David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Usability Goes Halfway

By

me on the iphoneUsability is great – you want to have a website that’s usable, right? Lots of organizations do usability studies – even pay for them. But you know what? Usability only tells half the story. And that’s bad.

Here’s what I mean. Usability deals with traffic control – it answers things like “can they click it?” or “Do they understand the signage?” Usability tends to deal primarily with real estate – with structure (or with the “actual building”). But that’s only one part of the whole problem.

Even one of the fields that usability comes from is suspect – HCI, or Human Computer Interaction. What’s wrong here? The whole focus is on human to computer, or computer to human. I’m not always interacting with the machine anymore. When I blog, tweet, send a Facebook update … when I add a video to YouTube or a photo to Flickr … Yes, I’m interacting with “the machine” to get my stuff into my account, so it appears on the web. But I’m also interacting with the person at the other end – the viewer/reader/watcher/commenter. And to me, that interaction is the goal – not the computer interaction.

Let’s go a bit further with our websites. Start working on the whole experience – not just a tiny part of it. Think of it this way: do you want a website that is functional, or one that engages people? One that maybe even “delights?” That page is designed for the experience – not just for usability.

Ten Things to Think about when Designing Digital Experiences

By

I recently did my first guest post at another blog! Go check out Ten Things to Think about when Designing Digital Experiences at the Open Forum blog from American Express.

From the article: “Visitors to your digital space don’t want to think about interacting with your website. They want to – quickly and easily – make a purchase, find information, or have fun. It helps if they can be engaged and enchanted in the process. How can we facilitate this type of digital experience? These ten tips are a great place to start…”

Go visit the article to read my 10 tips (or just buy the book if you haven’t yet 🙂 ) … and comment there! I’m curious to see what happens.

How Not to Tweet

By

how not to do twitter

Update: Cynthia Gregory, who works at MSJ Library, added some helpful info – check out the comments! Basically, they locked the account when they initially set it up, and I saw it during the set-up process … and apparently Twitter suggests followers for new users (I don’t think it did that when I signed up). So I’m glad – MSJ Library seems to be on the way to a great Twitter account. Again – not picking on them, and I think there’s some good stuff to ponder in my post (’cause I HAVE seen other organizational Twitter accounts that are locked). As always, your mileage may vary!

Every once in awhile, a library follows me on Twitter. When they do, I usually check out their Twitter feed (but rarely follow them). And every once in awhile, I see something like this.

This isn’t “Pick on MSJLibrary Day” – I’m sure they’re a fine library, and I commend them for jumping into Twitter to figure it out. But maybe this post will help other libraries as they work on figuring out social media sites like Twitter.

What are they doing right?

  • Named themselves with a form of their library’s name. They’re the library at the College of Mount St. Joseph.
  • Added a picture of their library
  • Added a web link to their library website
  • Their bio is great: “Helping You Research, Learn & Connect”

What are they doing wrong?

  • Updates are locked/protected. This means that no one gets to see their updates unless they follow MSJLibrary … and MSJLibrary has to approve all follows. This is bad. Most Twitter users want to see someone’s tweets before they start following that user, so it’s an added hassle to send a follow request/wait for the request to be approved/then check out the tweets. I’d rather not bother with it. But more importantly – they have, in essence, locked their front door. I’m guessing they don’t do that at the physical building … so why do it here?
  • Following the wrong people. Look at their following list – They are following other libraries, CNN, ALA, me, National Geographic, etc. Only about 3 of the 35 tweeps they’re following are in any way related to Cincinnati. But a quick search shows LOTS of Cincinnati-related twitter accounts. And a search in something like TwitDir or a “near:cincinnati within:15mi” search in Twitter Search finds LOTS of Twitter users int he Cincinnati area. It makes more sense to me for a Cincinnati-based academic library to follow other people/organizations located in Cincinnati. Extra credit if they follow MSJ students or other MSJ-related accounts (which they’re not).
  • I said their bio was great … but since they’re locked, it doesn’t make much sense – they can’t help you connect if you CAN”T connect!

And I should say this – there’s nothing wrong with following me, CNN, ALA, or the National Geographic. In fact, following others is a great way to start figuring out how to use Twitter. But when you test out a new service using your organization’s name (ie., MSJLibrary), the organization ends up looking a bit less than professional. Start off learning … but use a personal account to do it (and for the record, I’ve killed more than one service at my library for that very reason).

Before you create an organizational account, do some planning and goal setting. Answer these questions:

  • What do you want to get out of it?
  • Why are you setting it up?
  • Who’s going to maintain the account?
  • Who’s going to answer tweets?
  • Who do you plan to connect with?

Answer these (then stick with the plan for awhile), and you’ll be well on your way to organization twitter success.

Create an Experience

By

Guess what? Your website visitors are experiencing something right now. Is it good or bad? Easy or hard? Do you know? The good web designer plans for and builds deliberate experiences into a website, rather than hoping for the best.

