alt tag.
  • Low contrast detected in the links in the green color.
  • Because the text is smaller and it is on a white background, it is difficult to see.
  • For the redesign, these links will be in colors that contrast with the background and may be contained in buttons to emphasize what they are.
  • Some of the text is extremely small and difficult to read when combined with the light green color.
  • For the redesign, text will be contrast to the background and at a readable font.
  • Some images included the alt text! (Yay!)
  • For the redesign, making sure all images and icons include the alt text.
  • The redesign will include many of the same structural elements used in the correct format.
  • The redesign will be able to be tabbed through with ease.