This site was redesigned with the less-knowledgable user in mind. Undergraduates, who probably make up the majority of users new to the site each year, are not very familiar with how the University Libraries work, and with this design I aim to make a site that's easy for them to use. To this end, the menu options on the main page were thinned down and categorized using pop-up menus.
Using terms such as "find books" allows users to use the site without having to learn library lingo (please see Terms Users Understand for more explanation). The sub-items in the popup menus allow the user to chose more specifically what he or she is looking for. The top and left navigation will be repeated on all sub-pages for easy movement between pages.
In addition to reducing and organizing menu items, quick search boxes were added to the middle of the main page (at present they are only images, but in a final design they would be fully functional, as would all links). These boxes allow users to jump right to commonly used databases and the library catalog without having to go through menu options to find them. The login box has also been added to the main page, as well as to the sub-page, because off-campus users cannot access much of what the library owns without loggin in, so it is probably the first thing they will want to do when they come to the site.
The overall look of the site was freshened with bright colors, rounded boxes, and added white space. All of the colors and fonts used comply with the Rutgers Identity program. The color adds contrast and allows for consistency on all pages and helps the user understand which items are related. The pages display well in multiple media formats due to the use of hidden lists that appear in place of the Javascript popup menus when the page is printed or interpreted by a screen reader.
This redesign will allow users to more quickly and easily find the information they're looking for because of its user-friendly navigation terms and easily identifiable search boxes