Think about it. Visitors to your website are always experiencing something while there that goes way beyond simple usability. Designing for usability alone only goes so far. You can test for usability until you’re blue in the face … and you know what you’ll end up with? A usable website. Period. Your customers might be able to navigate your website, but hate the overall experience. They might not have reached that user enchantment phase that Kathy Sierra talks about. Since you aren’t deliberately planning out the total digital experience your visitors have while on your site, their experience will be haphazard at best. You did, in fact, create an experience. Just an unplanned one.

So how do you plan an experience? For starters, do one thing – think about it. Sit down and deliberately think through the experience you want your customers to have while on your site. Have a brainstorming session. Out of that brainstorming session, create what’s called an Experience Brief – a short, no more than one-page document describing the experience customers should have while on your website. Don’t focus on products, content, or functionality – instead, describe the experience they have while there. Here’s a post that talks a bit more about writing experience briefs.

The key to writing an experience brief is this – focus on the customer at all times. Write the experiences your customer should have. Not key user interactions, not functionality the user should be able to do – but the experience the customer should have, from their viewpoint.

So – step one to creating an experience? Purposefully create and plan that experience.

pic by shifted, book by Aaron

Revitalizing the Library Experience – ALA2009

By

Speakers – Joan Frye Williams and George Needham

georgeandjoan.com

The Classic Objections:
– it will never work
– we tried that…
– our patrons etc won’t like it ..
– etc

Stop thinking of the Library Experience as the library experience. When we talk about that, we usually focus on what we do.

They’ve visited lots of libraries, and found out there’s not often a true customer focus.

We need to think more about what the user does, and who they are!

Joan mentioned TSCPL! They love our mission statement – “you know us, and we know you.” (cool – I wrote that part 🙂

Being held back by confidentiality – we often go for ignorance & call it privacy and confidentiality

The independent user is invisible to us.

Re-imagine the user experience!!! Yes. The experience belongs to the user.

If we imagine the user as our audience, we get mad when they don’t applaud us. Interesting thought…

Patrons should start feeling successful right when they walk into the library – just like when they use google (ie., there’s no user manual for google)

situational signage

Shouldn’t have to use our jargon just to get started (hmm… databases fails here…)

Environments that learn from and adapt to the user is the right way to go

New ways to experience library service – layered services. A way to unfold what the library offers

Time: layer services depending on how much time the patron has
Ex – quick start guide vs complete manuals
So – set up libraries for both the “I have no time” patron tot he “I can spend a day here” patron

Place: layer services by place.
– the users aren’t remote – the services are.
– the library experience takes place outside the library.
– all social networking, web, etc certainly does. iPhone apps, Facebook are examples
– Showing barcodes on signs – scan it with phone, get local info – b-tags.
– me – could you set up a b-tag for a “fact of the day” and put it in a park/mall/on the street/in a school? Hmm…

Make sure it’s always about them, never about us

First Impressions:
– how does your place look on a first impression?
– how many of you use the same doors/bathrooms as the patron?

Get out from behind the desk

Org chart/service points – circ desk, ref desk, etc. For the patron, it’s all part of the same story.

First point of contact – driving around building, walking into the library, etc. Who does the intercept? Usually the shelver.
– deploy staff around the library, standing up – you will increase the number of interactions
– make this intercept so that everyone, building, etc can make that intercept universal

Triage – figuring out some choice to make.
– we act as if we are the arbiters of triage (ie., the reference interview). Instead, most people do this themselves. You watch the other people instead of talking to staff. It HAS to be self-service.

I have a stupid question… translation – your library, setup, etc  just made someone feel stupid. Not a good thing.

Outcomes: When a patron needs to use a computer to do a job search, the goal isn’t to find a guide or do a job search … it’s to find a job.

Patrons are looking for staff that want to enter into their success…
– gave an example of an academic library – student said here’s what you do – find a librarian you can work with, who seems to care, and they will help you ace any class. Didn’t say they will help you find a book… They are looking for success, and we need to set up our libraries that way.

Main goal – get people to come back – it’s all about relationships… not stuff.

Revitalize your point of view.

“Libraries are at a crossroads” – actually, everyone’s at a crossroads. Successful libraries help guide people through their crossroads. There are a lot of common ones – ie., birth, marriage, divorce, retirement, getting a job, etc.

Wane Gretsky – “I don’t skate to the puck, I state to where the puck is going to be.” Libraries can do this, too – we know some common transformations/crossroads – so how can we be there at those crossroads for them?

Communication of meaning – that’s the business we’re in. Google can’t do this. We should be building this across the community. It’s not transactional, it’s not about the stuff. The setup of transformation is a heck of a job to be in.

Staff is also at a crossroads:
– start treating people like they’re smart and independent.
– presumption of innocence – don’t defend against potential disaster.
– the reference desk – feels like the seat of shame.
– respect and remember their preferences.
– look for ways to say yes.

Give respect and get respect – you have to treat every connection as if it has a transformative potential.

The library experience has that long, transformative view. It’s not about the transaction.