Category Archives: usability
various coordinates
Looks like someone’s CMS was spitting out funny breadcrumbs. I haven’t seen this too much.
Looks like someone’s CMS was spitting out funny breadcrumbs. I haven’t seen this too much.
Over at our INFLUX blog Amanda and I have been writing a series of posts about easy to do website improvements. Here are the first three.
#01 Wrangling Content
#02 Navigation & Wayfinding
#03 Online Card Application
My latest column is up at LJ’s site. It is called Learn by Asking and here’s a snip from it.
Empathy and preferences
As I discussed in the January 2010 LJ (p. 28), if we want to make deep connections with our communities, we must figure out how people feel. I don’t mean in the narrow sense of sending out a survey. Surveys can be useful for getting a sense of people’s stated preferences (often different from their actual preferences) but rarely go deeper. In fact, relying on surveys and market research techniques alone can actually be harmful, setting up a consumer/producer dynamic that doesn’t let us recognize our patrons as individuals.
Let’s say that half of your library’s renewals are made by telephone. If you know this, you’ve deduced a preference. But what can you really do with this information? There are a number of reasons people might show this preference: they could lack computer access; the online renewal process might not be obvious; or they could enjoy interacting with librarians. What’s more, the response is likely to vary depending on the motivation.
How can we recognize patrons as people and learn about their motivations? As in any good relationship, we can listen to them.
By the way, LJ has created a feed for the series. I’ll likely keep linking from here too.
Seriously. One aspect of creating the future for libraries is to make current libraries amazing.
In our attempt to create amazing user experiences, we often want to push the envelope, to create something new, to show people a bright new future. But too often we fall into the novelty trap. The novelty trap is when, in an attempt to dazzle our clients and our users, we focus too much on the new and not enough on the now.
To create great user experiences we need to focus on the now. In reality the problems of our users are painfully mundane and often obvious. It is our task to ease this pain, and in doing so we might not invent some amazing new thing, but that’s OK. Success is incremental.
Read the whole article at 52 Weeks of UX
I’m writing a column for Library Journal called The User Experience. It’ll appear every other month.
In this month’s I explain what UX is, make the case for librarians as designers, and even talk about Paul Renner.
Every time librarians create a bookmark, decide to house a collection in a new spot, or figure out how a new service might work, they’re making design decisions. This is what I like to call design by neglect or unintentional design. Whether library employees wear name tags is a design decision. The length of loan periods and whether or not you charge fines is a design decision. Anytime you choose how people will interact with your library, you’re making a design decision. All of these decisions add up to create an experience, good or bad, for your patrons.
Maybe I’m out of the loop but I haven’t seen too much about mobile site from North Carolina State University. It is very nice and had the feel of a standalone app. You can preview it without a mobile device on their site: NCSU Libraries Mobile.
What an adorable promotional video!
Via Suzanne at userslib.
INFLUX’s Workshop at IL09
Our slides about library website usability and design.
Making Content Shine
An example of rewriting content for the web.
The Making of influx.us
What we kept in mind while making this site: a mini-case study.
Services must be more than just usable.
Here’s a quick example of something that is novel and entirely usable but isn’t getting used. One of my local haunts put a box of toys on a table that parents can use to entertain kids while they’re in the cafe. Nice idea.
Nothing about the arrangement is preventing people from using it so why is it sitting there neglected? Either people aren’t aware of it or there’s just no need for it.
I often notice the cafe making slight alterations to the physical space. Some stick, some don’t. They seem to be nimble enough to try new things and make a decision about whether or not they’re working.
A great example of how fun design can change people’s behavior. Boundless implications for library buildings and services.
The other day a result from EBSCOhost Connection appeared in one of my searches. This was a first for me. I was initially very excited (Library resources! On the open web!) but this feeling soon faded into that special Yeah-I’m-using-library-resources malaise.
First, I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard of EBSCOhost Connection. Attempting to learn more, a Google search returned 15 results including a Web4lib post from 2006.
I wasn’t particularly interested in the article returned to me but wanted to look at it as a proof of concept so I clicked though. As expected I was presented with the article’s abstract and further action was needed to get to the full text. I assume that if I was in a library and my IP was authenticated the article would have been right there, but since I wasn’t I needed to search for my library to log in.
Problem. My library, Multnomah County, wasn’t listed even though it provides me with access to EBSCOhost through their website.
Note the “Library Sponsored Research Content” seal of approval
Having worked in an Oregon library I happen to know that the state library provides this particular database to libraries in Oregon and that’s probably why MCL wasn’t listed. No one outside of the library field would know this. Would they think to click on the “Oregon State Library?”
Since I did I eventually got to a login box. I tried to use my MCL credentials to login but they didn’t work. I had been defeated by the system and had no other options.
Here’s where we could start assigning blame. Who is responsible for this situation? Our profession for giving money to vendors providing stuff like this? EBSCOhost for not conducting effective user testing or even heuristic evaluations? I dunno. Both? Whatever the case it boils down to this:
We should be ashamed for putting (potential) library users through these experiences.
##########
P.S. I found the article quite easily searching EBSCOHost’s MasterFILE Premier through the Multonomah County Library website. Here’s the permalink they provided. Can you login and see the article with your barcode and PIN? I could not.
