Category Archives: User Experiences

Articles, Experience Design, User Experiences

McDonald’s, Good Ideas and Experience Design – Recommended Reads

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Unfortunately I have less time right now than I’d like to write at greater length about each of these three items I’ve recently read. I think each is worth taking the time to read so I’m recommending them here with just a few quick thoughts.

It’s “Masters of Design” special issue time again over at Fast Company. One of the articles was a standout for me – the one about the big McMakeover at McDonald’s. A few years back it seemed the trend was to apply the term “mcdonaldization” to suggest that a fast food model was taking over a particular process, organization or industry. It was a put down, meaning that creativity and innovation were replaced by rote, soulless routines that reduced the quality of service in favor of speed, efficiency and convenience. I even recall an article from College & Research Libraries, the peer-reviewed library journal, that used the term in its title, and it’s been used fairly regularly in higher education to refer to the big business approach taken by for-profit online higher education programs. What’s interesting about all this is that the Fast Company article is high praise for how McDonald’s is using design to re-invent itself – and be anything but McDonaldized (Ok, they’re not exactly breaking the fast food mold). The article highlights the work of Denis Weil, the designer leading the makeover, who says that “Design is doing something with intent.” The article inspires me to think that when it comes to re-invention and mass change, if McDonald’s can do it, why can’t libraries. Well, if we had a designer like Denis Weil (and some of McDonald’s cash), I think we could.

Just yesterday I downloaded Steven Johnson’s TED Talk on “good ideas”, and I’m looking forward to watching it soon. (NOTE: if you weren’t aware of how easy it is to download a selected TT to iTunes – it is easy – give it a try). So today I came across a WSJ article written by Johnson about the origins of good ideas and the importance of being a tinkerer. I now realize he is coming out with a new book on this exact topic. The article provides a taste of the book, which makes the point that real innovation isn’t the work of a lone creative genius sitting alone in a room when a light-bulb idea pops out. That may happen occasionally, but Johnson uses real world examples to demonstrate that good ideas emerge when different ideas, products or processes that already exist come together in new or different ways. In the past much innovation has happened in closed environments, such as corporate R&D shops, and intellectual property laws have kept it competitive and private. Johnson believes that open innovation may create an environment in which many more good ideas can emerge. Read the article, watch the TT – and perhaps you may be inspired to be the “tinkerer” for your library.

From the “user experience backlash” department – sort of – comes this blog post titled “Can Experience be Designed?” from Oliver Reichenstein at iA. While the language suggests that Reichenstein has a problem with the validity of user experience designers, what he basically asks is if the idea of experience design is bullshit. Can you really design an experience for people when everyone achieves a slightly different experience from any particular design which he or she encounters? He asks “Do experience designers shape how users feel or do they shape with respect to how users feel?” Can an architect design a house that delivers a certain type of experience or does the house’s design lead to a spectrum of experiences – based on the lives of the inhabitants and what they bring to the experience? Reichenstein then proceeds to give the reader much to think about the concept and practice of user experience design. I like these types of articles because they force me to question some of my beliefs about design thinking and user experiences. It also helps me to clarify what, in a library, can be improved through user experience design, and how it might be accomplished. I’ll be further reflecting on this one.

Higher Education, User Experiences

Designing The Campus Tour

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Academic libraries make a great stop on the campus tour for prospective students. If nothing else it gives the student tour leaders an opportunity to throw some challenges out to the prospective students and their parents. “Guess how many books there are here?” is a pretty common one. Whatever the tour leaders say about the library it’s usually enough to make most librarians within hearing range cringe with fear. As might be expected, most academic librarians have a student tour story to tell, be it humorous or just plain ugly.

