Anthropological motivated usability evaluation: An exploration of IREON – international relations and area studies gateway

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the usability of the recently developed IREON – International Relations and Area Studies Gateway – with the aid of an anthropological motivated research design. Within such an approach, the work environment and subject experiences of the test subjects become a crucial part of the observation.

The objectives are achieved by contextualisation of the digital library under examination. Furthermore, previous evaluation models of digital libraries are discussed from an anthropological point of view. As a result, a multi‐method approach that is context‐relative and self‐reflexive is applied to assess the usability of IREON.

The structural and cultural complexity of people involved in the development, operation and usage of IREON justifies a multi‐method approach. Whereas information specialists and web designers tend to focus on different kind of problems, there is a high degree of common discoverability between political science students and researchers.

Because of the contingent nature of digital library usage, evaluation methods and findings have to be always reassessed.

Anthropologically motivated usability evaluations are an inexpensive but efficient way to improve design activities.

This paper provides librarians with basic knowledge of anthropological methods to evaluate digital library services.