Anyone who's tried to walk a student through using a website knows that it can be a pretty difficult process, especially if the student is lacking in either their knowledge of academic materials or basic website organization (or both!). That's what makes this particular study so interesting:
Imler, B., & Eichelberger, M. (2014). Commercial Database Design vs.
Library Terminology Comprehension: Why Do Students Print Abstracts
Instead of Full-Text Articles?. College & Research Libraries, 75(3), 284-297. http://crl.acrl.org/content/75/3/284.full.pdf+html
They found that undergraduate students were actually fairly good at understanding the terms
full text, pdf, and abstract, but actually navigating a journal's website to get to the full text was where the process broke down.
I'm not particularly surprised. Most undergraduates don't have a lot of experience looking for full text links, and they're unlikely to pop out to the untrained eye. The terms they asked to define weren't particularly difficult, or even exclusive to libraries. I'd hope that basic critical thinking skills would help someone define "full text" (which was the term that was defined correctly most often).
I also liked their recommendation that links to full text get more prominence on the page. UX isn't rocket science, but hardly anyone seems to manage to do a half-way decent job of it.
Here are my random thoughts on the issues brought up in the article:
"Library jargon"
I actually hate that term. It implies that libraries are using a bunch of ridiculous terms that no one would ever have to know in any other situation in their lives. That may be true of the term
monograph, but the vast majority of terms that are labeled "library jargon" are far from exclusive to the world of libraries. We're doing a disservice to students (and citizens) by acting as if these are words that will never show up in another context, and aren't particularly important to know anyway. The few terms that are somewhat exclusive to librarianship (and publishing) don't actually show up in library instruction these days anyway, so there's little reason to wring our hands over whether or not
festschrift is a useful term.
Many of the terms that get labeled as "library jargon" are central for participating in the world of office work. Just about anyone who sits behind a desk is going to have to deal with PDFs, databases, and search limits. I don't understand how computer science careers and Big Data are constantly topics of conversation, but librarians act as if a "database" is this random thing that no one will have to know about past their last undergrad research paper. Instead of running away from these terms, we'd be better off embracing them: database, query, Boolean, metadata, etc. are the basic vocabulary for anyone who is going into a computer or data science career. By teaching these terms early, we're laying a groundwork that can help people move into IT-driven careers (if they so choose), or simply be better placed to incorporate technology in their non-technology jobs. Not to mention improving citizens' ability to understand what is happening when they read reports of government surveillance of citizens' communications.
Web design
It never ceases to amaze me just how difficult it can be to navigate a journal's website. It's as if they didn't spend any time at all thinking about how annoying it is to have to dig for the links that are most-often needed by users. It's not just the full text links that get lost. It can be difficult to get a persistent link or the citation information in an easily copied-and-pasted format. It's also difficult to find the archive of previous issues on many journal websites, and others are poorly integrated into Google Scholar.
I guess I shouldn't be complaining. Poor website design is actually job security for reference librarians. Who cares if "everything" is on the Internet if half the population can't navigate to it without help?
