Public Service

Sharon Public Library

How might we statement?

Timeline 6-months

My role M.S. User Experience Design Candidate

Deliverables user research, user design

Overview

Sharon Public Library is a destination that serves as a civic space encompassing the roles of literacy, cultural arts center, and civic center.

The Library exists to promote the free exchange of ideas, provide an opportunity for lifelong learning, and be a community institution serving both individual and societal needs as part of a network of social resources.

Problem

Outcome

Digital experience is difficult to navigate. Over 2000+ pages indexed is difficult to navigate with many links no longer functioning or outdated.

Improved information architecture Consolidated and deleted outdated content and links that were no longer active.

Website is not ADA compliant. The current website is not modern from a technological perspective.

UI enhancements Introduced a design system to maintain consistency with ADA requirements.

Approach

In order to deepend my understanding of the intended audience of this experience, I focuded on understnaing our library patrons, their reasons for using our site, the information they seek, and ways to improve site navigation.

After conducting discovery work, I assessed and categorized existing site content to uncover opportunities, and use user insights to guide design recommendations for enhanced navigation and visual appeal.

Methodology

I conducted five remote user interviews with participants from diverse technology literacy levels who interacted with a library at least once in the last 6-months.

Participants completed retrieval tasks for usability tests by thinking aloud and sharing where they expected to find more information. Since I aspired to test my designs, there were no right or wrong answers.

Key findings

There is an age correlation with comfort with technology literacy for older than younger generations regarding access to materials and services, promoted services, materials, physical hardware, and electronic downloads.
Computer hardware and WI-FI are two common denominators for some individuals to visit physical libraries and interact with digital products and services.
Databases are maintained manually and do not always align to digital databases, creating frictions for patrons in person.
HOOPLA is a popular topic in libraries since this service provides access to download music.
Covid-19 significantly impacted the availability of physical services, pushing an increase in digital resources and services.

Recommendations

Monitor Content Usage – Archive content not being visited or requested if older than ~5 years or information is no longer valid. It may inhibit or interfere with more relevant search topics for patrons.
Text-HTML Pages instead of PDF Pages – PDF Pages are more challenging to find with search engines as they do not always capture Optimal Character Recognition (OCR) Text. Consider reducing the number of pages that can be a Text-HTML page easier to maintain within a Content Management System (CSM).
Navigation – Consolidate and simplify pages by exposing more information with new organization labels to support finding content.
Signed In Content – Access and extend book checkouts, manage space reservations, and view downloaded content history.
Trending Content – Display relevant content based on recent search catalogs, checkouts, and Frequently Asked Questions with library staff.

User persona

Becca Informant

"I like to stay informed and be able to anticipate where I can find answers to all types of questions."

Demographic

Ohio

Library Branch Clerk

About Becca has worked twelve years as a branch clerk in nine different libraries. Becca wears more than one hat and shares her knowledge across multiple departments. You'll often find Becca trying to find new ways to adapt to change by ensuring they are prepared to answer or research growing patron requests.

Goals

To make it easier for patrons to navigate physical and digital channels within the library.
To remain relevant with the change of interests across generations.
To promote diversity and inclusion.

Activities

Avidly relies on databases to find information.
Provides both physical and digital support.
Attends various workshops to learn more about diversity and inclusion.

Frustrations

Physical materials not being found in locations of digital databases suggest Covid-19 access restrictions.
Shared licensing on volume codes for electronic services.
Patrons complaining about website.

User persona

Laura Student

"I like portability and enjoying audiobooks, movies, and music on my devices on the go."

Demographic

Ohio

Student

About Laura is a junior in high school who recently learned she could save her allowance by leveraging electronic downloads from her local library. Laura enjoys listening to audiobooks and relies on her electronic library card membership to find new content to download online.

Goals

To research resources as she prepares to start applying to universities.
To be able to download electronic content into her handheld devices.
To checkout physical comic books.

Activities

Sorting and browsing media in directories.
Downloading content on multiple devices.
Leveraging library resources for research with high school classes.

Frustrations

Limited electronic downloads.
Needing to visit the physical library when electronic downloads are not available.
Website search not working.

User persona

Adam Traditionalist

"I enjoy taking my grandchildren to the library and finding a program or book to keep them entertained."

Demographic

Ohio

Retired Teacher

About Adam is a retired township administrator in a rural town in Vermont. Adam spends most afternoons watching over his grandchildren as their parents work. Adam is not very technology literate as most of his work was print-based.

Goals

To find events that can entertain his grandchildren.
To find physical picture books to read to his grandchildren.
To stay up to date with the local and national news.

Activities

Relies heavily on printed posters, flyers, and brochures at the library desk.
Likes walking to newspaper walls and picking up the latest papers.
Uses computers to find new and favorite books to check out.

Frustrations

Physical materials not being found in locations of digital databases suggest Covid-19 access restrictions.
Information is not where he thinks it would be on the website.
Not knowing how to reserve online.

Constraint

This is a fictional project with no research budget.

Critical

While this is an existing website, I have a limited timeframe to produce high level insights.

There is no budget for more efficient research tools, and recruiting is limited to individuals who can conduct interviews remotely with no compensation. I ultimately leveraged free trials of research tools (with limited capabilities) to complete a tree sort and click-test.

Current homepage

Embedded images with text

Exhaustive external and internal links

Ideation

Concept

Initial sitemap key findings

3 out of 5 participants successfully located the Request Library Card.
Only 1 out of 5 participants located Hours of Operation.
5 out of 5 participants prefer Newsletter as a primary source for updates.
5 out of 5 participants successfully found Audiobooks.
4 out of 5 participants successfully located book reservations.

Information architecture recommendations

Display relevant content based on recent search catalogs, checkouts, and Frequently Asked Questions with library staff.
Consolidate and simplify pages by exposing more information with new organization labels to support finding content.
Leverage HTML Pages instead of PDF Pages since they are challenging to find with search engines. They do not always capture Optimal Character Recognition (OCR) Text in the content body.
Archive content not being visited or requested if older than ~5 years or information is no longer current.
Invest in a personalized sign-on experience to manage access, extend book checkouts and space reservations, and view downloaded content history.

Organize groups of information

Display groups of related information by content type.

Introduce a tree nav

Reduce cognitive load by leveraging more effective labels.

Homepage

Reimagined to reduce clicks for high traffic content

New navigation schemes

Information architecture

Frequently Asked Questions

Support topics, simplified

Takeaways

Lessons learned

Advocate for user feedback, especially as you discover insights that may require further research to develop an understanding for a design solution.
Focus on user-centricity by researching, analyzing, and ideating low-fidelity before committing to visual design without user input.
Remain flexible and understand that being out of scope does not necessarily mean a feature and enhancement may never happen. Continue to advocate for your users.

Some potential next steps

Conduct user testing for both web and mobile.
Evaluate third-party integrations and accessibility.
Ideate on personalization to focus on sentiment metrics.

More work

View all work

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