what is ux and how can it help your organisation?

AND HOW CAN IT HELP YOUR ORGANISATION?WHAT IS UX

INTRODUCTION: A UX PRIMER

In recent years the User Experience in Libraries movement (UX) has

spread from the US and Scandinavia to the UK

Traditionally ‘UX’ has referred largely to web usability testing; but there is a very physical, human dimension to it which the library

movement has focused on

UX has become an IBRARIANSHIPUMBRELLAterm to cover a suite of techniques that can be divided roughly into two parts: ethnography and design

SIMPLY PUTEthnographic techniques and observation lead to a deeper and more complex understanding of user needs and behaviour than traditional data gather methods normally allow. (Examples follow)

Simply put,

HUMAN CENTRED

DESIGN

prioritises the end user, their needs, and their behaviour, at every stage of the design process, with an aim to making several small changes to improve the user experience…

UX is

not

Libraries are using UX to make an IMPACT on their users’ day to day lives

It’s not that quantitative user data isn’t useful; it’s that qualitative user data can be incredibly rich, and can help supplement what we

already have. But how?

PART ONE: ETHNOGRAPHY

6 KEY ETHNOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES

Observation / Behavioural MappingUnstructured and Semi-Structured

InterviewsCognitive MappingTouchstone Tours

Love Letters / Breakup LettersCultural Probes

1. Observation / Behavioural Mapping

Note your users as they move through and interact with the library space.


Note your users as they move through and interact with the library space.

What are their paths? What do they see? What do they use? What do they ignore?

2. Unstructured / Semi-Structured Interviews

Interview your subject about their working LIFE, not just the library. Ask open questions, based on what they’re saying rather than based on a pre-prepared list. For example ask not ‘what e-resources do you use?’ but ‘what’s your process when you’re set an assignment?’

3. Cognitive Maps

A brilliant jumping off point for the interview is the Cognitive Map. Ask your subject to draw a map from memory – of the library, or of their research process, or of completing an assignment.

They have 6 minutes to do this, changing colour of pen every 2 minutes.

3. Cognitive Maps

Note what they put down first, what’s a last minute addition, what they leave out entirely. You can code this later.

Then to introduce the unstructured or semi-structured interview, ask them to talk you through their map. Use what they tell you to inform your questions.

3. Cognitive Maps

4. Touchstone Tours

Rather than showing your users around, let them take YOU on a tour of the library (and record what they say). Does their understanding of processes, systems and the space match your expectations?

5. Love Letters / Break-up Letters

Ask your users

to write a letter to a library service(NOT a librarian!) –

either professing their love for, or breaking up with, that

service. This seems very gimmicky and won’t work with

everyone, but when it does work it really allows you to understand the

emotion engendered by the user experiences

6. Cultural Probes

Give your users the tools they need to take ethnography home with them – diary studies, a voice recorder, the chance to take pictures…

Encourage them to record feelings, events and interactions.

These methods for feedback gathering tend to reveal very in-depth and varied views, feelings and experiences

The key is not to get stuck on the ethnography phase – the next step is to design changes to your service based on what you’ve learned.

PART TWO: DESIGN

The aim is to tweak the service to make the user

experience better. This may mean a small number of large changes – you never know what the data will tell you –

but most often this will mean a large number of small changes

that positively influence the user day to day

The Design Thinking process first defines the problem and then implements the solutions, always with the needs of the user demographic at the core of concept development. This process focuses on needfinding, understanding, creating, thinking, and doing. At the core of this process is a bias towards action and creation: by creating and testing something, you can continue to learn and improve upon your initial ideas.

“

”Stanford Design School

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/workload-survival-guide-for-academics

(In other words: it’s iterative. Rather than saving up your design tweaks for one huge change, go for a rapid-prototyping model…)

Make changes early and often,

monitor your users’ responses, and don’t be afraid

to fail.

Just make sure you record and

learn from failure

Perhaps it’s better to make something self-righting than to aim for perfection. Can your users find their own way out of difficulties?

Use design techniques to help structure your thinking

Examples courtesy of

Modern Human

So there’s a whistle-stop tour of UX, ethnography and design. Try it out at your library and see what you learn.

GOOD LUCK!

So there’s a whistle-stop tour of UX, ethnography and design. Try it out at your library and see what you learn.

PHOTO CREDITS

PHOTO CREDITS

All photos are CC0 (sourced via Pixabay & Pexels) except the

Touchstone Tour pic, courtesy of Georgina Cronin, and the Modern

Human design cards, taken by me.

https://twitter.com/senorcthulhu

http://modernhuman.co/