Category Archives: User Experiences

User Experiences

User Experience Is More Than A Trend

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While I was pleased to see that user experience was one of the topics discussed at the regular Top Tech Trends program that is conducted at each American Library Association conference and sponsored by the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), I have to ask if this is the right sort of forum for a conversation about user experience. Now admittedly I was unable to attend this session, but I did obtain some information from a report that appeared in Library Journal. According to the news, in the segment in which UX was mentioned, Amanda Etches-Johnson:

urged the audience to consider the concept of “user experience” (UX) as new technology-driven services are designed. “In the library world, it’s still pretty fresh to our ears,” she said of UX design talk, but stressed the importance of considering the entirety of a user’s interactions with a library, whether online or in person.

I agree, that despite two years of discussing design thinking and user experience here at DBL, plus two articles in American Libraries covering each topic and multiple conference presentations, many librarians still equate design talk and UX with the external and internal physical design of the library facility. So it’s great whenever librarians are given an opportunity to expand their understanding of design and user experience concepts. All that said, my concern is that the librarians who are getting their first exposure to UX through the program or the LJ news item, will come away with the impression that UX is just a trend. Consider some of the other topics covered at the Top Tech Trends forum. Texting. That’s hot right now but like any technology it will likely be replaced by something better. Discovery systems. Yep. Hot right now but sure to be replaced by something more advanced. Apps. Even the speaker who spoke about it said this is the year that apps die. So much for that trend. But what about UX? Does it fall into the same category as texting, discovery technology and apps?

No, I don’t think so. I’d like to think that as more librarians learn about user experience and come to value what it has to offer they will add the importance of designing and delivering a great library UX to their set of core values – those statements that define what we believe and how we behave as an organization. Core values are or should be timeless; they are not trendy. None of this is to suggest that Etches-Johnson believes that user experience is just a trend. I’m sure she shares my belief that user experience should be at the foundation of what drives the library to deliver memorable and unique experiences, and that it must become a core guiding strategy for the present and future.

If you attended the top tech trends event or read about it, take a few minutes to think about user experience, how it was described, the context in which it was discussed and what that meant to you and your library. If you are new to the concept of UX, take some time to read past posts about it here at DBL; commit to learning more. If we want to design better libraries, user experience must be more than a trend.

User Experiences

Librarians Are Spreading The Word About User Experience

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When a few colleagues and I launched Designing Better Libraries in February 2007, I was pleased to have the opportunity to introduce to the library profession a new blog dedicated to exploring and discussing two important concepts, design thinking and user experience. Since then DBL has regularly shared ideas and resources about how design thinking and user experience may be applied in libraries to create a better user experience. We hope this has inspired some of our readers to contemplate practicing these ideas in their own libraries, and I personally appreciate being invited by a variety of library groups to come and speak about design thinking and user experience. But back in 2007, as this blog was originally conceived to promote new ideas then virtually unknown to the profession, I was convinced they would resonate with others, and I anticipated that in time those librarians would pick up the torch and spread these ideas through their own writings. I believe that is now coming to fruition.

Just a few weeks ago my good colleague Pete Bromberg, familiar to some of you as a blogger for Library Garden (just named one of the 10 blogs to read in 2010) wrote an excellent post at ALA Learning about creating a great user experience for learners. I’ve had a draft post brewing about creating a user experience for library learners for some time now, and am still thinking this through. Bromberg was clearly inspired by the Jesse James Garrett video on the state of user experience, as he identified four ways to engage learners in giving them a great experience. I know that Pete is interested in UX, and has even organized some staff development programs related to the topic, so it was great to see him writing about it – and his mention of DBL is greatly appreciated. Then a few days later, Stephen Abram wrote a post on his blog about user experience that pointed to Bromberg’s post. Given the wide readership of Stephen’s Lighthouse I’m sure that helped to further spread the word about UX.

