hooked on a (ux) feeling
TRANSCRIPT
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: [email protected]
Blog: Cardies and Tweed