OPAC Usability Problems of Archives: A Case Study of the Hong Kong Film Archive

This study aims to explore common pitfalls of design and functional issues of Open Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) systems for archives for the general public and suggest solutions to approach such problems. Other than general users, this study also suggests ways to enhance the OPAC system to make it more user-friendly to users with special needs, such as the elderly and children. This paper uses a case study approach to evaluate the usability of the OPAC system in the Hong Kong Film Archive (HKFA), which is a representative and important archive of its type. The paper provides practical insights on common pitfalls of design and functional issues of OPAC for archives under such context (such as searching user-friendliness) and suggests technical solutions (such as Web 2.0 and more user friendly input devices) to approach such problems. Although we carried out this usability study mainly based on observation without direct interaction with their target users, we already discover adequate and significant problems for the discussions and suggestions in this paper. The paper includes implications and suggestion for archives to improve the usability and functionality of their OPAC systems, which is a key to their public services. Recently, implementing public Web-based access to archives has become popular. However, there are just few usability studies on such OPAC systems, especially for archives facing the general public instead of just professionals.