I expect that a new development will be more significant in spreading the word about UX to the library community, and I hope that my recent American Libraries article about user experience (“From Gatekeepers to Gateopeners“) has contributed to that process as well. Library Journal, one of our profession’s mainstream practitioner publications, has introduced a new column dedicated to user experience called “The User Experience” (you can’t get much more direct than that). I was also pleased to see that LJ has chosen Aaron Schmidt to write this column. I had the pleasure of working with Aaron a few years ago on a Soaring to Excellence program about web 2.0 for libraries. Aaron is well recognized in the library profession as one of our more innovative thinkers about how to better serve the library user community through improved usability and design. I’m sure he’ll do a great job with the column, and I’ll look forward to reading future entries – and I encourage you to read it as well. And it didn’t take long for another well-known blogger, Michael Stephens, to spread the word about Aaron’s new LJ column on UX via his widely read Tame the Web blog.

When you add up these recent events I think it points to a growing awareness and acceptance of the importance of user experience in creating better libraries. What I am not hearing in these conversations is a parallel recognition of design thinking, and how it is important in helping to design staged user experiences. As in so many other things, a great user experience is the outcome of a thoughtful design process that incorporates, among other things, totality, meaning and relationships. I hope that other librarians will be inspired by this growing cadre of library colleagues spreading the word about user experience – and that they will make Designing Better Libraries a part of their personal learning experience.

User Experiences

Offer A Disruptive Library Experience

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Most of us are familiar with the concept of the disruptive innovation that was introduced by Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen. The gist of the disruptive innovation (or technology) is that all organizations have potential competitors that can take their market share based on creating a new idea, product or service that will offer more value to the individual. I often offer the Internet search engine as a disruptive technology/innovation that radically changed the world for traditional libraries. Where individuals once frequently consulted libraries for the answers to factual questions (e.g., the population of Ghana, the year the Magna Carta was signed, etc.), anyone with an Internet connection now routinely uses a search engine to find the answers to these questions on their own. There are many other examples of disruptive innovation and technology.

Does this idea of creating a disruption that displaces a traditional competitor apply to the user experience? According to an article that appeared in the 2009 issue of Strategy & Leadership (v. 39 No. 6), the answer is yes. [Note – if you are unable to access this article, here is a similar but older one] What initially caught my attention is that one of this article’s co-authors is B. Joseph Pines, who co-authored The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre, a seminal work in the field of user experience. So naturally I wanted to see what new ideas Pines is discussing. According to the authors:

Many of the successful innovations of the past several decades – like Starbucks – involve customers spending more time with the company, time that has special value. Think of it as competing on the basis of ‘‘time well spent.’’ Across a wide variety of industries – food, entertainment, and travel destinations, to name a few – companies increasingly embrace the view that economic value can be generated in creating a meaningful experience for customers. In experience innovation, it’s especially important to get the job that customers want done right, because getting it wrong entails unique risks.

The premise of the article is that businesses based on the “simple-cheap-convenient” model can be effectively disrupted by those firms that offer experience innovations. Using Walt Disney as a case study, this article shows how the ultimate experience company was lulled into complacency in the 70s and 80s until a new firm, Pixar, disrupted what had become Walt Disney’s more formulaic approach to animated films by crafting better stories that “out-imagined” Disney’s own “imagineering” techniques. In this industry, technology certainly mattered for Pixar, but ultimately it was experience innovation that made the difference:

Note how in this example the formula so prevalent in manufactured goods and delivered services – simple-cheap-convenient – did not determine the outcome of the rivalry. Pixar developed better technology, which enabled it to tell better stories, which resulted in better movies. In sum, more people wanted to spend more time watching the Pixar movies. Certainly disruptions will continue to occur based on the simple-cheap-convenient triumvirate, but companies increasingly should look for innovation opportunities in staged experiences – whether in physical venues such as Starbucks or virtual realms such as Pixar movies – where customers seek to spend more time with such innovators, not less.

What it comes down to is that the simple-cheap-convenient companies focus on getting functional jobs done for their customers. Just give them what they want, no more and no less. But the innovators of disruptive experiences focus on getting the emotional and social jobs done for customers. The authors provide three rules for disruptive experience innovation.

