Designing Better Libraries is a blog site that is no longer regularly updated. This is an archival site that includes blog posts written between (approximately) 2005 and 2019. While I continue to teach and write about topics related to librarianship as a design profession, no new content is being added here. It remains available as a resource for those who are looking for inspiration and ideas on subjects such as design thinking and user experience as it applies to libraries. This archival blog site will be sunsetted in 2025. Until then, enjoy the posts.
Steven Bell
Design Thinking Needs No Single Definition
I just wrapped up my second year teaching a course on design thinking for the San Jose State University iSchool.
Years after promoting the idea that LIS education programs should pay more attention to design thinking – and even going so far to suggest that our profession would benefit from a Masters of Library Design – it has been an incredible experience to develop this course from the ground up and to have the privilege to share what I’ve learned about design thinking with our next generation of librarians.
One of the challenges in preparing for the second year was making a decision about how to define and present the design thinking process. Knowing that my students would be encountering a number of different definitions and presentations of the process, I thought it might be best to decide on one definition and make that the standard for the duration of the course.
Perhaps a bit controlling but at least it provides a consistent approach to learning design thinking, as well as a standard platform for conversation. I also let the students know that they should use the course to either define design thinking on their own terms or identify a definition that most resonates them. What definition, graphics or examples, I asked them, would best enable them to explain design thinking to their colleagues? So while I maintained a somewhat strict approach to defining design thinking for the course, I made it clear that after the course, students were free to develop their own way of defining and describing it.
I suppose that’s why this article resonated with me. Even when a group of experts were asked, there was no exact agreement or consensus on the definition of design thinking. While some might take that as a sign that design thinking shouldn’t be taken seriously if it can’t be consistently defined, I tend to see it differently. The author says as much in writing:
One of the greatest strengths but also weaknesses of design thinking is that there is no single, widely used definition for it. This flexibility in meaning is beneficial because it encourages challenge, exploration, and inquiry, and allows people to morph the concept to their needs.
In the post “What is Design Thinking, Really? (What Practitioners Say)” by Sarah Gibbons, she describes research involving interviews with industry experts. They were asked a series of questions, such as “What do you think of when you hear the phrase “design thinking” and “How would you define design thinking?”. I tend to see lack of a single definition more strength than weakness precisely because if offers the opportunity to bring some individuality to it – though there are clearly some constraints to which any definition would need to conform.
The responses reflect the lack of consensus among these experts in their description and definition of design thinking. But the responses do reflect the core process and activities involved in design thinking. There is a breakdown of the terms and phrases used by experts to define design thinking. Some, such as “problem-solving”, “process” and “human-centered design” are totally expected. They are organized into multiple thematic categories such as “uses” and “specific steps”.
While the experts had no shared definition, their responses point to three shared ideas that come closest to a common understand of what constitutes a design thinking approach:
*It is a process for problem solving (though I prefer to emphasize it’s about problem finding).
*It is a change in the way you think, a mindset shift, about how you do your work.
*It is a toolkit, a set of strategies and approaches for solving a problem.
Gibbons suggests that there is also a scaffolding effect that shapes how we define design thinking. It starts with defining it as a process, then evolves into a mindset and then becomes the toolkit used for applying design thinking in practice. That strikes me as a good way to define design thinking when I explain to someone coming to is as a blank slate.
You should make of it what you will to rethink or refine your own way of defining design thinking. I will point my future students to this article as a way of demonstrating why they need to ultimately shape their own definition while being true to the value of design thinking and the process they will make their own.
I’m glad to have discovered this article because I plan to adopt the (six) process steps it identifies – and make that the new standard for my course. It’s quite close to what I already use, but I think it will be an easier set of terms for students to remember – and it has a solid diagram to illustrate the process. This article is a solid addition to the core literature of design thinking.
A Jobs-To-Be-Done Lens As a Path to Better Experience Assessment
For many patrons, library interaction could be reduced to a “jobs-to-be-done” methodology. If that is the case, how could librarians best leverage that perspective to design services that are “get-jobs-done” focused and then measure how well jobs-based outcomes are met?
We’d need to start with a “jobs-to-be-done” approach – at least for the jobs where community members have a well defined sense a perfectly completed job.