There are good reasons to include the library on the campus tour. For one thing it reminds us academic librarians that the admissions office still considers the library an important place for prospective students to visit. What we need to understand about the campus tour is that increasingly it is the outcome of a design process where little is random or left to chance. In fact, more institutions are paying consulting firms to design the campus tour and media related to the tour. This shift in campus tour design was profiled in a Washington Monthly article titled “Campus Tours Go Disney“. It relates how more institutions are moving away from a drab, walk-a-bout the campus affair, and doing more to add sizzle to the tour:

Many colleges have turned the traditional tour into a more intimate, more elaborate event. Some colleges have full-time “visit coordinators” who preside over tours with personalized touches, quirky diversions, choreographed “signature moments,” and even souvenirs—the stuff of theme parks. Such changes have made tours more fun and engaging, and families tend to get multiple options for who to meet and what to see during their visits… when prospective students visit colleges, they’re not just seeking information about outcomes; they want to know what it would be like to eat, sleep, and socialize at a school for four or more years. So tours designed to convey that “experience” provide something consumers want.

The article profiles Jeff Kallay, a pioneer of campus tour design who “encourages colleges to tell stories that will distinguish them from competitors, to engineer an experience that will stick in consumers’ minds.” Kallay is taking cues from masters of user experience design, such as Disney theme parks, and helping colleges and universities apply the concepts to wow prospective students and their parents – to create something different and much more memorable than other tours they’ll take. One piece of advice that Kallay gives institutions that resonates with me – and which makes me feel vindicated about something I’ve been telling admissions folks for years – is the importance of emphasizing stories and human interaction during the tour:

Listening and eye contact matter more than climbing walls and glitzy dorms, he told his clients. He encouraged security guards to wave, secretaries to smile, and tour guides to ask open-ended questions (and to stop walking backward). In presentations, he has even suggested that tours should deemphasize their facilities, even if it means skipping the library. “Everyone’s got one,” he says.

I’ve advised those who plan the campus tour to stop having student guides regurgitate canned talks about the number of books, the number of databases, and that the library can get any book you need when you need it. As Kallay points out, students probably hear this at every library they visit. Instead, as I’ve recommended, have the students relate a personal success story about using the library for their research and to try to weave into that story the difference an academic librarian makes. According to Kallay, those personalized stories have far greater impact than just talking about the facility and content. Nor would it hurt to have an actual librarian say a few words to tour groups – even if it’s just a “hello – we’re here to help you” statement. If more academic librarians sought to create change in the traditional library tour, perhaps we wouldn’t be having Kallay advising his clients to take the library off the tour because it’s so mundane that it adds nothing unique to the tour experience.

I recommend this article to those who want to better understand why designing a user experience is important in higher education institutions, be it the campus tour or the library experience. If our institutions are bringing in consultants to design a better campus tour, why wouldn’t we want to demonstrate how we are working to design a better library experience for students and faculty. And after you finish reading it – share the link with your campus tour coordinator, and add a note that reads “Let’s talk about the library tour”.

User Experiences

The Future Of The Library Is Not The Apple Store

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I tuned in to a recorded archive of a program about the future of the academic library. One participant described as a “no brainer” the idea that the library of the future should be something modeled on the Apple Store. I can see the appeal because Apple Stores are really happening places. When you go there (at least on the weekend) the place is packed, and there’s a waiting list to talk to a “genius” at the genius bar. It is an engaging experience because the wares are right out there, not behind glass cases. The products are loaded with software and apps so you can feel them, interact with them, listen to them – it’s all part of a unique experience. And on top of all that, the geniuses and customer representatives are quite knowledgeable and appear to truly enjoy their work. It all adds up to a great user experience. Some would say that Google’s home page is a masterwork of simplicity and execution. But I don’t see much advocating for it to be the model for the future of the library home page – and a few libraries that have tried it have since given up on it.

What’s not to like about the idea of the library replicating the Apple Store? Why wouldn’t we want lots of loyal, passionate people milling about just waiting to ask a question or find out how to use a resource? Hands down the Apple Store is a much cooler and more fun place to spend some time because there are plenty of gadgets to explore. Libraries have computers and many are adding devices like kindles, iPads, GPS and digital cameras. So libraries have gadgets too, but we ask – in most cases – the user community members to check them out. We could, but do not put gadgets on display for play. But I’ve not heard of an Apple Store that lets you borrow the gadgets to take home – at no cost. Still, few folks would likely rate the library experience as highly as the Apple Store experience – even if the library does have experts who will answer any questions.