Rule 1: If you promise to address an emotional need it’s risky to fail to deliver. Trying to establish your organization as one that emphasizes the emotional or social experience over the convenient-functional one will fail if all you ultimately deliver is a functional job. In other words, deliver the experience innovation you promise. If you and your colleagues want to position your library as the community resource where the members can establish a relationship with someone who cares about helping them satisfy their information need, then you need to be careful that everyone on staff buys into that idea. It would only take a few emotionless, functional job-based interactions to cause the members to lose faith in the library as a relationship builder.

Rule 2: Think sequence of events. Remember that experiences are designed and staged. If you think all your library does is offer a transaction that delivers a service or access to content then it will be difficult to imagine what you could offer in the way of an emotional or social experience. When the stakes for finding critical information are high, be it a research paper that makes the difference between passing and failing or a funding proposal that means the difference between staying in or going out of business, you know it’s an emotional, gut-wrenching experience. Helping an individual find the best possible information should be more than a transaction. As the authors suggest, “Instead of looking for ways to eliminate time on a task or streamline touch points with customers, they must seek to understand what series of events proves most meaningful to customers and how to design the time spent to maximize the value people get out of that time.”

Rule 3: Be intentional in order to close the promise-making gap. The bottom line is that if you want to create a disruptive library experience you must pay attention to the details that signal to the members of the user community that you really do want to spend time with them. If you promote the library as a third place for research, for connections with cultural and social events and as a place where you can build relationships with research experts, then prepare to deliver on it. Failing to do so will cause a further deterioration of the trust that the user community places in the library.

Perhaps you see librarianship and the end-goal of the library as simply a functional, transactional operation. The users only want to get to databases so they can get articles and books. They don’t care about the library or the programs it offers. They don’t care about the librarians and the expertise they offer. They don’t want an emotional bond with the library. They just want the content – pure and simple – and our job is to make that simple, cheap and convenient. That view has its supporters, both in the world of libraries and in the world of business. For an example of the latter, read this post about Ryanair by Gerry McGovern. It may reinforce your belief that the user community just wants the library to be a commodity. If you really believe that, maybe you should start charging fees for access to the bathroom at your library. Then fire yourself, close the library building and simply commit the entire library budget to the purchase of content that can be accessed simply and conveniently. But if you aren’t quite prepared to take those steps, then you just might consider whether a disruptive library experience could be what your user community really wants and needs in an age of information abundance.

User Experiences

Getting Beyond Good Customer Service

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We’ve all heard again and again how important it is to offer good customer service at your library. Here at DBL I’ve stressed that a great library user experience is hardly achievable without paying attention to customer service. Do an Internet search on “customer service library” and see how many library-based customer service policies you turn up, not to mention library pundits emphasizing its importance. But when expectations are heightened and the competition for attention ratchets up, good or even great customer service may be too little. What exactly do people want when good customer service seems insufficient?

Perhaps some lessons could be learned by looking to the retail industry. After a dismal 2008 holiday season owing to the recession when only deep discounts could attract customers, things were looking decidedly uncertain for 2009. But instead of depending only on price cuts, retailers of all types, from the most elegant to the most mundane, decided to ramp up customer service into new territory. Stores with reputations for amazing customer service, such as Nordstrom and Bergdorf Goodman, are rethinking how to show customers their business is truly appreciated. According to an article from the NYT a visible shift is in place:

With signs that this holiday shopping season will not be much better than the last, retailers of all stripes are looking for new ways to make shopping more pleasant. There are improvements not only at fancy stores, but also at mall chains like J. Crew, Gap and Macy’s…Many retailers have been soliciting feedback in person and online as they try to improve the overall shopping experience…Recent surveys from several research firms show consumers continue to rate fashion retailers poorly on customer service…A report entitled the Retail Service Quality Index, released Dec. 1, rated the service in luxury stores like Nordstrom, Bergdorf and Saks as no better than what was found in home improvement stores like Lowe’s and Ace Hardware…“Retailers are very good at the sales transaction,” Mr. Miller said, “but they are not very good at building sales relationships. If I am not going to get service that is any different walking into Wal-Mart as walking into Nordstrom, why would I go to Nordstrom?”