Community members’ most common library job-to-be-done that requires an on-site visit is to borrow a specific print book or physical media item. Online, the acquisition of a specific e-book, journal article, streaming video or other collection item is a frequent job-to-be-done. For these types of jobs, most library users will take a self-service approach. If our systems are useable and predictable, reasonably fast and efficient, the result ideally is a “job completed perfectly”.
Currently, I would venture to state that most libraries operate on an approach that is more hopeful than capable of consistently delivering on perfectly completed jobs. In the absence of assessment methods that tell us the extent to which our systems – basically “us” since we create/deliver and maintain them – succeed, fail or fall somewhere in between.
In his article “Measure Customer Progress Using a Proven Jobs-To-Be-Done Methodology” Tony Ulwick gives a concise explanation of how a customer would determine the success, on multiple levels, of their job completion. It can be stated as simply as this:
Customers believe they have made progress when they are offered a means to get a job done better and/or more cheaply.
Ulwick suggests using a “progress” lens through which to examine the job-to-be-done approach. He then elaborates on different dimensions on which customers determine progress.
- Get part of a job done better.
- Get an entire job done without having to cobble together disparate solutions.
- Get a job done with a single product.
- Get multiple jobs done with a single solution.
- Get a job done more cheaply
Using a library example, consider a community member who has a book title and wants to obtain it. If the library holds the book and it’s readily available, a single product, the library catalog, should get the job done easily. But locating the book is only one part of the job. Another system, such as a self-checkout machine is needed to complete the job. Things get exponentially less simple if the library doesn’t have the book. The community member might stop there and head to Amazon, but if their job demands free access then that member may be willing to pursue an interlibrary loan. How many members, outside of the experienced ones, will even know where to start that process?
When designing user experiences, I think it would be of value use the jobs-to-be-done lens to approach services as those that can be designed with user progress in mind. That is, the community member should easily determine if their job exemplified progress. Another set of job-to-be-done, the ones we know require more intensive support, should be designed with the expectation for human intervention and relationship building. That way libraries could maximize their limited human resources to prioritize where staff enable community member progress.
Another consideration is that community members sometimes come to the library not knowing exactly what job they need to get done – and expect to receive help from library staff to figure out what it is. I’m thinking of students I’ve encountered who have an assignment in hand but are not quite sure what they are supposed to do. You might say their job-to-be-done is simply to find out what to do, but there are times when librarians can get beyond just a task or transaction – in fact that’s what we should hope to do most of the time.
Ulrich also shares ideas for how measure if customers are making progress towards getting their job done. He suggests using three dimensions: speed (how fast), reliability (consistently free of errors/failure) and efficiency (little or no waste of time or resources). Too often community members use their library and there is no measurement of their success in completing their job-to-be-done.
I like the “Outcome-Driven Innovation” process that Ulrich recommends. I can envision a fast and easy online assessment where library customers would use a sliding scale, from “Job Not Completed” to “Job Completed Perfectly” to identify how well the library allowed them to accomplish their job. Outcomes are based primarily on speed, reliability and efficiency, but their could be human dimensions as well (e.g., friendliness, welcoming approach, compassion, etc.).
I can imagine asking community members to complete a quick, sliding scale assessment (likely conducted on a tablet or via a follow up email) for measuring how well the library supported the completion of their job-to-be-done. It would not provide an in depth explanation, but would at least be a start to achieve a reliable and consistent method to measure how often we enable community member progress – or fail to live up to their expectations for achieving it.
Design Thinking: Librarians Are Incorporating it Into Their Practice (The 2.018 Conference)
When librarians hear about design thinking they quite naturally ask, “Well, how would I use that at my library?”
Librarian reactions to design thinking can include vagueness, uncertainty, and even some degree of writing it off entirely because it sounds too corporate – or like some kind of business jargon.
But what most librarians want are simply examples of design thinking – in practice – in libraries.
Well, that’s exactly what they got at the March 8, 2018 Library 2.018 virtual conference, “Design Thinking: How Librarians Are Incorporating it Into Their Practice“. I was pleased to have been invited to organize the conference and the keynote panel, along with delivering a 30-minute closing summary of the conference.
The Conference was sponsored by the San Jose State University School of Information, so thanks to Sandy Hirsh and her colleagues from SJSU for choosing design thinking as one of their three Library 2.018 conferences for 2018.
