hooked on a (ux) feeling

Georgina CroninUX Librarian

Cambridge Judge Business School

@senorcthulhu

‘I’ve got 12% of a plan…’

• Quick history

• Current role

• What does it all mean?

• Why is UX important?

• The future of UX and libraries

• Questions ‘n’ stuff

‘Quit smiling, you're supposed to be professional’

• Yate Library (South Gloucestershire)

• Public library

• Lots of outreach for children

• During undergraduate degree (English and French) at UWE

• Spent a year teaching in France

First (proper) job

• Cambridge University Library

• Legal deposit library

• Over 8 million items, many in closed access areas

• Large fetching team walking several miles a day

• Entrance Hall secondment

Into the polar wilds…

• Scott Polar Research Institute

• Started as Library Assistant, became Senior Library Assistant

• Huge bipolar collection serving international polar community

• Heaps of outreach and education!

• Completed I&LM MSc at Northumbria

Current role

• Cambridge Judge Business School

• Unusual role description

• Potential challenge

• Team constantly pushing limits of librarianship

• Lots of teaching and outreach

• Different environment

What do I actually do?

• EMBA dedicated librarian

• VLE support

• Research teaching and support

• Social media training and research support

• RDM advice

• Open Access advice

• Other typically ‘librarian’-y tasks

• Oh…and I do research too!

‘Come and get your (UX) love’

What on earth is ‘UX’ anyway?

“The overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer

application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use”

Oxford English Dictionary

Across sectors...

• Information Technology and Communication

• Psychology

• Sociology

• Anthropology

• Information literacy

Who takes part in library UX?

• Librarians and information professionals

• Institutions

• Vendors

• IT support

• …and the users themselves!

Five laws of library science (and UX!)

• Books are for use

• Every reader their book

• Every book its reader

• Save the time of the reader

• The library is a growing organism

S.R. Ranganathan

Why is UX important?

• Wants vs. needs

• Learn from users

• Users learn from you

• Improvement of physical layout/ website/ services on offer

Service provision

• Staff training

• Awareness

• Transparent service

• Better responses

• Tailored services

• Flexible provision

Identify user groups

• Existing users

• Potential new users

• Hidden users

• Vulnerable users

• Deeper appreciation of the user experience

So how do you do UX?

Mixed method approach

Ethnography & anthropology

‘David Attenborough in cardies’

Quantitative data collection

Crunching the data and the human factor

Research

Sharing ideas and collaborating with the wider library community

When should UX be done?

• Anytime! All the time!

• Ok…within reason

• Consider your users

• Consider the timing

• Consider your own constraints

• Check your bias at the door

• Be prepared!

‘Well I wasn't listening then, I was thinking about something else’

• UX is leading librarianship in a new direction

• Empowering librarians to expand their skills

• Enabling effective research to justify services

• Ensuring appropriate approaches to fundraising

• Improving the chances of us being taken seriously within our communities

Future-proof librarians are…

• Those who challenge ‘we’ve always done it this way’

• Those who read beyond their discipline and harness skills from other professions

• Those who dare to take risks

• Those who are willing to try something new, even if it doesn’t always work out

• Those who want to share ideas with others

But I’m not trained…

• Nancy Fried-Foster

• Donna Lanclos

• ERIAL project

• Visitors and Residents infoKit (JISC)

• #UKAnthroLib blog

• Weave - UX journal

• UX in Libraries (2015)

‘We're just like Kevin Bacon’

• Cognitive mapping

• Observations/behavioural mapping

• Personas

• Visitors and Residents mapping

Cognitive mapping

• Six minutes

• Three sharpies (different colours)

• One piece of drawing paper

• A consent form

• A stopwatch (or phone)

• A quiet-ish space

• Some briefing/de-briefing time

Cognitive mapping

• Draw your working spaces

• Think about the activities that you do as part of your work

• Think about where you write/study/prepare for projects etc.

• Draw these spaces out

• Every two minutes I will ask you to change your pen colour

• Pen order: blue, red, black

Cognitive mapping

• How was that for you?

• What did you draw?

• Did you draw anything that surprised you?

• Did you learn anything new about yourself?

• Why do you think I got you to change pen colours?

• Could you see yourself doing this in your institution?

Future of UX and libraries

• Exciting times ahead• Tailored services• Cross-discipline approaches• Collaboration• Innovation• Forefront of new developments

Thank you!

Georgina Cronin

UX Librarian

Twitter: @senorcthulhu

Email: gmp36@cam.ac.uk

Blog: Cardies and Tweed