Just one simple idea can transform your library: put the user first. But as you likely already know, just because something's simple doesn't mean it's easy. User experience is everywhere.
Looking to transform your library and your services to be more responsive, effective and user-centered? Interested in revitalizing your own practice? This interactive webcast will give you food for thought by presenting hands-on strategies and practical suggestions you can apply today.

Read more at http://www.ala.org/acrl/userfirst

My name is Courtney Greene McDonald and I'm head of Discovery & Research Services at Indiana University Bloomington Libraries.

Webcast participants, please share your name and institution in the chat box.

Participants, I'd like to get to know you better. Answer this quiz to tell me a bit more about what you when you head into your library.

A quick review: learning objectives for the session.

Participants: to help me best focus the session, tell me a bit about what you're hoping to take away today. (Yes that is the Death Star ... see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnP5iDKwuwk)

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

The Nielsen-Norman Group defines user experience :"'User experience' encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products." See http://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/

The MARS Emerging Technology in Reference section has the following definition of UX design: "User Experience employs user research and user-centered design methods to holistically craft the structure, context, modes of interaction, and aesthetic and emotional aspects of an experience in order to facilitate satisfaction and ease of use."
See http://www.ala.org/rusa/contact/rosters/mars/rus-maruserxp

At usability.gov, they reference Morville's UX honeycomb. See
http://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/user-experience.html

Rule #1: You Are Not Your User. Your civilian days are behind you. You can never go back to not being a librarian.

That said, we each have lots of UX experiences every day. Why waste them? Meta-thinking about your experiences as a customer can help you as you think about the interfaces or spaces that you help to build or maintain.

Participants, let's take a moment to discuss these ideas.

Now for action! The following section presents concrete strategies to try.

Our user communities are always changing, and an accurate picture is arrived at slowly, incrementally, through a process of mashing up broad strokes and minute specificity with a heavy dose of structured, purposeful observation. And because, in academic institutions, our population turns over with some regularity – not to mention the world in which we all live is constantly changing – this information will shift over time. So you get to do this forever!

- elevator speech
- repeat customers? never-theres?
- how does your day to day experience mesh (or not) with how Admissions describes your population?

We have some thoughts about our user population and certainly we have some ideas about what they are doing in our spaces or elsewhere on campus, but have we really taken the time to experience that recently? (You’ll notice I didn’t say to document – I said to experience.) Essentially, you are lurking, a concept we understand from social media – you’re there, observing, but you personally are not actively participating.

Now, pretend this is your job interview. What things might you have noticed then that have since faded to the background? Some of our users – the ones who are in our space every day, perhaps – might be, like us, a bit insulated in their experiences about our space, a little bit inured. Most of them aren’t. They notice. It’s pretty important that we make a point of seeing what they’re seeing and that we are alive to what they are experiencing.

Some things you can’t just talk through, either because your words haven’t caught up with your brain (“You know, like, if they could just SEE the stuff? On the left? By the thingie? No, the other thingie!”), or because what you are talking about is more spatially-oriented (A: “If we moved the sofa and then the table and then switched the direction, it would all fit!” B: “…”), or because you are talking about a process where something happens and then things change and something else happens. You might not be able to talk about something because you are 100% totally stuck and your mind feels blank.

This calls for drawing. For starters, it’s kind of fun; and more to the point, it’s non-verbal. Cocktail napkins, scraps of paper, whiteboards, Balsamiq, Illustrator, Powerpoint - whatever floats your boat.

User testing can be highly scientific. It can also mean baiting a table with candy (or some other giveaway item) and asking some folks a couple questions.

A few thoughts:
1) If you want to publish, be thorough. Get IRB approval. Document everything. Have a fully formed research question.

2) More is better. Iterative testing is addictive, but it relies on bite-sized chunks (one task, a few people) that can be folded back into the project, application, or space and then re-tested.

3) Speaking of one task - this really means one, as in, Find the hours for X on this mobile site, not Identify sources for a paper.

Participants, I'd like to know - what's been your experience with user testing?

(That binary code spells out 'fix' in case you were wondering.)

Most projects - virtual or physical - bring together a group of people with the varying areas of expertise needed to get the job done. The project manager has a number of roles, but to my mind one of the most important is that of translator. How do you express the needs of the users as viable specifications that can be built? When this group asks for thus-and-so, how can one best contextualize and express the importance of said feature to other members of the team? Can we be sure that we all have the same expectations and goals?

As it happens, a lot of the skills needed to be a great translator - and project manager - are the same as those needed to be a great public services librarian.

Data is great. We collect lots of data. But what does it mean? If a new column is added to a spreadsheet and no one knows what it indicates, does it mean anything?

Serendipity can be very helpful in some situations but being adrift on a sea of data is both terrifying and a waste of time.

How do we navigate through the thicket of data? To avoid individual bias, always retain a firm grip on reality in the shape of a clearly articulated, measurable, and meaningful research question. You might make graphs, you might create personas, you might count clicks ...

Whatever you do, remember this: all the numbers we collect are really about people – what people are doing, what it seems like they can’t or don’t or won’t do, maybe even a little bit about the how or why.

Sometimes more is better - as with those guerilla tests we talked about earlier - and sometimes more is less. Too many choices can be overwhelming.

When you take the time to curate your content, you put the power in the hands of the user - if they want more, let them take the next step.

Curation requires intentionality. Intentionality requires a strategy. Content strategy allows us to plan for creating, maintaining, evaluating, and managing useful, usable, understandable, interesting content.

You can do it! If you fail, you'll learn something. If you succeed, you'll learn something.

Participants, let's discuss in the chat box.

Participants, share any of your favorite inspirations in the chat box. I'll add them to the bitly bundle for easy access later.