What’s a library to do when consumers are no longer impressed by the customer service at Nordstrom, and are less likely to differentiate the service at a Wal-Mart from a high-priced, less convenient competitor? As long as members of the library’s user community have to go out of their way to get to the library and its more complex online content, it would hardly surprise us if they opted for a lower quality but more convenient resource – no matter how much we smile when they check out a book or answer a reference question. What is making a difference?

As the above quote suggests, building relationships can make a difference. That doesn’t mean librarians now need to get to know every member of the user community on a personal basis, although the more we know our users by name and affiliation the better we can be at establishing meaningful relationships with them. Even the retailers are trying harder. As some stores, as the article reports, they are getting beyond just starting transactions with “Can I help you” or “Do you have a question”. They try to be more conversational by offering comments that are more engaging such as “That’s a great looking sweater” and they also get out from behind sales registers to help customers on the floor. One customer who received personalized service made the following comment: “The same saleswoman came right over and asked, ‘How are you enjoying the bag?’ ” she said. “I was totally impressed.” Relationships are built when we remember those we helped and follow up with them to show our interest.

In our libraries there are many opportunities to start a conversation and build a relationship. Take a moment to ask someone you have recently assisted if he or she found what they needed, if their research project turned out well or if a recommended book or video was enjoyed. Good customer service will continue to be important, but we need to place more emphasis on getting beyond the basics of “may I help you” and “let me know if you need more help”. As struggling retailers are learning, good customer service rarely sets you apart from anyone else in a crowded and competitive marketplace. Their goal is to convert “users” into “loyal community members”. That sounds like a strategy that is right for the times and right for libraries.

User Experiences

Differentiating The Information Commodity

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One of the core components of creating a unique user experience is making it clear to the end user or customer that a product or service is differentiated from competitors so that it compels the individual to seek out this different experience. At DBL we’ve discussed the importance of identifying ways to differentiate the library. From the end-user perspective, what is it about the library that makes it different and unique from all other potential sources of information – especially the ones that are more convenient to use.

One of the challenges librarians face is that their primary product, information, is a commodity that is difficult to differentiate. It used to be that academic libraries could emphasize their scholarly content as different from what search engines offered, but Google Scholar changed all that. The end user perceives all information as relatively the same, especially when they can find it on their own, and it all seems to relate to the question or topic of choice. And even if it isn’t the highest quality information, if finding it is convenient and fast then it’s good enough.

The Branding Strategy blog explores how one might go about differentiating or branding a commodity. In fact, one of the bloggers there, Brad VanAuken, said “I am a firm believer that everything can be branded/differentiated. I have never encountered a product or service that I could not brand/differentiate”. In that same post he provided some examples of branding products for differentiation. In a more recent post VanAuken wrote more specifically about how to differentiate commodities. Commodities, like the information contained in articles and books, is difficult to differentiate. What is different about the information found in a book in the local public library and the same or a similar book found online via Google books or Amazon?

The answer is nothing, at least nothing much different than the vodka found in bottles from two different companies, or for that matter much of the water sold in plastic bottles. Can you really taste the difference between two brands? But why does one brand command a higher price and why do more consumers know the name or can recite its tagline? The reason is differentiation. It’s the same thing with information. It may be the same but one provider may have more brand recognition, another may offer great convenience and yet another may deliver unique packaging. Libraries offer books and other information for free. You’d think that would be a significant and desirable differentiating factor. But when you factor in questionable convenience, difficulty finding out what the library offers and some complexity in getting to the information, free looks like less of a bargain. Then again, the vodka example shows consumers will pay more if they believe they are getting higher quality or more value for their money. But will they go to more trouble and spend more valuable time to get it?

