A User-Centered Approach to Designing Digital Library Applications

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STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

A User-Centered Approach toDesigning Digital Library Applications

Gary Geisler & Jennifer VineStanford University

• Who we are, what we do

• Unique challenges of UX design for digital libraries

• Stanford University Libraries approach to UX design

• Moving towards a more community-oriented design process

Outline

Who We Are and What We DoStanford University Libraries (SUL)

Digital Library Systems & Services (DLSS)

~2 UX designers for ~20 developers

Who We Are and What We Do

SUL DLSS is significantly involved in open source community

• Hydra and Blacklight

• Spotlight

• Mirador

• IIIF

• DPN

• Future:

• ArcLight

• Other collaborations

Outline

Challenges of UX Design for Digital Libraries

Many useful UX design resources available today

We use many established UX design processes and techniques

Challenges of UX Design for Digital Libraries

1. Wide range of products, developing concurrently

2. Diverse set of stakeholders

3. Broad range of users and use cases

4. Mix of content and use restrictions

Wide Range of Products

Core properties: Library website, library catalog,

digital repository

Dedicated collection sites: Tel Aviv, FRDA,

Revs, etc.

Third-party products: Article search, SFX

Diverse Set of Stakeholders

Parent institution

Partner institutions that share source materials or development resources

Funding agencies

Donors of source materials who want them presented in a specific way

Metadata librarians who craft metadata to display in a specific environment

Faculty whose reputations are affected by the digitization and presentation of their research

Instructional librarians whose role is to mediate between the patrons and the product

Broad Range of Users and Use Cases

Students(undergrad, grad)

Faculty, researchers

Our librarian colleagues

Lifelong learners

Broad Range of Users and Use Cases

International audience

Locations of SearchWorks sessions IE 6.0 users of the

library website

Mix of Content and Use Restrictions

Many content and resource types• Text, images, audio, video,

theses and dissertations, data sets,complex objects, archival collections, etc.

Mix of restricted and publicly-available content• Completely public

• Public metadata, restricted content

• Completely dark

The Competition

“Wow, this is great. It is better than Google!”

— Feedback from a student

Google increasingly does influence user expectations• They think all knowledge is in SearchWorks• They use long, natural language search strings• They have complete faith in relevance ranking

Outline

SUL’s (evolving) Design Process

Discovery: Environmental ScanWhat content and associated metadata are we working with?

What has been done before in this area?

Types of sites and products surveyed for Spotlight

Discovery: Project Objectives

Discovery: User NeedsWhat do likely users of our web properties want to do with them?

Analytics, log analysis, existing feedback data

Stakeholder and user interviews

End products:

• Interview transcriptions and notes

• Detailed examples of realistic tasks

• Features that potential users likeor don’t like

Discovery: Requirements Prioritization

Information Architecture: Conceptual Models

Information Architecture: User Personas

Information Architecture: Requirements by Persona

Information Architecture: Wireframes

Interaction & Visual Design

Most of our interaction and visual design occurs during development

Interaction & Visual Design

Balancing consistency and SUL branding with a design and personality appropriate to the web property

Revs Bassi-Veratti FRDA

Integrating Design with Application Development

SUL uses an agile development methodology

Github (or JIRA) for issues (work tickets), sprint milestones, release notes

Weekly sprints, with publicly posted demo videos

The Designer is Part of the Development Team

Participates in daily standup

Helps formulate initial work tickets

Handles "Design needed” tickets

Manages formative feedback during development

Outline

Towards a More Collaborative Design Process

1. Our web properties are open-source and increasingly, of potential value to other institutions

2. Open-source products mature more quickly and provide more value when there are more contributors

3. Institutions are more likely to contribute to a product if they believe it will serve their objectives

So how can we improve our design process to ensure that the project objectives and needs of users at other institutions are considered?

Potential Benefits of Collaborative Design

Stakeholders and their application users more completely represented in design documents

Ideas and alternative viewpoints from UX designers at other institutions enrich design documents

Time and effort to produce solid design documents is distributed across institutions

Time to complete the design stage of a project can be reduced

Partner institutions will understand early on how the app will fit into their institution, and not be surprised or disappointed by the end result

Challenges of Collaborative Design

How to avoid design by committee?

How to reconcile different design sensibilities?

How to deal with participants’ differing feature priorities?

How to ensure that the overhead of collaboration isn't a drag on project velocity

First Steps

Our baby steps towards more community-oriented, collaborative design:

• Seek early-stage input from interested institutions

• Include users from other institutions in our research and persona development

• Seek feedback on design documents

• Seek input during development

Other Ideas?

A User-Centered Approach to Designing Digital Library Applications

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