Understanding User Behavior via Analysis of Primo Zero-Result Searches

Abstract

At Washington State University Libraries, we migrated to Primo New UI in May 2017. We were curious to know whether or not search behavior changed as a result of the transition to the new interface. Therefore, we analyzed the search strings of our patrons before and after the move to the New UI. And, in fact, we found that there was notable drop in the number of search strings that produced zero results. In this presentation, we will walk through the process that we took to better understand this drop, which led us to a broader appreciation of what searches produce zero results. In order to do so, we compared our findings to other institutions who migrated around the same time period, examined search string data with text analysis tools, identified systematic categories of failure, and took into account technological limitations of the discovery layer. We believe that this presentation has implications for both public services and systems staff alike, strengthening their ability to analyze searching behavior.