Gale Product Enhancements
Gale will continue to release phases of experience and design changes across its portfolio of products. On December 18, 2020, the following Gale Primary Sources products will receive enhancements:
These product enhancements are designed to increase access to library resources online, in the classroom and have a greater impact on user success. Many of the early enhancements are foundational in nature, laying the groundwork for an exciting future of ongoing iteration where user insights are captured and applied with greater agility.
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Support multiple points of access: As libraries employ centralized search via discovery and other catalog systems, Gale recognizes that users increasingly take different paths into Gale products. The product homepage is no longer the universal starting point. These new, intuitive design modifications empower users to quickly orient themselves within a Gale product, so they can spend less time orientating to the resource and more time thinking critically about the content.
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Foster digital literacy and enhance usability: Digital resources simplify the research process by consolidating a high-volume of information into online databases, but they also cast a wider net, presenting users with access to extensive amounts of content. This exposure can be overwhelming at times. Gale’s new search UI focuses the experience on the data points needed to help users identify content relevant to their needs, encouraging critical evaluation and selection.
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Research smarter, not harder: Gale products are predominately centered on users, not tools or content. Product features are carefully selected and designed to drive user outcomes, not detract from them. The thoughtful design promotes a positive research experience by emphasizing elements users find most valuable. This approach is consistently applied across the core Gale product suite, which can be introduced at grade school or grad school or at a point of need for any public library patron.
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Promote engagement and collaboration: Gale’s new interfaces incorporate a familiar and modern product experience on par with other sites users visit in their day-to-day, designed to build comfort and confidence in traversing a library database. We’ve also incorporated new tools and supports to help make users more likely to choose Gale products. Interactive search tools like Topic Finder are now given more prominence, encouraging further exploration and discovery of content. The new “Explorer” panel highlights “More Like This” document recommendations and other supporting information without detracting from the reading experience. A streamlined and “sticky” toolbar maintains easy access to collaborative features like Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, so users can continue to engage with Gale content even after they’ve left the product. Coming soon, new innovations such as “Related Search Terms” will make smart recommendations based on other users’ search behaviors.