Making Smart Fulfillment Smarter: enhancing Alma's request options within Primo to improve the user experience

Abstract

The University of Minnesota is currently working a project that aims to ease the process of requesting a library resource in Primo. For some resources, users presently see multiple "request" options in Primo that offer (1) paging services, (2) recall services, (3) digitization services, as well as (4) Inter-Library loan options. These services can be complex in back-end systems but the front-end service should be kept as simple as possible. Local Primo usability testing has demonstrated that users get frustrated and give up on requesting if the options are too complex. Minnesota’s project has two basic goals: avoid the user needing to know what library service is most appropriate and allow users to initiate requests without first having signed into Primo. Assuming success, Minnesota's project will roll out to users during the summer of 2017. This presentation will discuss the areas within Smart Fulfillment that Minnesota is attempting to improve and the technical challenges encountered.