However small, our checkout slips are touchpoints—ways that people interact with us—and collectively we’re pumping out thousands of these things daily. In some small way, we’re representing ourselves through these little scraps of paper.
The User Experience
The User Interview Challenge | The User Experience
January 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Inspiring Design | The User Experience
December 22, 2011 By 1 Comment
Need some design inspiration or encouragement? Here are some well-designed sites and services User Experience columnist Aaron Schmidt noticed recently in libraries.
Is Your Library Ready for a UX Librarian? | The User Experience
November 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Chances are your library shouldn’t hire a user experience (UX) librarian. Surprised? Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be fantastic if all libraries had a staff member dedicated to UX. But hiring a user experience librarian isn’t as simple as securing the funds, writing a job description, and conducting interviews. In fact, that’s probably the wrong approach.
Save the Time of the Reader | The User Experience
October 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Getting To Know Your Patrons | The User Experience
June 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Is it truly possible to create an experience for someone? “People’s perceptions are their own,” critics say, “and it is impossible to match their feelings up with how you’d like them to feel.” That may be strictly true. But people are similar enough that organizations like libraries can in fact design mutually beneficial interactions. Absolutely [...]
Revamping Reference | The User Experience
May 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Our profession has known for a long time that the traditional reference model is flawed. Constance Mellon coined the term library anxiety in 1986, reporting that students literally felt shame when approaching librarians for help. Yikes. That’s a strong feeling, one we don’t want librarians to evoke. Nonetheless, the typical effort to improve the reference [...]
A Site Divided | The User Experience
April 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Library nerd that I am, I ask a lot of people about how they use libraries. When I come across a library enthusiast—basically, someone who doesn’t ask, “Do they still use the Dewey Decimal System?”—I follow up with questions about how that person uses library websites. Almost without fail, people say they use our sites [...]
Signs of Good Design | The User Experience
February 1, 2011 By
There’s more to design than appearances, but the way an object looks is often the most immediate and apparent aspect of how it has been designed. The power of this immediacy allows some designers to think only about aesthetics, and that leads to attractive but unusable stuff. This happens quite often with websites created using [...]
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