So what advice does VanAuken offer for how to differentiate any commodity? Some are the sort of things you’d expect: superior quality control; great customer service; best range of product availability. While all of these would be desirable for any library, doing them all well in order to compete with an Amazon or Barnes & Noble could be quite a challenge. He also says that one way to differentiate with commodities is to identify unique categories of customers and focus on meeting their unique needs. This is one area in which libraries of all types might be most successful. We often know our user segments (children, teens, college students, professionals), and we often know more about them and their research needs than the competition.

One way in which libraries, particularly academic libraries, might differentiate their information is to better connect the end user with highly specialized resources that may be linked to a specific issue or discipline. The same could be said for the mostly unique content in special collections. While Google is digitizing these unique materials from its library partners’ collections, there still remains much that is unique and valuable for differentiation. Promoting these unique databases and collections will present a challenge since they have small numbers of potential users. But reaching these smaller groups, over time, can convert to a large user base. We are challenged to differentiate the library’s core commodity – raw information – but as VanAuken says, “Everything can be branded/differentiated.”

Design Thinking, User Experiences

More To The Library Experience Than What We See

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When I speak to library colleagues about design and design thinking I try to put the concepts into context by first asking them what things come to mind when thinking about design as it is most often applied in our profession. Not unexpectedly, the responses are always limited to the building, both internal and external design considerations. Think about our literature. Our two major practitioner publications, American Libraries and Library Journal both offer design issues or supplements. Both of them cover the same thing, new buildings, building renovations and odds and ends for buildings. As far as librarianship is concerned design, and user experience along with it, is building-centric. Here at Designing Better Libraries we’ve tried to communicate a consistent message that design can mean much more than just our interiors and exteriors. Library design should also be perceived as a process we use to improve the quality of the experience for our user community.

That said, it’s important not to underestimate the value of a well-designed library environment. It’s a crucial element of an overall library experience. As an example I wanted to share a post written by Library Scenester about a visit to the library at Miami University at Ohio. Library Scenester is clearly impressed with the design of the library, pointing out highlights such as clear and functional signage (a problem in many libraries), comfortable and attractive furniture, and features such as the use of color and well placed artwork. These are great observations, and this post reflects what I enjoy so much about my visits to both academic and public libraries – discovering great ideas for improving my own library and sharing it with my colleagues. I also like to ask many questions of the staff about their reasons for choosing certain design elements.

But then Library Scenester, who acknowledges not using any of the library’s services or resources declares “I had a great experience there.” While I can see how the library made a great first impression I think the experience itself is a limited one – or at least the real user experience wasn’t truly experienced. That’s where the importance of totality is critical to a library user experience. Let’s imagine that Library Scenester did ask for some assistance and the library staff member was indifferent or poorly prepared to assist. What if Scenester had real trouble using the library’s photocopiers or the well organized stacks were missing books the catalog said would be there? Those failures would certainly have diminished the overall experience.

So while we should be paying attention to how well the design of our buildings and their interiors contributes to the library user experience, we should avoid the error of thinking that if we offer a nice building with desirable amenities it will mean we have succeeded in creating a library user experience that meets the needs of the users. I agree with Library Scenester that the academic library at Miami University offers the user community a great place to hang out, relax, find a study room or watch a video, and for some users that may be all they want, but we must be mindful of a myriad of other touchpoints that impact on the total library user experience. If we do that well then we may encourage or propel users to discover services and resources that could greatly enhance their library experience. By way of example, consider the academic library at Valparaiso University. You would certainly have the same initial experience as a visitor as Library Scenester did at Miami. But when I visited I thought the design succeeded in creating pathways that would intentionally bring students, faculty and librarians together in a variety of co-located service areas. In addition, a unique faculty study and office seemed specifically designed to contribute to relationship building between librarians and faculty. And we know that building meaningful relationships contributes to a better overall library experience for the user.