My main reason for arguing why we should avoid modeling future libraries on Apple Stores is that the whole point of designing a user experience is to create something unique and fun for your local user community – and which is based on the needs of the local community. Apple Stores have the luxury of being somewhat cookie cutter in how they are modeled. The Apple Store in Manhattan, while larger than the one in my own vicinity, is pretty much the same Apple Store that I would go to at the mega-mall. It has a brand identity to uphold across the globe. Your library may have a brand identity as well, but likely only within your own local community. Rather than working to re-invent our libraries in the mold of the Apple Store we should invest time and effort in understanding the community, and then designing a unique experience that delivers on and exceeds their library expectations. In designing that experience we may find an idea or two to borrow from the Apple Store and other retailers that deliver great user experiences. That’s why we need to pay attention to these retailers – and I think that is what the presenter probably intended. But whatever we borrow should be mixed and re-formulated as the library experience – not merely a copy of the Apple Store concept.

Creativity & Innovation, User Experiences

More On Meaning And Creative Showering

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No, this isn’t a post about how you get meaning from your creative showering. I want to just follow up on two different posts with some new thoughts and links for you.

My most recent post shared some insights from the retreat I attended along with my colleagues in our public services units. In that post I talked about a conversation I had with my co-worker about meaning, and how an article I later came across shared research that indicated that people derive more meaning and happiness from experiences than they do from material objects. Then I came across this NYT article on virtually the same topic discussing similar research that documents that individuals derive more happiness from experiences than material objects:

Current research suggests that, unlike consumption of material goods, spending on leisure and services typically strengthens social bonds, which in turn helps amplify happiness. (Academics are already in broad agreement that there is a strong correlation between the quality of people’s relationships and their happiness; hence, anything that promotes stronger social bonds has a good chance of making us feel all warm and fuzzy.)

So with all the research pointing to the connection between meaning and happiness/satisfaction, that further reinforces that we can offer our user community members something of value whenever we deliver a great library experience.

Further back I wrote about the importance of capturing your good ideas – even when they come in the shower (and yes, there’s a special notebook for that). I mentioned that some research did show there is something to be said for showers as a creative place. For some reason, many individuals will indicate they came up with a good idea in the shower. Over at the Heart of Innovation blog, you’ll find a list of 20 reasons why people get their best ideas in the shower. Some make a lot of sense, and others are questionable – but intriguing – like showering with a partner and turning the shower into a brainstorming session. But I think it still comes down to reason number 20: Showering is easy. Not a lot of thinking is required to make it happen, which frees your mind to think about other things.

User Experiences

The Library Retreat Experience: Explaining What You Mean By Meaning

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When you put the words “library” and “retreat” together that can be an off-putting combination for many library workers. It conjures images of boring presentations, a good day wasted, and lots of talk and no action. Fortunately, the public services retreat held recently at MPOW was none of those. It had its share of high and low moments, but overall it was a productive day that mixed interactive exercises with brief presentations from academic librarians via Skype. I was amazed at how quickly the hours passed. Not only was it a great opportunity for co-workers from different departments to work collaboratively, but we had a much anticipated (by me) conversation about user experience. The retreat planning team did an amazing job, and for the most part the designated retreat outcomes were accomplished.

The day began with a simple icebreaker. With everyone in a circle the first person threw a beach ball to any other staff member – but not someone in their own unit. That gave each person a chance to share a few insights about their job, and the help he or she provides to other staff and community members. Our first learning activity gave everyone an opportunity to share past experiences (the retail/service type), both good and bad, and that lead to a conversation about understanding how our user community might perceive the experience they get at our library. That was followed by viewing the bulk of Seth Godin’s “Why Things are Broken” video, followed by a discussion of what’s broken in our library. We finished up our morning focus on customer service and UX with the “seven questions” exercise. At each table participants found a single question they needed to answer (and add the answer to a running list left by other groups). Questions included the following: “Choose a value from our mission/values/vision statement – how can that value contribute to a positive user experience in the library?” and “What’s the one thing you would fix/change about the library’s user experience?”

