Computer interfaces in the past were not so easy to use because the types of interaction were ranging from cables to punch cards, which might need specialty in computer science. Today, thanks to the recent developments in computer technologies, the interaction has become as easy as one touch. A system has four components: user, task, tool, and context. Any problem among one of those components may lead to the failure of the process. Since new computer systems do not require any specialty in computer programming, the range of users is quite wide. That’s why, the design of interfaces is still a challenge for system designers. Designing transparent interfaces can lead to less confusions and increase the efficiency in use. Human-computer interaction is a field that seeks for the ways to develop effective use of computers. Usability studies specifically focuses on such issues as interface designs.

Usability can be defined as effective, efficient, and satisfactory user experiences within particular environments (ISO 9241-11, 1998). In ISO standards, usability has been updated under software engineering part. According to that definition, the software product should be understandable, learnable, operable, and attractive to users and all of these metrics are valid under specific conditions (ISO/IEC FDIS 9126-1, 2000). In daily language, the term usability is frequently used to refer how easy to use any tool. One can see the usability in different forms on TV advertisements. For example, “programmable digital watch”, “telescopic shelf systems”, “fingerprint reading”, and etc. may be some of the various ways promising usable products.

With the emergence of computer and Internet related technologies, the management of information has also become an important issue in addition to usability of interfaces. In order to access, filter, and decide on the necessary information within huge Internet resources, the users need to deal with both the interface and the information embedded in it. Libraries are among the ones that have affected from these changes. In other words, the traditional libraries had to adapt their systems to online formats, which means to serve much more people (Takci & Sogukpinar, 2001).

When there were no computers, libraries were completing such processes as lending and cataloging manually. Today, all of these processes are done by library management systems, which enable to decrease the workload and increase the efficiency. BLISS, VTLS, INNOPAC, KYBELE, and LIBRA are some of the library software. Although these systems considerably provided many advantages for librarians, the user side of the system is still complicated.

Today, students in higher education generally use online search engines as the primary source for their works. However, studies suggest that they value library resources than online information (Colon-Aguirre & Fleming, 2012). Searching for a new information on the web might be different than searching offline in terms of quality, correctness, relevance, satisfaction, and speed (Chen, Jeon, & Mi-Kim, 2014). These studies had a focus on the search behavior of users, but did not relate the search tool’s design with the usability. In this study, we focused on a university’s library web site. In order to understand the experiences of users with the online library interface, we explored the following research questions:

1. What are the design problems that users face while interacting with online library user interface?
2. What are the expectations of users from an online library interface?

Chen, Y., Jeon, GY.J., & Mi-Kim, Y.-M. (2014). A day without a search engine: an experimental study of online and offline searches. Experimental Economics, 17(4), 512-536. Colon-Aguirre, M., & Fleming-May, R. A. (2012). You just type in what you are looking for. Undergraduates’ use of library resources vs. Wikipedia. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 38(6), 391–399. ISO 9241-11 (1998). Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals (vdts) part 11: Guidance on usability ISO/IEC FDIS 9126-1. Software Engineering - Product quality - Part 1: Quality model (2000) Takci, H., & Soggukpınar, I. (2001). Kütüphane otomasyon sistemleri ve bir uygulama.