Designing for Digital

No matter what your job or mission in life: if you are working with other people you are dealing with information architecture. Information Architecture is the way that we arrange the parts of something to make it understandable. Whether it is determining the labels for your products and services or creating navigational systems to help users move through a complex ecosystem of marketing channels, everybody architects information.

The concepts one has to understand to practice information architecture thoughtfully are not hard to learn or based on expensive tools. In fact they are tools and concepts we at the Information Architecture Institute think everybody should know.  This half day workshop is meant to introduce the concepts of IA and give you confidence in practicing IA yourself. 

The workshop is divided into three main lessons that each have lecture and workshop components:

1. Ontology: Know what you mean when you say what you say by using Continuums, Controlled Vocabularies and Content Modeling 
2. Taxonomy: Structure is Rhetoric. Learn to use and understand Hierarchy/Heterarchy/Sequence Creation and how to understand facets 
3. Choreography: Learn how to plan for the spaces between the places you make. 

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

"Easy to use" and "user friendly" have become part of our cultural vocabulary.  For customers, these concepts represent the lens in which a user experience is evaluated. For business and product owners, these concepts become prioritized goals that are rarely defined and even harder to measure.

In successful digital product companies, Interaction design is used to understand what needs to be created so that users can accomplish their goals in the most "user friendly" manner possible.

While some product teams are fortunate enough to have Interaction Designers - a team member who's role is to understand how users view the world, so that they can  create something that helps them achieve a goal- most do not. They rely on existing team members to make smart decisions about what to make and how to make it.

This workshop explores the tools and methodologies of interaction design. As a group we will:

• look at examples of how interaction designers create user friendly dialogue between a person and a product, system or service.

• practice the primary methods for discovering "What to make" and "how it should behave"

• practice creating design assumptions and testing those through rapid prototyping with real people.

This workshop is open to everyone. It is recommended for those with little to no interaction design experience.

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Before the web became interactive, information architecture put UX designers on the map. All those "pages" of static content had to be bucketed, filed, and organized. Information Architecture was our main value-add on the web. Then the web started becoming interactive. People were transacting on the web.  Usability, user interfaces, and storyboarding became a new focus. Now projects are not broken down by sections of the IA, they are broken down by task flows (or user stories). But now, in a post-responsive-revolution world, we need to shift our focus again. We need a new paradigm to ensure that we create simple, efficient, and consistent modular systems of dynamic object.

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Looking to transform your library and your services to be more responsive, effective and user-centered? Interested in revitalizing your own practice? Want to have more fun at work? Librarians transitioning into user experience (UX) work as well as those wishing to strategically integrate UX thinking into library operations will benefit from this interactive workshop. This session will define UX design within the context of librarianship to establish groundwork for UX-based thinking and decision-making in professional practice. Attendees will be presented with concrete strategies for identifying, implementing, and evaluating user-driven changes to improve physical and virtual services. At the conclusion of the workshop, participants will take away a UX roadmap customized to their own institutional use case. 

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

To best provide library services that meet user needs, librarians are increasingly asked to follow a formal feedback-gathering process that collects accurate and actionable data to inform decision making. A home-grown survey can be a valuable tool in gathering satisfaction data but poorly constructed survey questions are all too common. Poorly written survey questions not only confuse respondents but also lead to substantial measurement error and misleading results. This half-day workshop will focus on how to construct survey questions that produce meaningful results that are valid and reliable. The instructor will review elements of survey process and introduce different types of survey questions, followed by a class activities to evaluate less-than-ideal survey questions and to develop survey items. This workshop is designed to be a beginner level course for those who are interested in participating assessment activities in libraries and information centers.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand elements of survey process.

• Write effective survey items, using different types of survey questions.

• Evaluate survey content and distinguish between well-written and poorly written survey questions.

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Most digital products no longer exist as a contained product offering - i.e. a tool that accomplishes a finite set of predetermined tasks. Today’s digital products are connected.  They manifest across multiple touch-points (mobile, tablet, web, in-person, etc..) and their interactions evolve with the user over time.

