Interacting with Content: Improving the User Experience

Introduction

11:00 a.m. – 11:10 a.m.

Keynote Address: Great Content, Great Experience

11:10 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Librarians have long served as evaluators of publications, as collectors of knowledge, and as managers and preservers of collections. Over time our role has evolved to also encompass creation and authorship in our own right – of scholarship and publications, in both traditional and new fora; and of content describing our libraries’ services, resources and collections. While measures of quality, credibility, impact and intention have been developed for published works, how do we measure the effectiveness, usability and clarity of the content we ourselves create about our own collections and services? How can we be sure that we are creating a great experience for our users through first creating great content?

Service Design: Towards a Holistic Assessment of the Library Experience

 2:00 p.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Librarians are not new to designing or assessing services, but we tend to develop each service in isolation from the other services we offer, with little to no user input prior to implementation. Service design is a holistic, co-creative, and user-centered approach to understanding user behavior for creating or refining services. In service design, we look at the entire ecology and the holistic experience of using the Library and its services from the user’s perspective. This session explores the service design methodology as a relevant method for service assessment and creation in a library environment and discusses the various tools libraries and librarians can use to implement a service design approach to assessment. It also illustrates the service design approach with a case study from the Reed College Library.

Object-Oriented UX

12:30 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. 

An OOUX is a digital system that is intentionally organized around real-world objects and their relationships. Users can clearly identify object instances, their classification, and their relationships. An OOUX strives to reflect a user’s mental model of the real world. OOUX puts heterarchy over hierarchy and contextual navigation over global drill-down navigation. In this talk, Sophia will cover why object-oriented thinking is important and how to start designing "objects first."

Lunch Break

1:00 p.m. - 1:35 p.m.

Sponsor Spotlight: The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Publishing

1:35 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

User Behavior Metrics: Identifying Patterns and Improving Experiences Across Services

1:45 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. 

Web analytics tools offer libraries plenty of data that reveals how users interact with online resources. Beyond visitor counts and bounce rates, though, analytics data allows insights into patterns of user behavior. Comparing usage statistics across services and timeframes may help libraries identify their areas of strength and opportunity. In this session, I will discuss how I converted the Indiana University Kokomo Library's website and discovery service analytics data into user experience stories. I will offer suggestions for turning these UX stories into targeted advocacy efforts to improve both online and physical library services.

Iterative User Experience Testing in an Academic Library

2:15 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.

Many libraries do usability or user experience (UX) testing before planning a major website redesign. There is a tendency in libraries to delay UX testing until it is “necessary” because a number of smaller changes have occurred, or are about to occur, or because patrons complaints have accumulated. UX testing does not need to wait for major changes, or an accumulation of smaller change, to a website. It can be used to refine an existing website. UX testing done between website revisions informs us how patrons are using a website and where problems are occurring. It can be focused on parts of the website that are suspected to be underused or confusing for users. Iterative UX testing allows libraries to identify ways to improve their websites between major redesigns. Ongoing UX testing also helps libraries prepare for major website changes that follow a "hurry up and wait" pattern. Librarians at Odum Library, at Valdosta State University, implemented an iterative UX testing plan in 2011. In this presentation we will discuss our experiences planning and implementing iterative UX testing, our findings and whether it was beneficial (it was!), challenges we have faced in maintaining an iterative UX plan, and recommendations for other libraries.

Afternoon Break

2:45 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

THE UX of Scholarship

3:00 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.

The Editors of Weave: The Journal of Library User Experience

User Experience (UX) techniques are used to improve websites, services, and even physical spaces. But what about Academic Scholarship? At Weave: The Journal of Library User Experience, the editors and editorial board are all UX practitioners, so using UX techniques comes naturally when improving the journal for both authors and readers. We've redesigned the submission process and editorial workflows based on author experiences, and have made a number of changes to improve the value and experience of Weave's content for our readers.

Free-Range Find: User Research in the Wild

3:45 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. 

Today’s students employ diverse search strategies to discover content in support of their studies. With search results serving as the staple of the digital ecosystem, creating that experience hinges on a deep understanding of user needs at that critical juncture. While usage metrics may reveal the user’s clicks, the story behind those choices may remain untold. And as usability testing proves useful in identifying areas for improvement, going off-script to capture user pain points is not always sanctioned. Looking outside the confines of traditional research methods allows capturing the “free-range” insights of today’s researchers. This presentation will feature the experiences of the User Research Team at EBSCO Information Services as they set out to illuminate the user journey of scholarly research. Attendees will learn what what page designs elicit smiles, smirks, confusion or delight. Learnings from ethnographic studies will be shared, with insights about the complex feelings students have about searching for information and their diverse strategies for evaluating search results.

Roundtable Discussion ​​​​​​​

4:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Moderated by: Todd Carpenter, Executive Director, NISO