User Centered Design

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User Centered Design

• David Lindahl
• Director of Digital Library Initiatives
• University of Rochester Libraries

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Agenda

• Common Usability Issues
• User Centered Design
• Roles
• Activities
• Technologies

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Common Usability Issues

• Priorities
• Search Interfaces
• Technology revealed
• Authentication

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What is User Centered Design?

• Create usable user interface
• Reduce need for teaching, help, and manuals
• Uncover and address unmet needs
• Follow a process
• skill sets
• responsibilities
• artifacts
• testing
• Iterative

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What do we believe?

• Web design
• a job for librarians
• not committee work
• cross-disciplinary work
• requires ongoing commitment
• Website is for doing, not teaching
• Library technologies are not inherently
  user-centered

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Design by Committee
Committee
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User Centered Design Process
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Who (skills and experience)
Content

• Librarians
• Staff

Design
Usability

• User interface design
• Visual design
• Web design standards

• Usability Testing Methods

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Responsibilities Content

• Manage overall project
• Provide progress reports
• Select products, work with vendors
• Research the possibilities
• Define key tasks
• Raise issues

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Tasks ? Key Tasks

• Task What did the user come to your website to
  try and accomplish?
• Find a book by keyword, author, or name
• Find articles by topic or citation
• Find course reserves
• Find a journal by title
• Find non-book material
• Find remote access instructions
• Renew my materials
• Check my fines
• Find hours

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Responsibilities Design

• Create designs
• Initial design prototype in response to key tasks
  defined by content
• Subsequent iterations response to issues and
  usability
• Document issues and respond
• Create site style guidelines

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Design Iterations
Iteration 3
Iteration 1
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Design Iterations
Iteration 37
Iteration 116
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Design Iterations
Iteration 126
Iteration 188
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Issue-Response Table
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Style Guidelines
Page Editors Checklist
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Responsibilities Usability

• Choose appropriate test
• Perform tests
• Report results back to design and content
• Guide key task process

Jeffrey Rubin, Handbook of Usability Testing (New
York John Wiley Sons, Inc., 1994).
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Select appropriate test
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What is needed?

• Commitment from library administration
• Staff Support
• Time
• Resources
• Staff time
• New staff
• Technology
• Training

LITA Regional Institutes http//tinyurl.com/o34q
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Create a usability group

• Train on usability techniques card sort, mental
  model/key task creation, heuristic, and
  assessment
• Practice
• Testing
• Writing up findings

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Create the design role

• One or two people maximum
• People who work very well together
• Begin work on page structure, site organization
  and hierarchy, site template
• Create site style guidelines draft
• Create an issue-response process with document
  templates

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Create one or more content groups

• Brainstorm content group charge
• Select group members (dont include people who
  are in the design or content groups, they already
  have a defined role in the process)
• Select a time period group should disband at
  the end
• Set goals (two design iterations and rounds of
  testing, or 3 out of 5 test subjects undergrads
  - able to find an article without help)

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How

• Content group defines key tasks (guided by
  usability group) for the site of for the section
• Design group creates a design that supports
  accomplishing the key tasks (gives to usability)
• Usability group tests the design with users,
  based on the key tasks
• Deliver design/wireframe and usability results to
  content group
• Content Group - Identify additional content group
  issues
• Deliver content group issues and usability
  results to design group for next iteration
  (iterate, dont debate)
• Go to step 3

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Technologies

• Researcher Pages
• GUF Getting Users to Full-text
• CUIPID Catalog User Interface for Prototyping
  and Iterative Development

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Researcher Pages
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Researcher Pages
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GUF

• OpenURL Resolver created at Rochester
• Replaces link menu
• Works with databases, and metasearch
• Automatically takes the user to the best
  available resource (one of these)
• Full-text online (in HTML or PDF)
• Catalog record (for items available in print)
• Interlibrary loan pre-filled-in request form

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CUIPID 3