Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: CRISTIANE ALVES SILVA

EVALUATION OF THE INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE OF ACADEMIC LIBRARY WEBSITES: PROPOSAL FOR A USABILITY IMPROVEMENT GUIDE

Information Architecture, Usability, Library websites.

The evolution from the traditional library to library 3.0 is occurring in a fast pace, in this aspect we can see the overload of information driven by Information Technologies and the challenges in organizing and structuring this information. Information Architecture (AI) is a discipline that studies the organization, structuring and availability of information, facilitating its understanding and use in different information environments, favoring the user experience. The intimate relationship between AI and Usability is observed, which is the ability of a system to be used easily and efficiently by the user. Hence the problematic question: How does Information Architecture affect the quality of usability of Brazilian University Libraries websites? Considering that websites are an important tool favoring interaction between university libraries and users, the question arises. It is, therefore, the analysis of Information Architecture (AI), and how the application of its principles and guidelines directly affect the usability of websites. To compose this study, five University Libraries websites were chosen, whose Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) were best ranked in the 2023 Folha de São Paulo Universities Ranking (RUF), representing each Brazilian region, namely: Library System of the State University of Campinas (SBU UNICAMP), Library System of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (SB UFRGS), Central Library of the University of Brasília (BCE UNB), Integrated Library System of the Federal University of Pernambuco (SIB UFPE) and Central Library of the Federal University of Pará (SIBI/UFPA). The general objective of this study is to analyze the quality of usability of university library websites in the five Brazilian geographic regions, using Information Architecture as its theoretical framework. And specific objectives: a) Describe the concepts related to the university library considering its evolution and challenges; b) Identify concepts, elementary components and information architecture approaches for use on university library websites; c) Identify the concepts of usability and heuristic evaluation, an essential contribution to improving University Library websites; d) Analyze the navigation, labeling and search systems of the websites of University Libraries in the five regions of Brazil: SIB UFPE, SIBI/UFPA, BCE UNB, SBU UNICAMP, SB UFRGS, included among the best universities ranked in the RUF (2023); e) Propose a guide with solutions to improve information architecture and usability quality, through AI analysis and update of Borja's (2017)  and of Jacob’s (2015) checklist for University Libraries websites, based on this study. This is an applied, exploratory, descriptive and bibliographical research, based on systems, with a qualitative focus, also using content analysis instruments. It aims to ultimately contribute to the production of an AI improvement guide for university library websites, also updating the usability checklist.