Study On Usability Evaluation Of University-Digital-Library In China Based On The Information Architecture Rules

The usability of digital library is the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction of the users when they make use of digital library on net. It is investigated that the usability level of web site is low, which is supported by several facts. One is 90% of enterprise sites are poor in usability, another is many users cannot find the information they looks for in the site with 60% times, and so on. As the research about usability of site goes on deep, the usability of digital library is concerned and studied more and more.Information architecture is to design organizing system, labeling system, navigation system and searching system, which aims to help users search and manage information. It contains one space, two methods, three steps, four systems and five emphases. Researches in the past shows information architecture is an important reason for usability. And all the activities of information architecture are restricted by the information architecture rules. University-digital-library also obeys the rules. This paper tries to evaluate its usability with weighted evaluation system.Based on the above, the paper starts from the information architecture rules, uses Delphi Method to build the evaluation system based on the information architecture rules, and invites ten experts to give every one of the guide lines a score by comparing any two of them. Then the author uses the evaluation system with weight to evaluate ten university-digital-libraries in China. From the result, the paper summarizes the characters of university-digital-libraries in China, and finally gives some advice to information architecture which is to improve usability of university-digital-libraries in China.