You can catch the keynote panel featuring Rachel Ivy Clarke (Syracuse U), Sidsel Bech-Petersen (DOKK1 Library) and Greg Diaz (Chicago Public Library), and all the concurrent sessions. If you have a chance, check out my 30-minute closing keynote in which I attempt to summarize the conference. I come back to three main themes across the presentations:
1. Better to fail small than fail big, so take advantage of prototyping a new service or resource in your library.
2. Design thinking is about problem finding. You can’t solve the problem if you don’t truly know what the problem is (from the user perspective)
3. Design thinking is a group activity. It’s a great way to engage library staff to work together to make a better library.
Here’s the link to the conference video archive:
http://www.library20.com/page/library-2-01-design-thinking-recordings (you need to be registered and logged into Library20.com) or at the Library 2.018 YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/library20conference
While the Library 2.018 conference certainly moves the design thinking movement in librarianship in the direction of the tipping point for more widespread awareness and adoption, we are not there yet.
Happy listening – and if anyone says they don’t see how librarians would use design thinking – you know where to send them.
Creating the “Hyper-Relevant” Digital Library Experience Will Require Trust
Librarians have at one time or another attempted websites that allow community members to personalize the digital library experience.
One experiment that comes to mind was conducted at North Carolina State University, circa 1999. MyLibrary allowed a student or faculty member to customize their library home page.
It certainly seemed like a cool idea at the time. For one reason or another it never caught on. Perhaps the community members were fine with the existing page and found little added value in taking time to set up a personalized library home page.
I suspect personalization technology is now far more advanced. We can probably offer some even cooler forms of customization. The cost it comes with is privacy – and earning consumer trust.
In an article about consumer digital experiences at Digital Content Next, Michelle Manafy writes “Today’s consumers are more worried about data privacy than they are about losing their income. At the same time, they expect increasingly personalized digital experiences.” If fear of giving up too much personal data is what kept MyLibrary from catching on, then the “the more things change the more they stay the same” speaks volumes.
Manafy points to user studies that claim the majority of consumers are willing to share their data with companies – but with a caveat. First, they want something of value in exchange for giving up their data. To me that sounds like some sort of rewards system where consumers earn points redeemable for free goods and services. Second, it only works if the system is completely trustworthy.
In an age of data breaches, just how much can consumers trust corporate data systems? They could hardly be blamed for having doubts.
There’s also a considerable difference between “MyLibrary” and today’s personalization. It’s called “hyper-relevance”. It’s more than just allowing your community members to customize what appears on their library web landing page. What makes it hyper-relevant? It’s always on. It is a dynamic type of personalization, constantly changing to reflect the user’s latest activity and always evolving.
What might that look like for a library? Let’s say a faculty member’s Research Information Management system profile changes to reflect a new interest or collaboration. The hyper-relevant website would adapt itself to accommodate that change and immediately start serving up relevant content.
Here’s the catch. Hyper-relevance requires hyper-data collection. Here’s how Manafy describes it:
Data gathered from website visits, social media posts, or previous purchase histories will not suffice. Rather, what’s needed is information that is much more personal in nature—such as health data transmitted via wearable biometric technologies. Needless to say, that’s getting highly personal. And when things get that personal, the potential rewards go up immensely. However, risk also rises.
Now that may require a level of technology not yet found in most higher education institutions. But with rapid technology change and the type of data available about students and faculty, it’s hardly farfetched.
Achieving hyper-relevance requires three actions on the part of those seeking to build hyper-relevant digital portals:
1. Look beyond the traditional customer journey. Get creative about what this new world of personalization could make possible. Just miss your flight? What if you immediately received an email or text providing all the possible options – and making it easy for you to pick. While the hyper-relevance system is at it, why not rank the options from best to worst (let’s say using “hassle-free” as our rating criteria).
2. Rethink data to the point where users have full control over it at every touch point. Hyper-relevance will absolutely require predictive analytics based on the latest user information, behaviors and preferences. As stated above, it will also require a level of data security that wipes out the possibility of data breaches. Otherwise, how can data trust be achieved. In a world where hackers are constantly upping their game, this is no easy task.
3. Trust is the key to it all. Delivering on the hyper-relevance personalization experience means establishing a level of trust between data owners and data collectors that just doesn’t exist right now. The first organization that can deliver on sustainable data security, especially when handling the type of data needed to drive hyper-relevance, may be able to build the type of trust that makes it all work.