Thanks to product offerings from companies like Google, Amazon and Apple; our expectations of business who create digital products have also changed.  We expect these experiences to be interconnected; where my calendar is aware of events that appear in my email, or my eReader automatically displays purchases made via my phone. Today’s digital products behave more like services - fluid experiences that manifest across multiple touch-points over time.

This demand for a seamless user experience is also changing the way business and product managers develop products. In order to develop meaningful, long-term relationships with their customers, they are forced to work across previously isolated teams and business units. Not only does this present a challenge for those who try, but most organizations quickly realize they lack the capability to even define their service offering, let alone the expertise to craft and maintain it. 

Business and product managers must rethink their approach toward developing products & services that support meaningful user experiences. They must reframe their disconnected touch-points into a single connected service offering.

This workshop outlines an advanced approach to defining, crafting, and refining a service offering that manifests across a series of diverse touch-points. In this workshop, we will:

• examine two real world examples of complex services
• focus on how to create visual artifacts that drive organizational alignment around the service ecosystem
• apply systems thinking to real world problems

While this workshop is open to everyone, people with design or product management experience are encouraged.  

Participants will walk away with a basic understanding of customer journey mapping and service blue printing; two methodologies integral to the creation of a seamless service experience. 

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Many libraries promote web-scale discovery systems as the primary access point to their content. These systems, such as Summon, EBSCO Discovery Service, and Primo, deliver more seamless access to more content, and from more desperate than previously possible. Yet, do they really deliver a quality user experience?Discovery services exist in a complex online environment and must play nicely with the library website, embedded search forms, local library catalogs and user accounts, OpenURL resolvers, and interlibrary loan and local library accounts. Our workshop examines user experience across all of these systems. We aim to make the workshop vendor agnostic with a focus on solutions that can be applied in most vendor systems and on locally-controlled websites. We will begin with a review of existing usability studies and explore usability testing methods that can be implemented at participants' home institutions. Data is worthless unless it is actionable, and so we will dive into interpreting results of a usability study, turning data into ideas for improvement, and manipulating discovery systems to implement changes. The workshop includes exercises for participants to draft a usability test they can apply in their library to assess the usability one or more aspect of their discovery environment.

Most companies consider strong product management to be the “glue” that holds together products as they are being conceived of and built, and most companies treat product management as either a marketing or an engineering activity. But modern startups like Airbnb and large corporations like JetBlue or Starbucks have proven that industry disruption is possible not by focusing on adding features or just improving sales, but instead by focusing on providing deep, meaningful engagement to the people that use their products or services. This engagement is achieved by designing products that seem as though they have a personality, or even a soul. These products feel less like manufactured artifacts and more like good friends.
Design doesn’t refer only to aesthetics or usability, although these are things consumers are most likely to notice or appreciate. Design is both a noun and a verb. It can mean the visual or tactical quality of a product, as well as the process by which products are conceived. Design is a more comprehensive way of thinking about people and human behavior than engineering or marketing. It is a product development process that uses empathy with a community of potential consumers in order to identify problems to solve. Design leverages a certain way of thinking in order to infer solutions to those problems that will have meaningful emotional appeal, and a strong market fit.
In this talk, you’ll learn how to apply that process yourself using these four steps:
- Identify product/market fit, by seeking signals from communities of users
- Identify behavioral insights, by conducting ethnographic research
- Sketch a product strategy, by synthesizing complex research data into simple insights
- Define the product details, using visual representations to simplify complex ideas

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

The last decade has been one of rapid change for libraries as we attempt to keep up with the ever-changing needs and demands of users.  Making it even more daunting are the diverse service needs and expectations of students and faculty in various disciplines. In this climate of constant change, understanding user experience with new services and technologies is critical.  According to ISO 9241-210,2010 standards, user experience is defined as “a person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service.”  Within the context of libraries, user experience focuses on the user’s feelings while using library collections, discovery tools, or services, and it is influenced by the expectations and experiences of the user.  Successful system and service design that meets user expectations depend on an organizational commitment to user-focused design, data-driven decision making, and communication.  The 2010- 2013 Columbia University Libraries/Information Services (CUL/IS) Strategic Plan explicitly called for the Libraries work to be guided by user- focused design and data-driven decision making: “In the years ahead, the work of CUL/IS will be guided by [the following principles]: user-focused design, data-driven decision making, continuous assessment of results, and flexible and adaptive response to user needs.” As has been the case with our counterparts across the nation, we have made great strides in each of these areas included in the strategic plan to better understand our users’ experiences and expectations. This talk presents a sample of the types of user experience projects that we have completed in the last two years. Highlights include five projects, each utilizing a different method, that led to changes in the platforms used to deliver digital services and collections as well as changes in how we staff these services:

