Yesterday I had an interesting chat with my sister about library catalogs. We were talking about the post I made regarding IM & SMS and whether librarians should skip over IM and move on to SMS? I told her about the fact that card catalogs are still being used and she replied with “Well, I’d rather use a card catalog, it was much easier to find things that way.” This from my younger sister! We all keep assuming that the younger generation wants technology - but here’s one person who’d rather use the cards than deal with the library OPAC. I asked her why.

She said that the OPAC (my word, not hers) is very intimidating (I opened up a Voyager example and we did a little keyword search and it proved her point … there were too many results, none of which seemed to match her initial intent). Instead of upsetting me, this actually got me a little excited.

I decided to show her a Koha example and see what her opinion was. We did the same search on the Athens County Public Library site and found the perfect result come up as the first result (yes, we did the same search). “So, is this better?” I asked. “Yes, much” she replied. She found that the Koha interface was familiar and friendly, less intimidating. She also said that she feels that the younger generation is less likely to learn what’s old (in her case - card catalogs are the way she learned - so while they’re old they don’t count in this argument) and more likely to stick with what’s new and hip and familiar - in this case the Koha search results reminded her of Amazon and made it easier for her to find what she was looking for without being overwhelmed.

I need to add here that my “younger” sister is only 2.5 years younger than I am - we’re not talking about a teenager here - but we are talking to someone who finished her undergraduate last year and was very recently surrounded by the next generation of library researchers.

I love my job - I love getting to go out and talk to librarians about what’s new and available for libraries - but I also love talking to the non-librarians to see what they want and expect from their libraries - this was a great chance for me to talk to someone about libraries who doesn’t actually work in a library. I think I’ll try to do this more often

Technorati Tags: libraries, koha, opac, ils

I use TinyURL all of the time to shorten long URLs, but did you know that there are 90+ other tools out there that do the very same thing?? This list was found via the I want to blog.

David Weinberger makes an interesting point (and teaches me something new).

I’ ve been showing a screen capture of USA Today’s redesigned site. It includes a button you can click on to give a Digg-like thumbs up to an article. Great, except, um, where’s the thumb down? We want to be able to say to the Britney or Justin or We-Should-Teach-Our-Students-Judo article “No no no no no no no no.” We want to tune our news.

That’s very cool - I’ll have to go play with USA Today a bit. I love that everyone is trying to accommodate the user more with their web designs!

After his talk for the PALINET & Library Connect event yesterday, Jonathan Clark of Elsevier came over to me and said, “You were nodding a lot, does that mean you liked the talk?” It was (for me) the best talk of the day!!

Jonathan talked about user-centered design and how it has been used at Elsevier. It’s important to note that most of us can’t afford to do some of the things that Elsevier did - but that doesn’t mean we should be limited in following the principles outlined.

The presentation started with a story. Jonathan used to be a scientist, so he thinks he knows how scientists think - he’s got the inside track and he can design the perfect tools for them. His colleague is married to a scientist - and so she also thinks that she has the inside track. The two of them always get into arguments on what design is best for the user - but when the user is asked - it’s always different from what they thought. The fact of the matter is, that even if you’ve worked with the user, been in the user’s shoes, or are married to the user - you are not the user - and you don’t know what they want or how they think without asking them.

First and foremost, we have to be user-focused in our design of web applications. By starting with the user you can avoid what Jonathan calls opinion wars. Opinion wars are what was defined in the scenario above - everyone thinking they know what’s best for the user. Stop thinking for your user and ask your user - observe your user.

The second principle is that product development should deliver just what’s needed. I know this sounds somewhat slacker-ish - but the fact is, there is no reason wasting time and money on something fancy when the user just wants the simplest tool. This will hopefully help you avoid requirement wars - discussions where everyone thinks they know what features are going to be required to make the new system the best.

User-centered design has three steps:

1. Understand the user
2. Design for the user (possibly using personas)
3. Evaluate the user interface (not the user) - the users aren’t stupid it’s your interface

A tool of user-centered design is stories. Stories are short 1-2 sentence descriptions of the users’ wants. These stories usually look like this:

“As a ____________, I want to ____________, so that I can ______________”

This gives you a clear picture of your user and the goals he/she has.

The other method that Jonathan discussed was Agile development. We went over this a bit in my systems analysis class last term, but Jonathan’s definition was much simpler.

The Agile development methodology is iterative and time-boxed - meaning that there are specific iterations and each iteration has a goal assigned to it. You complete the goal in a set amount of time and at the end you have a working product for that goal (not a wire-frame or a screenshot). With Agile programming you need a dedicated team and you need to be customer-focused. Lastly, you have to intensively test the product - with the user!!

This means you have to show your software to the users - and frequently, don’t worry so much about it not being perfect or looking just right, the goal is to see if the product does what the user wants/needs. This testing with and showing to the user will lead to constant refinement and a better product!

In short, when the product revolves around the user, you get a better product. You also (theoretically) get teams that have a common focus - which leads to better collaboration by all.

Jonathan made me want to go out and pick up a few books on the topic!! A similar presentation can be found here if you’re interested in seeing the slides.

Meredith points out that it’s not just our OPACs that suck - but also the physical spaces our libraries are located in.

It's not just that our OPACs suck. The physical layout of our space sucks. I would guess if you did a survey of patrons, they would rather have a welcoming space and good materials than an OPAC that doesn't suck. I was talking to my husband last night about this. Ironically, since he is married to a librarian, my husband has a fear and dislike of libraries. He feels very uncomfortable in them and finds most of them claustrophobic and difficult to navigate. He wants a library that is bright and open with lots of comfortable places to sit. He wants to easily be able to browse books.

I had a similar experience to Meredith’s when I visited my local public library. The librarians were not very approachable, knowledgeable, or friendly. I couldn’t find something (it was on the wrong shelf) and the librarian actually told me to just look around on the other shelves - instead of coming out from behind the desk and helping me look - which was what I was expecting. I also had a hard time browsing the computer section. There wasn’t much there and I’m not sure I understand the logic in the organization. I’d rather search on Amazon and find titles then go to the library catalog to find them than browse the physical library.

The point? We need to re-think the layout and usability of every area of our libraries - the physical, the OPAC and the web site. If we want to keep people in the library or on our websites, we need to start thinking a bit more like the comparable retailers that are out there.

On the same note - I’m reading The Long Tail right now and I’m finding it fascinating and very insightful. I’ll write more when I’m further into the book (or when I finish).