It’s exciting to imagine the type of personalized experience that a hyper-relevant library could deliver. In our current environment, with many librarians expressing their privacy concerns about big data, analytics and other services that depend heavily on collecting and manipulating community member data, hyper-relevance will be a tough sell. It also requires getting students, faculty and community members on board and feeling totally comfortable sharing the type of real-time data on which hyper-relevance depends.
My guess is that we’ll be looking to the business world to see how this hyper-relevant digital experience scenario evolves. If it works there and the necessary level of trust can be built, then it may be that librarians would find their community members expecting a similar hyper-relevant experience. We should try to be ready…just in case.
Delivering an Amazon-Like Experience
Does your library deliver an Amazon-Like Experience?
Assuming we even knew what that was, would that be the experience you’d want to deliver at your library?
“Amazon-Like Experience” is a phrase that is relatively new to me. I first encountered it when reading a higher education newsletter and came across this article.
Out of curiosity I did a Google search to see if “Amazon-Like Experience” is an actual thing. While “a thing” is probably not the best way to put it, there are certainly a number of references to the phrase. One comes away with the impression that “Amazon-Like Experience” is some sort of user experience gold standard.
What is the experience? If you’ve ever used Amazon – probably everyone reading this blog has – you have a good idea. Convenience. Ease of Use. Vast selection. Quick problem resolution. Usable and user friendly website. Overall, it’s an experience that is tough to match.
According to this article on online education, “Amazon has set the standard for eCommerce engines. Non-traditional, adult learners, expect an Amazon-like experience since they are searching for, and purchasing, courses online.” Granted, user expectations are definitely shaped by high-quality experiences received at both brick-and-mortar and online retailers and service providers that excel at user experience. But when we say that someone is expecting an “Amazon-Like Experience” what exactly do they want? What does it look like?
Start with ease-of-use. Literally anyone can use Amazon with a single instruction or prior knowledge. We talk about an experience being based around “the jobs to be done” and Amazon allows users to do their jobs with a minimal number of clicks. They can find what they need and order it quickly. There are features galore that allow users to see past activity, to identify future purchases or have items recommended to them.
There’s no question that for online retail, Amazon sets a mighty high bar for user experience. Most library search systems, from the local discovery layer to the largest global database, are currently far from an Amazon-Like Experience. That said, Amazon is a good model in many ways for great online learner experience. Except for one thing.
I’d venture to say that most Amazon customers feel little personal connection with the company. It can be a challenge to get personalized assistance when you need it. Problem resolution is quite good, but sometimes human intervention is needed and that can be difficult to get with Amazon. If that is also part of the Amazon-Like Experience, then librarians can do better.
That said, Amazon is branching out into brick-and-mortar retail with its Whole Foods acquisition and the establishment of some physical bookshops. If Amazon can develop the Amazon-Like Experience at their physical locations, that may give entirely new meaning to delivering an Amazon-Like Experience. I suspect Amazon will seek to make sure it’s physical experience is every bit as Amazon-like as what its customer have come to expect.
Critiques Help Us Think Critically About Design Thinking
Confirmation bias is a real problem.
We create our own filter bubbles in which we expose ourselves only to those ideas that support what we already believe. We may do this subconsciously in choosing what newspapers, magazines and programs to follow – as well as who we follow on social media. When we expose ourselves to content that challenges what we think or believe we simply, our biases cause us to ignore or dismiss it.
Those who believe in the value of design thinking may be inclined to write off its critics as jaded, thin skinned designers who are angry that non-design professionals now think they too can be designers if they just know of and practice design thinking.
Would you watch Natasha Jen’s video titled “Design Thinking is Bullshit? Or would you just move on to the next piece of content, writing that video off as just another disgruntled designer out to dismiss design thinking.
If we take the time to dig deeper into these critiques, beyond the point where they talk about the weaknesses of design thinking, we might actually learn something useful. For example, I found it helpful to listen to Jen discuss the role of “crit” in design professions. How might librarians who want to practice design thinking explore the need to have their solutions subjected to some version of the design crit?
“The Problem With Design Thinking is That I Still Don’t Know What Design Thinking Is” shares another common refrain from critics, which is that design thinking is too vague, no one really gets what it is and that it’s too much about thinking and too little about doing (hence the term “design doing“). This blog post is a good read with some realistic concerns about design thinking, coming from someone who’s organization had adopted design thinking. There is a good argument here for why it needs to be more actionable.