- Usability testing of Libraries discovery tool and website

- Exploiting Google Analytics data to improve Libraries discovery tool and website

- Interviews and focus groups to understand eBook usage and perceptions

- Observation studies to advance our understanding of user interactions with library environment and technology

 

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Like any large structure, the process of building a library website starts long before the first line of code is written: budgets, RFPs, timelines, identifying (and balancing) the needs and preferences of diverse stakeholders, representing complex services and structures -- and all in a design that pleases everyone and complies with brand standards. How do we ensure that overarching concerns like user experience, content strategy and governance, and accessibility don’t simply fall by the wayside as the project progresses? In this session, Courtney Greene McDonald, Head of Discovery & Research Services at Indiana University Libraries, and Rick Cecil, Director of User Experience at Bluespark Labs share five common challenges experienced in library website redesign projects, with tips and insights drawn from their contrasting perspectives from inside and outside the library. Attendees will come away with processes, techniques and methodologies to tackle these common challenges, even before the first wireframe is sketched.

 

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Quality web content is absolutely essential to the user experience, yet it is all too often neglected on library websites. Let’s give content the attention it deserves. In this practical session, learn how to implement a strategy to care for the entire lifecycle of your web content.

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Fast Talks: UX Projects & Research

This 45-minute session allows for 10 minute Fast Talks on four projects.  Find these presenters later in the day to dive into details or ask questions. 

1. A Library Catalog UX Study in Preparation for a Website Redesign
Mary Marissen, Collections Specialist, Swarthmore College Library

The consortium of Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr and Haverford College Libraries had plans already in place to engage a web design firm for a catalog redesign, when a Swarthmore alumnus, professional UX consultant and educator, volunteered his expertise to guide a UX study for the site. Under his guidance and with the help of a full-time student intern, we conducted formative user tests to learn how students understand the catalog and navigate searches. We shared our study and resulting recommendations with the design firm, who in conjunction with their own processes, will be ready to unveil the new site design in February 2015.

2. Designing for Better Database Discovery: Simplifying a Complicated Problem
Alex Sundt, Web Services Librarian, Utah State University

Despite the power of web-scale discovery, to effectively search large and diverse e-resource collections, library users still need to utilize the native search features of many databases. But often just choosing a good resource can be a difficult task, forcing users to invest significant time and energy trying out different options to find the database that’s “just right” for their information needs. Without strong cues, meaningful descriptions, or appropriate tools to help identify good resources, users resort to trial and error, or turn to databases that have worked well in the past, only to be frustrated when these strategies don’t meet their current needs. To alleviate this guesswork, a team of librarians and programmers at the Merrill-Cazier Library decided to investigate ways to support better decision-making and reduce the interaction costs for users wanting to browse our e-resource collection. Informed by an earlier usability study, our new design simplifies the user experience, while improving database presentation and adding navigation options that can help users make more informed and successful resource selections. This session will demonstrate our design prototype, describe initial findings from user testing, and propose additional steps and potential enhancements to increase the usefulness of this design.

3. UX @ NYU Libraries: How One Library Department is Incorporating UX Methods for a Better Web Presence
Juliana Culbert, Emerging Technologies Librarian at Rochester Institute of Technology, formerly part of UX Dept. at NYU Libraries

The plethora of user centered methods can make it hard to determine what approaches fit best when trying to improve library interfaces for users. In this session, you’ll hear about some effective UX methods the User Experience Department at NYU Libraries employs to create a better, more user-friendly web presence. As a small, versatile department, we work with stakeholders from around the university to incorporate user centered methods into agile product design and development.

