The document discusses keeping up with change and asks what has changed most in the reader's area of work in the last 10 years. It poses two questions without providing any other context or information.
23. • How do you keep up with change?
• What has changed most in your area of work
in the last 10 years?
Hinweis der Redaktion
We are all customer-focused and care about our users. Whether it’s making content easy to understand on a website, or writing code that improves performance and functionality of a tool like LTT, or it’s helping a staff member get their hands on technology that improves how they do their work.
Here are things we do to learn about our users’ expectations (what they want) and behavior (what they do).
As we build up our user research program there’s a lot more we can do.
Ethnographic studies where we observe users interacting with our products and services. Could include observations of space (like iSpace).
Multivariate testing to make better micro-decisions about labels, placement, and designs.
True participatory design where we bring end users into the process, like an entire project where we have research faculty sitting in our meetings and helping us make decisions.
Meaningful metrics that demonstrate the value of our work and the impact of the website on broader library goals.
Working across units – idea of partnering with ODIS on user research (they are interested in this).
Sharing findings at conferences, in the ux library community and beyond, making an impact on library ux globally.
It’s not hard for us to think about how our own experience with technology has changed in the last 5, 10, or 20 years. How have your own expectations of technology changed? (For instance I get frustrated if a page takes more than a couple seconds to load, when I used to use AOL dial up).
How have your users changed? For instance I noticed that at least half of all individual students walking around the mall have a phone out, in their hand, and they are looking at it. They carry it everywhere. If they are in line at On Deck Deli, their phone is out. Everything must work on mobile.
We all design services, products, and systems, whether we’re designing a website, a helpdesk system and workflow, a project management process, or our own office space. We’re all designers whether we realize it or not.
Principles for our web design, but these can translate to other types of user-centered design as we do different types of work.
We have more expertise and continue to up our design game, opportunities to do more. Compelling designs, telling stories through our designs and content, making connections, improving accessibility and responsible responsive designs.
We also have opportunities to consider the entire user journey and make the user journey more seamless (collab w/other units). We can work towards personalizing the experience and continuing to iterate and improve.
What are ways that you connect with your users? Think of something you designed recently in your professional or personal life: an email, a flyer, a poster, a sign, a web page – what did you find challenging? Do you think you connected with your audience?
In the digital age, we are all publishers. You might write web pages, Facebook or Twitter posts, or documents that live up on the web or in Box. So while the design team is focused on making content useful, usable, and findable on our websites, it can go way beyond that.
Content strategy includes auditing and analyzing existing content, creating roles and responsibilities for updating/creating/deleting content, style guides to keep things useful and consistent, trainings for those people responsible for content, and workflows to sustain content and ensure a level of accountability.
Fundamentals for good content include using plain language, focusing on your essential messages, and using active voice. We try to do this on our website, but also in emails, project documentation, and other communication.
Content strategy is still in its infancy here at the library, and we’ve made huge strides but there is potential for growth.
Tom Peters wrote, “Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence, only in constant improvement and constant change.”
Einstein “it’s not that I’m so smart, just that I stayed with problems longer.”