Dana, It was good to see you in Tucson at WMA. I will take a stab at this question. This response is appropriate for any evaluation, not necessarily evaluation of a search engine.
Success is whatever you define as success prior to starting your evaluation. Success is then defined as whether or not you met your stated goal and/or objective. Everything you mention could be a goal and/or objective of a redesigned search engine. In this case, if you decide to measure success as online visitors being able to find the desired information and/or object, and your online visitors are able to do so, then this means success. Whether this translates into a visit to the physical site depends upon the unique needs of the online visitor. You could define a certain group of visitors and see if their behaviors are impacted by the efficiency of the search engine. If you decide to offer some advanced search features with a goal of helping advanced or sophisticated users plan their visit, then this might be considered a measure of success as well. Sorry if this sounds less than concrete, but your assessment should be based on what the desired outcome is of the search engine. You could even define some other possible outcomes such as enabling online visitors to create their own links between objects in your collection and your online content. This could be even trickier to assess, but still possible. Essentially, everything you mention could be measured against what you know about your existing search engine. Best wishes on your project. John On 10/1/02 12:42 PM, "Dana Mitroff" <[email protected]> wrote: > Has anyone redesigned the search engine on their institutional website and > conducted formal usability studies of the results? > > We in the process of redesigning the search engine on the SFMOMA site and > integrating an online version of our collections management database into > the site-wide search functionality. > > We are working with a pro-bono usability consultant on usability and user > interface design, and are trying to establish some parameters on which to > measure the success of the redesigned search engine. > > What have been others' experiences in measuring the success of their museum > search engine? > > Does "success" mean people use the website instead of calling the > information number or emailing the webmaster? Does "success" mean users find > what they are looking for on your site in x number of seconds and have a > positive experience? Does it mean that more people visit the physical > museum? How did you measure and evaluate the success of your redesigned > search engine? > > We would welcome any insight or experience. > > Many thanks, > Dana Mitroff > > ............................. > Dana Mitroff > Senior Web Manager > San Francisco Museum of Modern Art > 151 Third Street San Francisco, CA 94103-3159 > [email protected] > www.sfmoma.org > > --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [email protected]