The afternoon segment focused on new models for service delivery, and it offered some great activities as well. One fun and challenging exercise called “Bad Ideas” required us to take a bad idea – based on something that doesn’t work well in our library (e.g., a problematic procedure for computer printing) and then come up with outrageous ideas for how to make the bad idea even worse. It was a creative way to actually brainstorm potential solutions. Then we heard from librarians at four different institutions that had restructured their service delivery model (e.g., eliminating and merging service desks, creating a “genius bar”, etc.) Skype is a fine technology for inviting a remote speaker to attend a retreat for a quick interview. We ended the day with a fun, creative activity called the Library Future – Library Science Fair. Each table was tasked with coming up with a vision for a future public service environment, and then using a variety of arts and crafts materials, everything from pipe cleaners to legos, to build a prototype that illustrated their ideas. Some great ideas emerged from that activity that greatly help our organization as we plan for an anticipated new building.

At one point, during our seven questions activity, each group discussed ideas for how to improve the library experience for the user community. I shared some thoughts about meaning and users. How could we deliver meaning to them as part of the library experience? A colleague asked a good question. What did I mean by meaning? After all, conveying thoughts about meaning is a challenge of sorts. Just saying “we need to give people more meaning” is a somewhat nebulous proposition. What does it mean to give someone more meaning? At first I was a bit flustered, and then I started to explain different attributes of experience that can define meaning such as accomplishment. So how could we communicate or brand a library experience designed around helping students and faculty succeed with academic accomplishments? That is one way in which our library could deliver an experience with meaning.

Had I had it at my disposal at the time, I would have pointed to this article titled “Experiences Make us Happier Than Possessions” that I recently discovered. It discusses research about meaning and how individuals derive and experience it. A study involving 154 students averaging age 25 asked about a recent purchase made to make themselves feel better or happy. They were asked to compare a tangible material object such as a car or clothes with an experiential intangible purchase, such as a movie or vacation. While both types of purchases will create good feelings initially, it was the experiential purchase that had the longer lasting impact:

Psychological research suggests that, in the long run, experiences make people happier than possessions. That’s in part because the initial joy of acquiring a new object, such as a new car, fades over time as people become accustomed to seeing it every day, experts said. Experiences, on the other hand, continue to provide happiness through memories long after the event occurred.

You can read the entire article to find out more about the specifics of the study and other things discovered about the difference between acquiring objects and experiences. From my perspective, the big difference is that people derive meaning from their experiences in a way they cannot from tangible possessions. So the next time I’m asked to explain what I mean by delivering meaning to the user community, a reference to this research may be helpful. Experiences, good and bad, are memorable. When we create better library experiences for our users we are, in a sense, giving them some happiness they’ll keep with them long after their physical or virtual library interaction comes to an end.

Articles, User Experiences

Want Magazine Will Help Us Learn How Designers Think

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I had seen the advance announcements about Want Magazine, and was eagerly looking forward to the debut of issue one (a/k/a Release 001). Now we can all read Want Magazine. The first issue became available just recently. Want Magazine looks like it will be a valuable learning source for those of us who want to better understand how designers think and what drives their creativity and creation. It appears that the format – and who knows just exactly how Want will evolve – is recorded interviews with a rich mix of designers. Each interview is posted with text notes from the interviewer – which is helpful if you don’t have time to watch the interview and want to know the key takeaways. According to its mission statement here’s what we can expect:

What makes our magazine unique is that we are willing to take an apparently mundane occurrence, and celebrate it. We do not take experiences for granted. We trust them to instill change, to have the power to transform, to improve lives and the lives of others. First and foremost, we intend to celebrate the makers of experience –those who devote their full time, energy and passion to making memorable moments and positive feelings. Among these people, we highlight the professionals in the field of User Experience Design. Their discipline is purposely centered on the research, planning and execution of strategies, activities and results that bring purpose to users of products, interactions and places.

