Evaluación de usabilidad de sitios web de bibliotecas de universidades públicas chilenas a partir del método SIRIUS

Abstract

This article presents the results of a heuristic usability evaluation applied to 17 websites of libraries of public chilean universities, using the SIRIUS method ”System of Web Us-ability Evaluation, User Oriented and Based on the Determination of Critical Tasks” For data collection, SIRIUS fixed guideline was used, which contains 10 heuristics that are subdivided into a total of 83 sub-heuristics evaluated by 5 experts with knowledge about libraries and usability websites. The results indicate that the best evaluated university libraries have good labeling mechanisms, layout and ease of interaction, while, as a whole, the websites lack navigation aids for their users. Finally, it is concluded that heuristic evaluation is a valid, fast, easy and applicable method in university library websites, as long as experts and heuristics are properly defined. Likewise, SIRIUS is an adequate tool since it has a fixed guideline that allows evaluations to be obtained quickly and to facilitate the comparison of its results.