I hope that Library Scenester’s post will encourage more librarians to take time to get out and visit other academic and public libraries. It’s a tremendous learning experience, and it can teach you things never covered in library school. But when you do make those visits, keep in mind that there is more to the overall library experience than what meets your eye. Think about that as you navigate your way through the facility, and think of some good questions to ask the library workers about the total experience their users get at the library. The answers could be quite revealing.

User Experiences, Visual Communication

UX And Sketching – Two Videos Worth Your Time

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One thing you can say about the design community is that do produce a good number of instructional videos. I don’t mean instructional in the sense that they were created to teach new skills. Many of the videos are conference presentations or interviews with the experts. I’ve learned a good deal about design topics and user experience ideas just from having watched the videos that are freely available. I wanted to share two I think are worth watching.

I’ve actually taken in a few videos featuring Jesse James Garrett, and there’s usually something useful to be learned from his presentations (although some are a bit too techy for me) and his writings. In this video he speaks about the “current state of user experience”, and by that he offers his interpretation of what it means when we speak about user experience and where he sees things headed. It’s a good investment of time for those both new to and familiar with user experience.

Jesse James Garrett | UX Week 2009 | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

One of the things I’ve learned about designers is that they use visual communication techniques much more frequently than those of us in the library profession. But I think there is much to be said for strengthening our ability to communicate visually. I got more interested in this after reading Dan Roam’s Back of the Napkin – and it was one of the most popular business books last year so you may have read it as well. Roam does an excellent job of breaking down the basics of visual communication, and provides encouragement – if not practical tips – for using drawings or sketches to communicate ideas. I’ve been trying to do more of this in meetings or for presentations by using Roam’s principles and examples. It can be difficult to practice visual communication when you just don’t feel that you have much drawing ability. But Roam offer the possibility that if you can draw a square, circle and triangle you can communicate visually. The guy in the UPS commercials certainly does make it look easy (Is he really drawing or is it computer graphics? At first I think it was drawing but now it seems they are doing more with computer graphics and on a recent commercial the UPS guy even jokingly said something about the “perfect circles” he draws).

But short of taking some kind of drawing class how do you learn to get better at sketching. You can get some books on that, and there are videos that can help you with drawing stick figures, but I recommend you view a video that features Mark Baskinger, associate professor at the School of Design of the Carnegie Mellon University. In this video he explains and shows the differences between the drawing styles of an industrial designer and an interaction designer. The latter uses more of a stick figure approach while the former has a slightly more sophisticated style. By watching Baskinger and then practicing (yes, it takes practice to get better) some of his methods you might be able to improve your own sketching skills.

Mark Baskinger on Drawing Ideas and Communicating Interaction from Johnny Holland on Vimeo.

So it’s not easy if you don’t have any art training or drawing talent, but it’s certainly not impossible to become a better, more proficient visual communicator. If you’ve discovered a good resource that’s helped you to improve your visual communication skills, whether its by hand or computer, please share it here.

User Experiences

From Gatekeepers To Gate Openers

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That’s the title of an article I published about my thoughts on how librarians can create a unique user experience for their library. It appeared in the August/September 2009 issue of American Libraries. You can find the article here, but you’ll need to advance to page 50 in the online issue to read the article. I had a number of the ideas for the article brewing in my head for a while, but it wasn’t until I attended a presentation by Seth Godin, where he spoke about gateskeeper and gate openers. The article brings together a number of ideas that I’ve shared here at DBL – so for regular readers some of the AL article may be a bit familiar, but I hope you take a look anyway. If you do have any reactions to or thoughts about the article, please consider sharing them here.

User Experiences

Good Library Customer Service

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Pointing to good examples of well-designed library user experience is something we’ll always want to do here at DBL. This post is not exactly one of those, but it does point you to a good article that shares some useful thoughts and observations about customer service in the library – and as DBL has stated previously, customer service is an important component of any library UX strategy.

The September 1 issue of Library Journal includes an article (the Backtalk Column) titled “Lessons of Good Customer Service” by Amy Fry. What makes this a worthwhile read is that Fry shares her experiences as a member of the Barnes & Noble retail sales force, and how that has influenced her thinking about customer service in her library. One of the observations that caught my attention (and something I’ve commented on previously) was that front-line librarians do indeed have something to sell – so having some qualities of a talented salesperson can contribute to better customer service and library outreach.