The chief problem of Want is that I’ll never find the time to view all the great interviews. I’ve taken a look at the ones with Peter Merholz, Don Norman and Cordell Ratzlaff – and all were well worth the time. I hope to get back to check out a few more of the interviews. I think Norman has some profound thoughts about why people become enthusiastic about complex systems and the process by which that happens. I also like Ratzlaff’s view of what user experience is:

I think it encompasses the entire relationship that a person has with the device or product or application that they’re using. That includes the functionality of the device. It includes the physical relationship between the person and the product. And it includes the emotional relationship. It also encompasses every touch point between the person and the product.

What both Norman and Ratzlaff have to say strikes me as directly related to the library experience – or rather what we need to do to design a better one. There needs to be an emotional attachment and an emotional relationship. I see this in the students who win our library research prize. They are incredibly passionate about their research, and they’ve formed strong attachments with our collection and librarians. I recommend that you sign up for updates from Want Magazine. If you want to learn more about user experience, or even just want to understand it a little better, then take a closer look.

Ethnography, User Experiences

Flip This Library

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Editor’s Note: I recently discovered an interesting user experience project at Georgia Tech’s Library that involved the use of flip cameras. Flip cameras are fairly easy to use, and make it easy for almost anyone to capture an interview on digital video or make a short personalized video. I invited Ameet Doshi and Dottie Hunt, of the GT Library User Experience Department, to share their use of the flip video camera to learn about their library from the user’s perspective. Many thanks to Ameet and Dottie for sharing their project – something that many libraries could quite easily replicate.

A few months ago, we were brainstorming to find an engaging, productive activity for our upcoming library student advisory board meeting. At Georgia Tech, we’re fortunate to have a very talented and energetic advisory board and we wanted to maintain the momentum through the semester. Dottie came up with the idea of using “Flip” cameras (Flip cams are handheld digital cameras about the size of a cell phone) as an interactive tool for assessment. We thought it would be an interesting experiment to ask advisory board members to walk around the library filming the experience from their perspective.

We only had an hour to explain the instructions, divide everyone up, assign filming locations, and reconvene for the wrap-up. Unsure of how valuable this exercise might be we decided to try it and see what happens. The results were very illuminating!

We learned that one of the first things that users see when they walk into our building are the backs of the reference staff. This is because the information desk faces the desktop computing/commons area, with the idea that it should be easy for students working in the commons to look up, see a member of the reference staff, and easily ask reference questions. Since we spend most of our day actually inside the building, the fact that those entering the building don’t make a face-to-face connection with librarians or reference staff didn’t seem especially obvious to us until we saw it on video. Students also pointed out the difficulty in deciphering the analog directional sign with floors designated by call numbers (noting that this is incomprehensible to many students) and arrows pointing in various directions. Perhaps the most “actionable” video, however, was one that showed the sheer amount of graffiti that had accumulated on the walls next to the individual study carrels on the library’s upper floors. Not surprisingly, students discussed how distracting and disheartening it can be to see offensive or vulgar writing as you try to crank out a literature paper or study for a physics exam. And again, librarians rarely use these carrels, so this problem had fallen under our radar to some degree. Students also came back with suggestions about more intuitive signage, lighting, furniture, way-finding, and aesthetic possibilities. We have also had success doing some simple usability testing by recording students doing sample searches on our website and narrating their likes and dislikes with Flip cameras. Needless to say, we have been quite pleased with this “treasure-trove” of unique assessment data collected in just a few minutes, and the students enjoyed the productive, creative, interactive approach to helping the library improve the user experience.

By the next board meeting, we were able to remove all the graffiti and also have a mock-up ready for a new digital sign. We also discussed plans for a redesign and reorganization of our service desks to create a more inviting atmosphere for those seeking assistance, regardless of whether they approach that area from the entrance or from within the library. The students clearly appreciate when their work results in changes they and their peers can see.

