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Elsevier Customer Service colleagues report from Ireland
By Adrian Tedford, Head of EP Customer Support, and Fintan Breen, Head of Information Systems & Support, Elsevier, Shannon, Ireland

Q: What kind of help is available to EES users?

A: This March brought the launch of Elsevier Editorial System (EES) Online Help, a self-help site designed especially for customers using EES. Given that close to 1,400 journals (out of the more than 2,000 published on ScienceDirect) are now using EES, it’s very important to provide comprehensive and easy-to-use help for EES users.

Authors, editors and reviewers can access EES Online Help by:

• Clicking on the Help section on the top navigation bar throughout the EES site
• Clicking on “Support & contact” in the left-hand menu on Elsevier.com pages
• Accessing the site directly at http://epsupport.elsevier.com

EES Online Help offers different views for authors, editors and reviewers. This means that all of the content is customized per customer type, making it easier for users to find the help they need.

Types of help available to all EES users include:

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Learning Centre, including interactive and PDF tutorials
• An online contact form for customer support
• “Search for Answers,” which allows keyword searching for answers in our online knowledgebase

The development of EES Online Help has involved various customer service teams within Elsevier, as well as journal editors outside Elsevier who kindly provided feedback before the site was launched. Ongoing feedback from these external editors, as well as other users of EES Online Help, will guide its future improvement. If you have feedback about the site, please submit your comments via the form at http://epsupport.elsevier.com/.

Tom Noonan of Elsevier’s User Centered Design Group answers your usability questions

Q: How can I make our library website more usable for international users?

A: As the population on university campuses becomes more international, the challenge of providing a usable library website becomes greater. Labels and terms, particularly scientific terms used for searches, can present difficulties as do pictograms or icons. Some researchers even report cultural differences in “self-report of attention” to banners depending on colors used in the banners.

Fortunately, there are some things website designers can do, short of translating the interface. These actions will make websites more usable for ALL users:

• Provide help for spelling and searching. Features like “Did you mean” or Google’s “suggest as you type” can be extremely helpful. Though they may not remember exactly how to spell a term or what the term is, users are likely to recognize it when they see it. Such features are particularly helpful for users not fluent in the language used on the interface.
• Do not use color as the only dimension to impart information. Rather than relying solely on cultural meanings of color (e.g., red means an error), add explanatory text (e.g., the word “Error” to preface an error message).
• Don't use icons that incorporate body parts. This is offensive to some cultures. Furthermore the meaning may be abstruse.
• Allow the use of international character codes.
• Avoid jargon and use concise, plain speech. This is always good advice but is especially true when writing for international users.
• Conform to expectations regarding where to find certain functionalities (e.g., the logo in the upper left, help in the upper right).
• Most importantly, do usability testing with samples of international students and faculty to find out where they may experience problems.