4. Rinse & Repeat Usability Testing
Marie Maxey, Product Analyst, UX, SAGE Publications

At SAGE we’re experimenting with the ability to use a ‘rinse and repeat’ styled approach to our user testing practice. Our goal is to get better at what we do every time we do it, while keeping our methods flexible and responsive to our products requirements. We’re weighing the costs and benefits of different approaches – when are we best served by classic talk-out-loud usability methods? And when do we need a hybrid test that includes semi-structured interviews at the end? How can we best determine tester proficiency, to help inform our analysis of test results? We’d like to achieve a system that encourages our test participants to ‘come again’ and have a long term relationship with us, with the goal of continuing to recruit new participants to build a community around our products.

 

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

We developed a simple, low-frills protocol for a pop-up user study called the Research Confession Booth. Participants were recruited from amongst passersby to complete a ten-minute task at a laptop, while Quicktime captured their screen, mouseclicks, and voice narration. Tasks have included "Show us a favorite feature of a resource you use to do research" and "Walk us through a snag you recently encountered while trying to find information for your coursework." With very little overhead, we've been able to capture a rich trove of information about how our users understand and navigate our systems, and how they actually do their research. We'd like to share the basics of our protocol (including tips on making it IRB-friendly) as well as some highlights from the data we've collected thus far.

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Designing and developing interfaces devoid of understanding the needs and behaviors of your users can lead to fragmented user interactions and interfaces. In this session I’ll discuss some UX strategies and methods-including customer journeys, scenarios, and personas-we've incorporated into product development that ensure the user is central to the process.

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Updating an academic library website to current design expectations can involve an enormous amount of time, requiring testing and development in a number of areas that affect the user’s ultimate experience. This session uses the recent update to the [http://www.library.unt.eduUNT Libraries’ website] as a case study in guerrilla tactics, discussing our study of analytics data and peer sites, adoption of the bootstrap library for rapid development, early html prototyping, patron interviews, and good commons sense in our typographic choices and content strategy as we developed both a mobile-responsive site and bento-box style search application.  We’ll also take a detour into the world of device-based testing and demonstrate how in-browser testing, paired with a small collection of phones and tablets made troubleshooting the design process far easier, how having these types of devices makes sense as a public service within libraries in general, and some of the new user testing tools/toys we have on hand to bring user testing in the libraries up to a whole new level in the coming months and years.

 

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

In Spring 2014, a user experience that was confusing to both library patrons and staff made me begin on the journey to create a UX Team at my university library.  I am eager to share what I learned in the form of practical tips and recommendations on that process: from writing the proposal, to getting buy-in, and selecting projects. In addition, I'll share details of an exciting and productive collaboration with a Qualitative Methods class that provided the newly formed UX Team with a rich source of data and a great place to begin. 

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

During this hour, you will have a chance to take a break, network, and/or join a discussion about creating an online usability clearinghouse of library user testing.

Andrew Darby, Head of Web & Application Development at the University of Miami Libraries, will lead a brainstorming session and discussion on the creation of an online usability clearinghouse for libraries. A lot of library website UX blocks are practically universal (search boxes, catalogs, news carousels, terminology, etc.), and yet we separately test them over and over.  A clearinghouse site would allow one to search thematically (or geographically) and also make the data available for meta analysis.  Andrew will help us start the conversation to determine feasibility and possible next steps.

TESTING LAB CANCELLED

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.

Last year, the New York Public Library established a new department- Department of Digital Experience. With a wide reaching range of services- from cultural programs, education programs, exhibitions, and traditional library services, the NYPL has begun to shape a digital strategy that will serve literacy students, educators, researchers, tourists, families and more. The new department supports existing programs and services, and will explore new opportunities for applications of digital technologies to improve and enhance customer service, program operations, user experience and access to information.

Frank Migliorelli, an experience designer who took the reigns as Director of Digital Experience last July, will talk about the challenges he’s uncovered as this new initiative helps to transform one of the world’s largest library systems. From redeveloping a new website, the approach to digitizing and activating a vast group of collections and archives, and bringing interactive, digital experiences to a traditional artifact-based exhibit program, he’ll share his ideas of creating user experiences that will not only transform NYPL’s on-line world, but also impact and enhance the digital/physical connection between our customers, the famous lion flagship building, the branches, and the NYPL community all over the world.

 

This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference.  Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.