Fry also shares some lessons learned from working on the front line in a public library (something I’ve experienced myself quite a few years ago). One of the important ones for delivering good customer service in libraries is understanding how to say no to users. It’s vitally important to have policies, but not when the policies are rigidly followed in order to deny patrons services because it may be inconvenient for staff. Libraries are often too focused on a rules-based culture. Retail organizations like Barnes & Nobles know they wouldn’t stay in business long if they couldn’t do everything possible to say “yes” to customers who need special accommodations.

So while customer service is not in and of itself a user experience, without good customer service at every touchpoint in the library, there is no hope for a better library experience.

User Experiences

Debating An Authentic Experience

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Starbucks recently tried something new, which they often do, and you wouldn’t think that would generate a controversial discussion about the nature of the user experience but it did. As one of the original poster children of the user experience, Starbucks has of late lost some degree of its UX mojo. Certainly the recession has played some role in driving customers to competitors such as McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts or in eliminating coffee purchases altogether. But Starbucks has itself made some moves that have contributed to the diminishing of their special user experience. Some analysts point to the addition of breakfast sandwiches. Others ask if Starbucks has diluted its experience by introducing innovations to speed up transactions.

A number of these questions were directed to Howard Schultz, founder and current CEO of Starbucks, in an interview with BusinessWeek. It is clear that Schultz is determined to somehow take a corporate behemoth that has had to introduce efficiency measures to remain competitive, and get back to the original vision of a coffee house based on delivering a unique user experience. So Schultz did something interesting. He asked Starbucks employees to share their vision of a coffeeshop that would compete with Starbucks. Schultz was looking for ideas that move Starbucks in a new direction. “You want to be there,” he says. “To me that store reinforces all the things I believe in. It’s not marketing, research, consultants, it’s just the experience.” [Schultz said this in the interview when he described a new ice cream store he visited that reminded him of what Starbucks was when it began]

Schultz’s search for a more authentic coffeehouse experience lead Starbucks to open a new outlet in Seattle called 15th Ave. Coffee & Tea. The idea is to provide a new coffeeshop experience that gets back to the original Starbucks vision. Things became interesting when Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path wrote a blog post in which he responded to this whole concept of a corporate-designed “authenic” coffeeshop experience. Merholz questioned whether such a thing is even possible, and concluded that it is not. He basically said it is “doomed to fail”. Merholz raises a good question. Can you set out, as a large entity, to design an experience that should seemingly only be possible if there’s real passion and originality to the concept? The experience has to emerge from a unique set of circumstances that one can’t simply program the way a film set is designed to simulate a time or place. Can Home Depot design a small Main Street hardware store experience into its big-box store setting anymore than Starbucks can design a local, independent coffeeshop vibe into its new store?

Merholz makes some good points when he claims you can’t fake an experience and that it’s dishonest for Starbucks to call itself another name when it’s still Starbucks at the core. Take a look at Merholz’s post and a follow-up in which he responds to some of the many comments he received, and shares some new perspectives on this issue of delivering an authentic experience. The lesson I’d like to take away from all of this is how can we librarians be savvy about designing an authentic library experience.

My thinking is that the authentic library experience is designed around the practices of totality, relationship building and delivering meaning. The latter two are things that should come naturally to library workers, and we need to become more systematic in making them happen. Totality is harder to achieve and something we need to do better. Where a library might run into danger with authenticity is trying to replicate the experience of a service or retailer known for designing great user experiences. But that particular experience may prove to be a poor fit for the library. It doesn’t necessarily matter what the size of the library is; a larger research university can be just of capable of creating a unique experience as is the small-town public library. But each must work at designing an experience that is authentic – driven by the passion of the library workers. Know the users. Be clear about core values. Any number of DBL posts have communicated that message. This one reinforces it.