Points to Consider

We’ve found that using Flip cameras has been most useful with small groups of 2 or 3 – with one person filming and another narrating what they see. In addition, when used as part of an advisory board activity, it is useful to have a wrap-up discussion after filming to talk about key areas of concern from the student perspective.

Although many areas of concern do require significant expenditures, much of what students filmed included manageable upgrades such as painting or signage. More importantly, we were able to make some of those changes (for example, working with our facilities staff to paint over graffiti) and reinforce to the advisory members that their involvement pays dividends.

Finally, it’s always a good idea to ask permission to use the captured comments or video. Different institutions handle the legal end on this different ways, so another best practice would be to make yourself familiar with recorded content practices on your campus.

Wrap-up

Flip cameras are relatively inexpensive and are steadily decreasing in price. One huge advantage of using these cameras is that there is a built-in USB which makes for easy downloading. A drawback, however, is an omni-directional microphone that tends to pick up an excessive amount of ambient noise. On busy days, the background noise has made it difficult to hear what students are saying. Also, the zoom function on most Flip cams is not as robust as with a regular camcorder. Although the USB makes for easy downloading, the amount of time to edit and normalize the videos is not insignificant and does require some multimedia expertise.

Take away

Using Flip cameras is a quick and relatively inexpensive approach to assessment of library spaces and even web usability. There are some drawbacks but students clearly appreciate the interactive nature of this type of assessment.

User Experiences

Expanding Our Touchpoints To Self-Service

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Outside of references to societal trends pointing to the consumer interest in self-service and how libraries need to respond to that, we librarians rarely talk about the ways in which we offer or could offer self service – and what that would mean for ourselves, our libraries and our community members. Nor have I seen much in our literature or conference discussions about evaluating the quality of our self service (if you’ve seen or written about such research please let us know).

I got to thinking about this after reading a post over at Joseph Michelli’s blog “Joseph’s Blog” on “How to Execute Easy“. In discussing a new research study that examines customer use of self-service kiosks, Michelli points to a dilemma faced by organizations that use ATM-like machines to deliver service:

At the heart of the dilemma that prompted this research is a desire by business leaders to maximize technology – speeding-up service, delivering cost efficient service solutions, and even opening-up their business to new tech-savvy customer segments. At the same time these leaders don’t want to automate service to the point that it becomes impersonal and essentially decreases the emotional connections between the consumer and their brand. That outcome would fundamentally lead to commoditization and that defeats all benefits of the technology in the first place.

Libraries already offer self-service checkout, some are exploring vending machines for self-service book delivery, and we offer patron-mediated interlibrary loan – where community members essentially manage their own ILL transactions. But quite possibly the most vast application of self-service is our electronic information delivery. We give our user community access to a rich set of resources that they can mine anytime, at their convenience, with no need whatsoever to interact with a member of the library staff. But here’s the important point according to Michelli: are we making it easy? He writes:

The mixed finding indicates that if you attempt to make the experience easier and it really turns out to be easier – satisfaction increases and you make more money. If you attempt to make it easier and it turns out to more complicated, you lose customer loyalty and decrease the depth of your existing customers’ spend.

So we’re not trying to make money – that’s not the point. We do need to build community member loyalty so we keep them coming back to the library for more. The challenge is that our “self-service” databases often fail the “easy” test, and that may be the case as well for some of our other self-service solutions (have you tried your library’s self-service checkout?). One improvement that may help is the ability to integrate chat widgets into the databases. So far only one major vendor is making it possible (correct me if I’m wrong). That capability speaks to the importance of offering a good balance between speeding things up for the community member and providing the opportunity for a personal connection. Access to live help is likely to increasingly become a part of the online service experience. Michelli shares that “in the next 12 months, retail eBusiness professionals are planning to expand their online customer service touchpoints, with significant increases in live help, social, and mobile customer service.”

As libraries move more of their services into the online and mobile worlds, we will no doubt expand the opportunities for self-service – which is a good thing. But as we do so we will also need to pay attention to expanding our touchpoints in those environments.

