1.
Learning from library users
User experience and libraries
Bryony Ramsden
Subject Librarian, University of Huddersfield

2.
User Experience in Libraries
Telling stories…

3.
Too many numbers…
All stats courtesy of Dave Pattern

4.
Feedback…
“We need more computers”
“There aren’t enough books”
“Where are the books?”
“The journals/ebooks/[insert any kind of electronic resource here]
don’t work”
“You should come up with a system to organise your books by
categories”

5.
What is user experience?
How much time do you spend in your library as a
library user?
Do you use your library’s services?

6.
User experience is about everything
that happens during any interaction
(physical or virtual) with something
you provide: feelings, sensations,
what can be seen/heard.

7.
“Wink” by Tom Hilton licenced by CC BY 2.0 “Margaret Mead stamp” by John Curran licenced by CC BY 2.0

8.
Designing for who?
Jacques Carelman: Coffeepot for Masochists

9.
What people ask for vs. what is actually useful…
“Hunt Library, NC State Univ.” by Payton Chung licenced by CC BY 2.0

10.
UX in context
“During our pilot survey, some 33 different kinds of
activity were observed. Of these, 22 suggested
distraction or relaxation, with some students
endlessly checking their watches as if they were
about to leave, others chatting continually with their
neighbours or getting more involved in what their
friends were doing than in their own work.”
Bourdieu and de Saint Martin,
research conducted in 1964

11.
How do we find things out? Observations
Photo by Guilherme
Romano on Unsplash

12.
Cognitive mapping

13.
Retrospective process interviews

14.
User journey/empathy mapping
Photo courtesy of Andy Priestner

15.
How do we find things out? Photo diaries
Photo by sarandy westfall on
Unsplash

16.
Touchstone tours
Photo by Aron on Unsplash

17.
Graffiti walls/boards

18.
Love/break up letters

19.
Dealing with the data
◦ Don’t trust what people say they want, watch what
they do.
◦ 6/8/5 – 6 to 8 ideas on post-its in 5 minutes
◦ Prototype, experiment, test, but always ‘fail
forwards’

20.
Library users and UX
Gif via Giphy

21.
Questions?
b.j.ramsden@hud.ac.uk
Twitter: @librarygirlknit
Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

22.
References/further reading
◦ Delcore et al. (2009). The library study at Fresno State
◦ The ERIAL project (2012) http://www.erialproject.org/
◦ Foster, N. Fried, & Gibbons, S. (2007). Studying students: the
undergraduate research project.
◦ Hobbs, K., & Klare, D. (2010). User driven design: using
ethnographic techniques to plan student study space.
doi:10.1080/07317131003766009
◦ Lanclos, Donna (2015). Cognitive mapping
http://www.donnalanclos.com/cognitive-mapping-at-acrl2015/
◦ McKay, D., & Buchanan, G. (2014). On the other side from
you: How library design facilitates and hinders group work.
doi:10.1145/2686612.2686625