Presentation given at the 2010 LITA National Forum

1. “Quick Search” It Is Not: Testing Response Times of Traditional and NextGen Catalogs Nina McHale Margaret Brown-Sica LITA Forum 2010

2. Esteemed Researchers

3. Our Research Forthcoming: Margaret Brown-Sica, Jeffrey Beall, and Nina McHale, “Next-Generation Library Catalogs and the Problem of Slow Response Time,” Information Technology and Libraries, Volume 29/4,December 2010, 207-216.

4. Not-So-Quick-Search

5. Our Research Questions Are NextGencatalogs—or traditional catalogs that add NextGen content—too slow? Do 2.0/NextGen features slow them down too much?

6. Our Conclusions Yup. Features such as cover art, reviews, tagging, etc., can significantly increase the amount of data, and therefore time, required to return a catalog record page. Performance factors, particularly speed, should be required criteria for librarians and vendors evaluating and designing products.

7. Speed Standards? W3C does not set forth standards Jakob Nielsen 0.1 of a second: feels “instantaneous” 1.0 second: feels “uninterrupted” 10 seconds: “About the limit for keeping the user’s attention focused on the dialogue.” Give the user “time-remaining” feedback Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering (San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1994) 135.

8. Our Method During a busy time during the semester, we recorded response times in seconds of permalinks for three catalog records Tested our classic/NextGen catalogs and three others 3 books, 5 catalogs, 3 times per day for 13 days=585 data points Collecting several data points in this way using www.websitepulse.com ensured that data was consistent

9. Additional Catalogs Tested Library of Congress Catalog Voyager Traditional catalog University of Texas at Austin Innovative Interfaces Traditional catalog with added NextGen elements University of Southern California Sirsi/Dynix Traditional catalog with added NextGen elements

10. Books Used Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience. Washington, DC: Special Inspector General, Iraq Reconstruction, 2009. (OCLC number 302189848) Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. 1st ed. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001. (OCLC number 256770509) Langley, Lester D. Simón Bolívar: Venezuelan Rebel, American Revolutionary. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, c2009. (OCLC number 256770509)

11. Permalink Examples http://aurarialibrary.worldcat.org/oclc/302189848 http://skyline.cudenver.edu/record=b2433301~S0 http://lccn.loc.gov/2009366172 http://catalog.lib.utexas.edu/record=b7195737~S29 http://library.usc.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/5?searchdata1=2770895{CKEY}

12. Testing Tools WebSitePulse™ www.websitepulse.com Allows testing on any web page/site; does not require server installation Similar services: websiteoptimization.com browsermob.com tools.pingdom.com your favorite?

13. WebSitePulse™

14. WebSitePulse™ Results Horizontal bar: Gives visual representation of load time for each item (image files, javascript files, style sheets, etc.) Provides quick indication of “sticking points” Table: provides specifics about file size and delivery time for each DNS, Connect, Redirect, First Byte, Last Byte, Error

15. Numbers Crunched: Average Response Time in Seconds Auraria’s Skyline: 1.2930 Auraria’s WCL: 11.5734 Library of Congress: 2.1530 University of Texas at Austin: 3.4997 University of Southern California: 4.1085

16. Individual Catalog Test Results After data was analyzed, we took a closer look at each individual catalog, using the Hard Lessons catalog record WebSitePulse™ allowed us to take a glimpse at the inner workings of each catalog Findings confirmed that extra data and load times were from 2.0/NextGen content

17. “Skyline,” Auraria Library

18. Skyline Test Results: Graph

19. Skyline Test Results: Table

20. Skyline Findings Missing favicon (item 4) 0.9172 seconds “uninterrupted” per Nielsen 14 items, for a total of 84.64 K: 9 GIFs 2 CSS 1 JavaScript Good performance, but an interface that only a librarian could love

21. WorldCat@Auraria

22. WorldCat@Auraria Results: Graph

23. WorldCat@Auraria Results: Table

24. WorldCat@Auraria Findings Reference & Instruction librarians’ observations corroborated 10.3615 seconds 31 items, for a total of 633.09 K, to load: 10 CSS files 10 JavaScript files 8 GIFs/PNGs No single NextGen feature slowed down load time, but multitude of files created unacceptable delay

25. Library of Congress Catalog

26. Library of Congress Catalog Results: Graph

27. Library of Congress Catalog Results: Table

28. Library of Congress Catalog Findings Overall, second fastest of all five catalogs tested 1.2900 seconds Only six items and 19.27 K to load: 2 CSS files 3 GIFs Like Skyline, fast, but has that “legacy look”

29. University of Texas at Austin

30. UT Austin Results: Graph

31. UT Austin Results: Table

32. University of Texas at Austin Findings Added NextGen features: Cover art LibraryThing’s Catalog Enhancement Supports recommendations, tag browsing, alternate editions/translations 2.4674 seconds: user experience interrupted 19 items, 138.84 K Cover art nearly doubles response time Item 14: script on ILS that queries Amazon for art

33. University of Southern California: HOMER

34. USC Results: Graph

35. USC Results: Table

36. USC Findings Slowest among traditional catalogs; Sirsi/Dynix takes longer to make initial connection (Item 1 on graph) 8.7295 seconds (though average was 4.1085 seconds) 16 items, 148.47 K While attractive and well-integrated, Syndetic Solutions content (cover art, summary, author biography, and table of contents) adds 1.2 seconds to load time

37. Isthe ContentWorth the Wait? “The new database seems based on Amazon.com. I don’t need suggestions, and poor ones at that, of related books when I use the library. I don’t need to see what other borrowers thought of the book. The information I need is poorly displayed. It is hard to cut and paste. It takes several screens to scan through, instead of the much quicker scroll in the traditional format…. It supplies distracting, if not useless information (a picture of the cover, the distance to other libraries—as if I need to know how far Provo is).” -Auraria Campus Faculty Member

38. Our Conclusions Make performance testing part of evaluation process for vendor products Adhere to industry standards for acceptable response times when testing Optimize delivery of 2.0/NextGen features as much as possible Conduct user testing to ensure that the content is “worth the wait” to their minds

39. Questions? Comments? Nina McHale @ninermac milehighbrarian.net