On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 3:02 PM, Rosenthal, Danielle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> This was a question (or task) on our last web usability study. And yes, even though our page clearly stated "Enter database name here" above the search box in big bold letters, we watched as those instructions were ignored by many new users unfamiliar with the system.

If I remember our old usability work from back in the day, a big part
of the problem is that the term "database" isn't well-understood. Even
the concept has been tricky, in my experience. I remember explaining
to one researcher that they're "like Google Scholar, except they might
have different articles and are hard to use."

Since starting work in a lab, I've come to question the importance of
finding article databases (at least in this field). Peoples' search
strategies seem to be:

1: Google Scholar
2: Pubmed

Cheers,
-Nate