Simplicity/Complexity, User Experiences

Complexity Gives Us Job Security

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Why are library databases so much more complicated to use than Google? Why do library public catalog search systems suck? Why is Amazon so easy to use, and why are libraries incapable of learning anything about interface design from these superior-to-use sites? Those are questions you’ve seen asked repeatedly by members of our profession in blog posts and conference presentations. Perhaps there is a simple answer. It keeps us employed.

Think about it. If every library system interface was so simple and so easy, and the systems themselves worked so well that anyone could use them to find the exact piece of information they needed whenever they needed it – easily and with great convenience – who would need librarians? To the best of my knowledge, Google has no personnel standing by to provide search assistance. Amazon may, but have you ever heard of anyone who actually sought help conducting an Amazon transaction? With no professional support staff to pay, imagine how advantageous it is to plow those resources into the improvement of the systems. So what’s keeping libraries and the companies that create the search products from doing the same? Is this about self-propagation?

No, I don’t believe the library profession has some master plan to conspire to promote bad design so that our relevancy is assured as we keep the masses dependent on our expertise. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible – and in fact there is at least one good example of an industry where a company intentionally keeps its system complicated and difficult to use, but which is actually supported by all the people who have to use that system. Given everything we’ve been told about how people desire simplicity and convenience, why would they go against the grain and resist efforts to improve or simplify the system? There is a simple answer. The complexity of the system and the difficulty in learning to use it establishes authority and expertise. If anyone could use it intuitively, there’d be nothing special about developing expertise on this system.

As hard as it is to believe all this, it’s exactly what makes the awful-to-use Bloomberg Terminal a lasting success. According to the post “The Impossible Bloomberg Makeover“:

“Bloomberg isn’t looking to do a major overhaul of its terminals’ graphic design anytime soon. In fact, company executives see the Bloomberg terminal’s unique presentation as a status symbol and a selling point. ‘We have to be religiously consistent’ to satisfy users who become attached to terminal’s look and feel, says Bloomberg chief executive Lex Fenwick. ‘You can see a Bloomberg from a mile away.'”

The Bloomberg terminal is the perfect example of a lock-in effect reinforced by the powerful conservative tendancies of the financial ecosystem and its permanent need to fake complexity.

Simplifying the interface of the terminal would not be accepted by most users because, as ethnographic studies show, they take pride on manipulating Bloomberg’s current “complex” interface. The pain inflicted by blatant UI flaws such as black background color and yellow and orange text is strangely transformed into the rewarding experience of feeling and looking like a hard-core professional.

I had read this post yesterday, shortly before I headed off to do an instruction session for a small group of graduate students working on their dissertations in mathematics education. As I went through various library resources with them, including the catalog, dissertation resources, standard stuff such as EBSCO, ISI Web of Science and Wilson, exporting citations to bibliographic software, I thought that I might as well be instructing them on how to use a Bloomberg terminal. Well, it isn’t quite that bad, but did I leave the session thinking the retention level would be high? Not a bit.

I’m not sure what the answer is. Over the past 20 years I have seen significant progress in efforts to make library resources, from the catalog to the most arcane database, simpler to use. I know some experts will argue that every interface and system can be made simple, and perhaps there are improvements yet to come that will move us in that direction. One challenge is that our library resources are incredibly feature rich, and it’s well observed that more features you present the more complexity you introduce. I have found Google’s search options quite helpful for improving search results – even something as simple as a date limit – but guess what. The default is “hidden”. Unless you know what they are and how they work, they’ll stay hidden for 99% of the users. That’s what experts do. They look below the surface. They explore the complexity. And they share it with others and teach them how and why to use those features. But even if we made all of our resources easy for anyone to use, based on my experience with the doctoral students, there are still so many different resources and options – and that is unlikely to change for those who need to do higher level research (a first year undergrad could conceivably use a general periodicals database and little else) – that the guidance and expertise librarians offer will continue to be in demand.

