It is nice to see a growing appreciation for UX in our domain. Michael,
librarians ARE users, but I understand what you're saying in that
they've had too much influence, and have unfortunately brought bias to
the design process that has created obstacles for other users.
Andrew, your original post focused on a Usability person. The way I see
it, Usability skills are a subset of User Experience. If you can hire
two people, awesome. If I had to choose one, I would go for a User
Experience person. It is at least one full-time job, ideally of higher
rank due to its "big picture" nature. I like the idea of a usability
committee or working group, with the UX expert as a chair.
Below are a few skills/abilities of my ideal User Experience Designer.
It's unlikely you will get them all in one candidate, but it may give
you an idea of which niches you need to fill, given your current team:
* Creativity and Audacity *
Design is inherently mixed with organization and culture, and in order
to solve design problems they have to be willing to rethink and change
long-standing traditions and culture. This person can question
EVERYTHING without being abrasive.
* Diplomacy and Influence *
You can't do the above without being good at building relationships,
forming consensus, negotiating, etc. Ideally the position would have
enough power in the org to be at the table for major decisions, but then
again, influence does not always come from hierarchical rank.
* Usability Interviewing, Testing, and Analytics *
Understanding, empathizing with, and advocating for ALL the users of
your systems is critical, and collecting data to form and back up your
arguments is a prerequisite. UX people have to talk to users about their
goals, test ideas with prototypes, and collect and interpret
stats/analytics. Testing is not only about whether a feature could be
improved, but whether it should be there at all. This person can
identify and prioritize the right problems to solve.
* Visual Thinking/Literacy *
The person should have a good design sense, and be able to put the
elements and principles of design to work in the idea pitch, information
architecture, and design process.
* Content Strategy *
What is the overall vision of the org and how is that message delivered?
What message is currently being delivered via neglect of an overall
strategy? The lack of a content strategy is one reason why so many
library websites are filled with pages that are piles of links.
* Interaction Design *
In libraries, where budgets can be an issue, this person should be able
to put together wireframes, prototypes, and final HTML/CSS/JS designs.
As Tom mentioned, this could be an entirely different, more technical
position, but it's a great asset if you can find it.
-Shaun
P.S. - Don't feel tied into current position titles. Google has an "Über
Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness"!
On 10/30/13 12:33 PM, Michael Schofield wrote:
I think, where budgets allow, this is an increasingly common function /
position. I am a Front End Librarian and I oversee development, user
experience, and content strategy. I am part of systems but I liaise most often
with our Marketing Department [because we have one ... ]. My friend Amanda is
literally the User Experience Librarian at the Darien Library, so this is a
thing with precedent.
I agree with one of the other commenters that a dedicated UX person makes a
world of difference - and, honestly, it's probably better if that person is
less librarian than not. The big hurdle we've had to jump across was coming to
grips that our librarians aren't users, so their weigh-in on content and
services is skewed toward the jargon-y, mega-search-fields,
we're-not-google-and-we-are-proud opinion.
Staying on top of usability, accessibility, content strategy, dev, and
performance [because a fast website is integral to a good user experience] is a
full-time job. It's the kind of job you do outside of the 40-hour week. If you
can get away with it, don't bundle this stuff in with other major roles.
Organizationally, this person or team should be afforded a little bit of
autonomy from the other departments. Design committees--especially in
higher-ed--are power struggles, and it benefits no one when the user-experience
people/person can be pressured into bad design decisions.
Oh, and pay them well :) :) :).
// Michael!
I write about the web and front-end librarianship at www.ns4lib.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken
Varnum
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 12:00 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Usability Person?
We are exceptionally fortunate to have a 3-person User Experience department to
support the developers who work on the website, the catalog, the digital
library, and the repository.
http://www.lib.umich.edu/library-information-technology/user-experience-department
--
Ken Varnum | Web Systems Manager | MLibrary - University of Michigan - Ann
Arbor [email protected] | @varnum | http://www.lib.umich.edu/users/varnum |
734-615-3287
On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:51 AM, Tom Cramer <[email protected]> wrote:
We have been lucky to have a full time interaction designer within our
library IT group for about 6 years. It makes a world of difference in
the quality of our products; it also helps with letting the engineers
focus on engineering, and the librarians focus on being librarians
(rather than trying to design for patrons).
- Tom
On Oct 30, 2013, at 8:24 AM, Andrew Darby wrote:
Hello, all. This is perhaps a bit off-topic, but I was wondering
how
many
of you have a dedicated usability person as part of your development
team.
Right now, we have a sort of ad hoc Usability Team, and I'd like to
make
a
pitch for hiring someone who will have the time and inclination to
manage this effort more effectively.
Anything you'd care to share (on-list or off-) would be welcome.
I'm especially curious about whether or not this is a full-time
responsibility
for someone in your organization or if it's shared with another job
function; if you find this position is working out well or you wish
you'd spent the money on more robots instead; where this person
resides in your org chart; what sort of qualifications you looked for when
hiring; etc.
Thanks,
Andrew
--
Andrew Darby
Head, Web & Emerging Technologies
University of Miami Libraries
--
Shaun Ellis
User Interface Developer, Digital Initiatives
Princeton University Library
609.258.1698
