It’s There, But Can You Find It?: Usability Testing the Archive-It Public Interface

Alexis Antracoli, Princeton University
Sumitra Duncan, Frick Art Reference Library

Archive-It is used by governments, universities, and non-profit institutions in 17 countries. It is one of the most widely used web archiving tools in the world, but how easy is it for researchers to find what they are looking for in the discovery interface? Do researchers even know that the tool exists or how it differs from the Internet Archive? Seven archivists and librarians at six institutions in the United States spent the last year asking exactly these questions. Little is currently known about the usability of archival discovery systems, and even less about those devoted specifically to web archiving. This project filled in one of those knowledge gaps, answering questions about the usability of the Archive-It user interface for a range of users.

Representing Princeton, Temple, and Columbia universities, Swarthmore College, the Frick Art Reference Library, and the Delaware Public Archives, the team was constructed to include representatives from the range of institutions that make use of Archive-It as a web archiving tool. The team conducted usability tests with faculty, students, staff, and the general public at their respective institutions. Testing examined the ability of users to find specific archived websites using available search, browse, and sort features; to understand the language used by web archivists to describe websites (i.e. seed, capture), and to find groups of related websites and archived videos. The team also explored whether users knew about or had previously used archived websites in their work. After completing thirteen tests with at least two users representing each target audience (faculty, staff, students, and the general public) and each institution, the team coded and analyzed the results. This poster and talk will present both the methods and results of these tests, pinpointing areas where the Archive-It interface succeeds as well as specific suggestions for improvement.