Then you have a sarcastic, hostile takedown of design thinking in Lee Vinsel’s “Design Thinking is Kind of Like Syphilis — It’s Contagious and Rots Your Brains“. Well, if I had said nothing, the title would have told you all you need to know. It’s a long read that rehashes previous takedowns of design thinking. These posts can be helpful for the comments (there are many), from both those who agree and disagree. Have a look.
Critiques of design thinking are hardly new. For as long as non-designers have adopted design thinking as a positive force for their work, someone has found something negative to say about design thinking.
In the post-design thinking toolkit environment, I think most of the critics overlook how practical, actionable and concrete design thinking has become for many non-designers. I would agree that prior to the toolkit, design thinking was somewhat vague. With the toolkit in hand, you don’t need to be a designer to get closer to working and thinking like one. What would the critics have to say about it? Would it change their thinking?
It would help if we could all get over this designer vs. non-designer conflict. I think I speak for most librarians who practice design thinking when I say we would never think we’re on the same level as a professional designer. Most of us simply see it as a practical tool that is sometimes applicable in a particular situation.
When encountering critiques of design thinking, no matter how hostile an approach the critic may take, it is best to avoid becoming defensive – or simply writing off the piece as unworthy of your time. Whatever it is, it’s unlikely to change your overall perspective on the value of design thinking for problem identification and solution development. So why not go ahead and take a closer look at what’s being said.
It matters little what subject we’re talking about. It could be libraries. The important point is that advocates need to be aware of and understand the naysayers and critics. We avoid them at our own risk. The more we know about the critics’ arguments the better prepared we are to counter it and prepare ourselves for the inevitable attack on our thinking.
Imagine you’re in a meeting to discuss organizing a design challenge and an adversarial colleague says “I heard that real designers are calling bullshit on design thinking. They say it’s just business jargon that librarians adopt so they can make pretend they know something about design”. Your turn to respond. What do you say?
Planning Experiences Around Moments
When I received an email a few weeks ago from Chip and Dan Heath, I was pretty excited by the news they shared.
It announced that after several years since their last book, Decisive, a new one was on the way. For a fan of their books, that’s already great news. But it gets even better. The subject matter of this new work has me eagerly awaiting the book.
What topic did the Heath brothers decide to write about this time? Experiences!
That alone would be incredible for someone, like me, who is student of user experience. As an added bonus, Chip and Dan Heath are exploring the “moment” and the power of a defining moment. This resonates strongly with me because my leadership book is based on this idea of the importance of moments, which I refer to as crucible moments.
In the email they described this new book, titled The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, this way:
Research in psychology teaches us that our memories of experiences are not like films that we can rewind and watch beginning to end. They are more like snapshots or snippets. Fragments. In memory, we cling to particular minutes or hours that rise above the surrounding weeks and months. What makes those moments so memorable and meaningful? That’s a critical question for anyone who wants to improve the experiences of others: the customer experience, the employee experience, the patient experience—not to mention the experience of your kids. Because what you’ll soon discover is that when we talk about “experience,” we’re really talking about moments. Moments that serve as peaks in time.
I’ve written about the link between experiences and memory previously at DBL. We not only remember things differently from what actually happened, but we selectively remember parts of our experiences more powerfully than others.
The tendency is for people to remember how the experience begins and how it ends more strongly than other parts, which is why we want to design the experience so it gets off to a good start and ends on a high note – particularly the finish because that’s an opportunity to recover from anything less memorable or negative that happens after the start.
The book’s intent is to both help us to understand the important of these defining moments to the success of an experience – and to develop insight into how to design them into experiences so they are more likely to occur. They define “defining moment” as “a short experience that is both memorable and meaningful”.
Those are two word that figure prominently in numerous DBL posts. Is it possible for librarians to create user experiences that are memorable, meaningful and that build emotional connections with community members that lead to loyalty? With help from the Heath brothers, we may learn more about how to do this.
I finished reading chapter one (a preview sent only to those on the Heath mail list) and I’m eager to learn more about the four elements that go into creating a defining moment: elevation; insight; pride; connection. As with other Heath brother books, based on this first chapter, it should be immensely readable, chock full of stories and examples (these are the guys who wrote Made to Stick) and offer takeaway ideas that you can put into practice.
