Usability Analysis of the Big Ten Academic Alliance Geoportal: Findings and Recommendations for Improvement of the User Experience

Abstract

The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Geospatial Data Project is a collaboration between twelve member institutions of the consortium and works towards providing discoverability and access to geospatial data, scanned maps, and web mapping services. Usability tests and heuristic evaluations were chosen as methods of evaluation, as they have had a long standing in measuring and managing website engagement and are essential in the process of iterative design. The BTAA project hopes to give back to the community by publishing the results of our usability findings with the hope that it will benefit other portals built with GeoBlacklight.