Introduction
Following up and expanding upon the recent change to the login screen and Home page, 2015 enhancements to QuestionPoint feature a new interface for librarians and redesigned forms for library users. The new interface design reflects suggestions from librarians who use the QuestionPoint service to manage their virtual reference services.
You will see larger, clearer, more contemporary menus, action buttons, font styles, colors and sizes, all featuring a simplified logo and banner. These changes are designed to improve the user experience on both desktop/laptop machines as well as make the pages function better on tablets and smart phones for both patrons and librarians. Your library group can continue to display its branding with a local logo on both librarian and patron’s interfaces.
A new Product Manager for QuestionPoint
It is our pleasure to introduce our new QuestionPoint Product Manager, Tom Haney, who comes to OCLC with an extensive background in Product Management. Tom recently worked for (ICS)2, where he was Web Strategist.
Interface Refresh
Librarian Account
Login Screen
Featuring our new banner and font sizes:
Figure 1: Librarian Logon screen
My QuestionPoint page
The Module Select list has moved to a more convenient position on the left border, directly above the Questions lists. Custom Logo is now featured in the center of the screen. Final display size of a custom logo will be 200x45 pixels.
Figure 2: QuestionPoint Home page
Ask, KB, Admin and Profile Modules
Same layout, with larger fonts, new icons on navigation tabs, and updated status icons
Figure 3: Ask: Question list
Full Question View:
Larger action buttons, better spaced for touch screens and mobile users.
Figure 4: Full question View
Reports Module
Figure 5: Institution Chat report
OCLC hosted patron chat and email forms
The biggest change the patron forms is the upgrade to “Submit/Connect” buttons, which make the forms more accessible and mobile-friendly.
Figure 6: OCLC hosted patron email form
Patron Account
The patron accounts have also been updated with the new look. This also improves the view and usability on tablets and smartphones.
Figure 7: Patron account login
Figure 8: Patron account Questions
Enhancements and Bug Fixes
Qwidget code snippet upgraded
The Qwidget code snippet available from Admin module>Forms>Forms Manager>Qwidget Creation has been upgraded to remove the reliance on external Google APIs. This makes the Qwidget inherently more compatible with many 3rd party products such as SirsiDynix CMS, ProQuest databases and LibGuides 2, that may have competing APIs in their own interfaces. If you have contacted OCLC within the last 6-8 months to receive “custom code” you do not need to make any changes to your Qwidget. If you have not successfully embedded the Qwidget, but did not contact OCLC for assistance, please try again using the new snippet in the Admin module as mentioned above.
If the Qwidget on your website does not resemble this version in graphic appeal first introduced in summer 2014, (nicknamed the V.4 Qwidget), we encourage all QuestionPoint users to take advantage of the current version of Qwidget, so that your users will benefit from a display that adapts to a wide range of Android devices.
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(See mobile compatibility chart: http://www.oclc.org/support/services/questionpoint/documentation/Requirements.en.html#Mobile)
What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor now has font face options and font size options:
Librarians can now choose from a variety of fonts and sizes to better convey the intended content in the Answer and Scripted message interfaces, and they can convert the Answer screen to a larger default size by hiding the Tooltips.
Figure 10: WYSIWIG show/hide and fonts
The Answer screen still provides the original, completely customizable sizing feature. To use this, click and drag the handle in the bottom right corner.
Figure 11: WYSIWYG sizing handle
Change email feature in Ask module now has an email validator
Currently, the Email and Confirm Email fields in the Ask "Change patron email" feature have a match validator, but the initial email field itself has no validator that checks to see if the email is well-formed. With this install a “loose” validator has been added to the initial email field to ensure that the librarian entering the email address the requisite @ and . components.
Figure 12: Change email validation
Retired Features
Every product needs to continue to evolve to respond to its users’ changes and habits. In order to keep QuestionPoint vital and make way for future changes, some unused or underutilized features are retired as other features and capabilities grow.
With this release, we are retiring the Global Reference Network question referral capability. For now, the change that may be most noticed by librarians is the absence of the “Refer to Global Network” option in the Ask module. In future releases, we will improve the Profile module and Policy Pages.
In addition, we have retired the following unused languages in the QuestionPoint interface:
Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Japanese, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Swedish, Turkish
These languages had been unsupported with translation for the past several years. Removing them from the language select list has made the language selector more convenient to use by those whose languages we continue to support.
24/7 Reference Cooperative Enhancements
The Cooperative Resources page, linked from the Home Page and accessible only to 24/7 Cooperative members has also received a facelift.
Install date and time: June 14, 2015, at 6:00 to 6:30 GMT (2:00 AM EDT to 2:30 AM EDT)
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