After I read the book, I hope to have more ideas to share on how we can create defining moments for library user experiences – but I hope other librarians will read it as well – so that we can come up with even more ideas for designing better libraries.
There’s a Reason Why Eye Contact and Smiling Improve the Experience
It is almost a cliche for good customer service in libraries.
Smile. Make eye contact. Signal to the community member that you are engaged and eager to help.
We want our community members to feel like they are the most important person in the world in that moment.
Let’s treat them as if they are world famous.
Have you heard that one before? It sounds good. It certainly would communicate to a staff member that their job is to give each community member their undivided attention, to allow no distractions to interfere and through our verbal and non-verbal gestures to deliver the best possible experience.
And if we do that well, again and again, they will return and tell friends about the good vibe they get at the library.
I stole that “treat them as if they are world famous” experience statement.
It’s actually the experiential brand statement that the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle came up with when they were working with Joe Michelli on their statement. That’s how they wanted the experience to feel for the customer. That’s the experience they decided to deliver on – and we all know how that turned out.
Of course, it helps if you can come up with something clever and interactive, like having your customers throw and catch fish. That doesn’t translate particularly well to a library.
So what can librarians do to treat people as if they are world famous? How about more eye contact, smiles and nodding.
How would that make a difference you ask?
According to Baruch Sachs, in the article “How Smiling and Nodding Affects Our Interactions“, it can make a significant difference and leave community members perceiving library workers as more trustworthy and deserving of a relationship. That could turn a routine transaction into a memorable experience.
Sachs shares his own experience with smiles and nods as critical elements of an interactive exchange. But what he’s learned about these actions is more than just anecdotal. “There is plenty of research out there to back up the notion that our small gestures are important—not least in the area of building trust. Sometimes building trust takes just a smile and a nod.”
With computers, tablets, handheld devices and other distractions at our library service points, it’s easy for library workers to fail to quickly and adequately acknowledge another person’s presence. According to the research Sachs references, when subjects in a social experiment received no acknowledgement from a stranger they felt disconnected and rejected. It only takes a small trigger or gesture, such as a smile, nod or eye contact to avoid communicating rejection and establishing a foundation for rapport.
That sounds like the exact sort of aura I want to give when a stranger approaches me to ask a question, whether it’s just giving directions or assisting with a more complex research question. In a way, these simple gestures are a microcosm of user experience for the entire library organization. The totality of a library user experience fails if it is unexceptional at any service touch point.
If I, as an individual library worker, fail to connect with a community member through my lack of appropriate gestures or inattentiveness, then everything else I do from that point on in the interaction could fail as well. My smile, eye contact or welcoming nod gets things off to the right start by building that basic trust needed for a relationship to happen – even if that relationship exists only for the time in which we engage at the service point.
Library workers in public service contact points need to recognize that their behavior has a significant and contagious impact on others. That’s why our service principles document, in the “five steps of service” starts off with “make eye contact; give a greeting; share your name” and then in step two states “be in the moment; eliminate distractions”. These reinforce Sachs’ message about establishing trust (which just happens to be step three).
Delivering on a well-designed library user experience is no easy task. Simple gestures like eye contact and smiling, on the other hand, are among the easiest things any library worker can do to contribute to the totality of the library experience.
IFLA Announces Free Webinar on Design Thinking
Here’s a good opportunity to get a global perspective on how design thinking is being used in libraries to promote better services, as well as help staff go through a change process and adapt to new ways of delivering services.
You can learn more here and get the link to the webinar, which takes place on Thursday, July 6 at 1:00 pm CT.
Here’s a description of the webinar from the official site:
How can libraries adopt “design thinking” to improve their library services, programming and spaces? What do libraries need to do to prepare staff for the change? According to Tim Brown, president and CEO of IDEO, “Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”
This webinar explores design thinking principles, showcases how design thinking can be used to improve what libraries do and how libraries address user needs, and identifies strategies that libraries can use to adopt design thinking into their own work.
Full disclosure: I am one of the invited speakers and I am looking forward to sharing an experience from my library with a design challenge we took on to rethink and redesign our service delivery model.
The keynote speaker is Rolf Hapel, Director of Citizens’ Services and Libraries in Aarhus, Denmark. I know they are doing some amazing work at the Aarhus public library system – and they partnered with IDEO and Chicago Public Library for a well known application of design thinking to improve library service.
I hope you will join in for the conversation.