User experience design maybe new to a lot of libraries, but user experience itself is not. Your users already engage with your library through a variety of means: your resources, your spaces and services, your staff, and your website. In each case, they are having an experience and that experience is affected, for both better and worse, by a host of factors that might not even be on your radar.
What user experience design offers is a new and improved radar, a way to understand the experiences your users are having and then use that understanding to make iterative improvements. The expertise required to get started and see improvements is low and not necessarily tied to web design. When applied to library services, user experience design can potentially improve patron satisfaction, increase usage, and create new efficiencies in the allocation of resources.
With an overview of user research methods, best practices, and some user experience problems common to libraries, this presentation will empower you to begin designing more effective experiences for your users, both online and in-person. In the hands-on workshop that follows, we’ll get started on the practical steps to bringing user experience design home to your library.
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