When you think about it, most of the research advice librarians dole out has little to do with navigating complex search systems. The most complex challenge for most people doing research is working through the process of articulating a research question and developing a strategy for resolving that question. That’s one of the most important ways is which librarians serve as designers – designing research strategies for our community members that enable them to fill the gap between what they don’t know and what they need to learn.

User Experiences

What the Users Want: Guessing vs. Knowing

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At some point someone must have asked Henry Ford if he conducted focus groups, surveys or ethnographic studies to find out what types of cars and unique features his customers wanted. I say that because the statement “If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse” is a quote attributed to Ford that I’ve now heard used in multiple presentations and in multiple blog posts. An internet search of the phrase will bring up dozens of occurrences, yet know one actually knows if Ford said this or when he said it or in response to what sort of question. The essence of the quote is that it’s pointless to just ask your customers what they want because they either don’t know what they really want or what they think they want isn’t what they would really want if something much better was offered – like a car instead of a faster horse.

Those who use the quote will often point to the success of Apple, a company that promotes the idea of trying to determine what the users would like to have that they currently don’t have or cannot do, and uses that approach to improve on existing technologies or create systemic experiences where none exist. This all tends to conflict with the idea of using techniques such as surveys and focus groups to better understand user reaction to existing products and services, as well as wants and needs. What risks do organizations take if they ask these questions and then develop services or create change based on what they learned from the user? This is particularly critical when planning new buildings or renovations. Do we add dozens of additional electrical outlets because the users tell us they need them or because we observe them sitting on the floor next to a scarce outlet or do we take a risk on a new technology that can power devices wirelessly because we think they’ll want that even more – even if they don’t have it now?

So what do we do? Do we make educated guesses about these things in an attempt to pleasantly surprise the user with something new and unanticipated, or do we always try to make sure we know what the users want by taking the time to ask the right questions and listen carefully? Or, do we use anthropological and ethnographic methods that offer some mix of strategies. For example, if you watch the Deep Dive video you’ll see members of the IDEO shopping cart project team going out to supermarkets to talk to the people who use carts. They learn that the carts get stolen because of the metal’s value, that carts can damage cars if blown by the wind, that fast shoppers leave their carts at the end of the aisle and then walk to the products rather than taking the carts up and down the aisles and that parents take multiple approaches to putting kids in the carts. Some of this information is gathered by asking shoppers what they do while some comes from direct observation. In a previous post I pointed to the importance of learning about users from listening to and observing them; I related the story of the company that learned from observation that men used their body soap products in a very different way – and quite different from what they learned when questions were asked in focus groups.

It seems that more libraries are catching on to the use of anthropological methods that were pioneered at the University of Rochester Library. I have heard of several libraries that are exploring this method, and more will no doubt be employing it with librarians attending workshops on how to use this technique in their libraries. Just recently, the Library atCalifornia State University at Fresno, issued a report on their findings, and this will no doubt continue to add to the popularity of conducting anthropological studies of members of the library user community. So what might we learn from this study which examined student behavior across multiple dimensions of library use? First off, the study team involved faculty. That seems to be developing into an accepted model for conducting these studies. If your campus has anthropologists, seek them out to collaborate with you on this project. The report provides good insight into many techniques available to better understand student work practices. Anyone seeking to replicate this type of study will find good ideas in this report. As I read many of the recommendations and conclusions I find few that are particularly innovative and some mirror what we already know about student work practices and space preferences, but it is a reminder that creating a better user experience is not necessarily about concocting some cool new service. It’s about understanding your students and the things that give them a memorable library experience.

Can the library community benefit from more of these studies? As the authors of the Fresno study make clear in the introduction to their report there are significant differences between their library and others, such as the University of Rochester, that have conducted work practice studies and shared the results. Given the uniqueness of each library user community, one library’s findings about their students and faculty are quite likely to be different from another. Similar trends may be found across different communities, such as student procrastination or the desire for technology-outfitted study rooms, but the differences in demographics, size, resources and other factors suggest that each one could benefit by delivering a unique user experience. So expect more of these studies. Each will add to our knowledge of how to design a better library.