“It Takes a Village”
Building UX Capacity in
Libraries
Craig M. MacDonald, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Information
ASIS&T @ Pratt Faculty Speakeasy
November 2, 2016

Citation
Craig M. MacDonald (2016): “It Takes a
Village”: On UX Librarianship and Building
UX Capacity in Libraries, Journal of Library
Administration, DOI:
10.1080/01930826.2016.1232942
http://bit.ly/libuxcapacity

UX is everywhere – or is it?
Today, many organizations are beginning to
acknowledge UX as a competitive advantage.
But, knowing UX is important and actually
making UX a priority are two different things.
Many organizations (including libraries)
struggle to define a coherent strategy or
outline a realistic roadmap to get them into a
more user-focused mindset.

UX in practice
Cisco: adoption of an internal UX consultancy
model increased its ROI 60-fold, from $50
million to nearly $3 billion.
Building a design culture re-frames role of UX
designers as “change managers.”
One successful approach is a “dual strategy”
of both evangelizing UX and teaching UX
practices throughout the organization.

Librarians are talking about UX
Conversations about UX in the library community
intensified in around 2007, when the dual ideas
of “user experience librarian” and “design
thinking for libraries” emerged.
Many articles about using specific UX methods
(e.g., A/B testing, user surveys), with some
general advice about building a UX culture:
Lead by example
Create a permanent, library-wide “Web team”
Include “UX Lead” on two-person project teams

But how are they doing UX?
Part 1 of this research looked at the role of UX
librariansand reported 3 major findings:
1. Most UX librarians have more in common with UX
researchers than UX designers
2. UX librarians often struggle to balance UX work
with other library responsibilities
3. UX librarians tend to operate as internal UX
consultants with minimal authority and decision-
making power
Part 2 of this research focuses more broadly on
the organizational factors that impact how UX
librarians carry out their work.

METHODOLOGY
How the study was conducted

Semi-structured interviews
Interviews were approx. 45 minutes long
Conducted remotely via Skype and Google
Hangouts
Held between July-September 2014
Covered 4 broad areas:
1. Their background and type of UX work they do
2. A current or recent UX project and their role
3. History of their library’s focus on UX
4. Challenges of doing UX in their library

About the participants
Interviewed 16 librarians from:
1 Public library
2 Library consortia
8 Academic library (small or mid-sized)
5 Academic library (large)
Geographic representation:
• South: Texas (2), N. Carolina (2), Tennessee, Kentucky
• Midwest: Michigan (2), Illinois
• Northwest: Oregon
• Northeast: New York, New Jersey, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine

WHAT LED TO LIBRARY’S
EMPHASIS ON UX?
Findings, Part 1

Where does it come from?
Personal, bottom-up advocacy
3 participants cited their own personal efforts to
grow and build a UX culture over a period of
many years.
Top-down decision
4 participants said it was a philosophical shift in
how their dean/director wanted to make
decisions; e.g., make library “more self-aware.”
4 participants said it was director’s vision to look
like the library is “hip and moving forward.”

Opportunistic or strategic?
Staff departures or changes
2 participants said it was a result of staff leaving or
retiring which prompted a revision of roles and
responsibilities.
Strategic re-organization of staff
3 participants cited purposeful strategic efforts to
re-organize the library around UX; goals were to
create a more cohesive vision and promote
“evidence-based practices.”

WHAT BENEFITS HAS
LIBRARY RECEIVED?
Findings, Part 2

Benefits (1)
Increased empathy and responsiveness (8)
Library is more responsive to user needs and staff
are more aware of the need to be user-focused
Helps libraries adopt a more evidence-driven
approach to decision-making
Improved public relations and outreach (6)
Regular contact with users and evidence that you
are responding to their requests/feedback
engenders positive relationships with constituents

Benefits (2)
Promoting a ‘big picture view’ (3)
A dedicated staff member “looking over the whole
scheme of things” can help library be more
consistent and aware of how well its services are
meeting users’ needs
General website improvements (3)
Generally, participants felt their library website was
“much easier to use” and “more user-centered”
though did not provide any specific measure to
support this claim

WHAT ARE BIGGEST
CHALLENGES TO DOING UX?
Findings, Part 3

Challenges (1)
Navigating the library’s culture (12)
Sometimes there’s clash between departments with
different ways of thinking/doing
Some were “the only person in the building” doing
UX, which created a bottleneck that was hard to
break through
Overcoming resource limitations (10)
All participants had other responsibilities and feel
crunched for time: “I only have bandwidth for so
much.”
Many admit that “UX stuff gets pushed aside” in favor
of day-to-day responsibilities of running the library

Challenges (2)
Finding ways to scale/scope UX work (7)
UX work is time-consuming by nature, so librarians
are challenged to scale/scope their work to make
it more efficient and productive
Gaining trust/support from colleagues (6)
Sometimes hard to explain why UX was important
enough to put on other people’s schedules
General fear of “assessment” because people
don’t always like hearing the results

Challenges (3)
Not having enough training/expertise (4)
Being the only person skilled in UX means it takes
time to get colleagues up to speed
Not being trained in UX means some projects are
“a little half-assed” and not implemented in the
most effective way
Troubleshooting technology problems (2)
Sometimes, technology doesn’t work.
Technology decisions happen outside the library,
but impact how librarians do their work.

HOW WELL IS UX
UNDERSTOOD IN LIBRARY?
Findings, Part 4

Degree of UX awareness
Low (4)
Colleagues are ”siloed” and busy doing their own
work; role is hard for colleagues to understand.
Variable (5)
Some have no idea, but others are very
knowledgeable – usually those who they worked with
directly or see what they do on a regular basis.
High (7)
A majority understand what they do, and colleagues
go to them when projects arise
Required persistent effort to raise awareness and
understanding throughout the library.

TOWARD A LIBRARY UX
MATURITY MODEL
Synthesizing the findings and looking ahead

Maturity models
Originally known as a “Stages of Growth”
model
They delineate a logical path from an initial
state of maturity to a high level of maturity
Each stage represents an organization’s
capability with regard to a specific domain or
set of competencies

UX Maturity Model
Note: This is not a thorough or systematic review
of UX/usability maturity models!
Generally, there are six distinct stages of UX
maturity based on the following indicators:
• The extent of UX awareness
• The extent of UX knowledge, skills, and resources
• The extent that UX methods and techniques are
employed
• The extent that UX is incorporated into leadership
and strategy
• The extent that UX integrated with workflows and
processes

A Library UX Maturity Model
Stage Description No. of
Libraries
0 Unrecognized Superficial understanding of UX; UX was an
afterthought and not part of decision-making.
2
1 Recognized One individual responsible for UX; UX projects were
ad-hoc; frustrated by lack of momentum and support.
3
2 Considered UX valued and understood; projects completed
regularly, but face bottlenecks due to resource
constraints
6
3 Implemented Dedicated UX departments/units; UX is prioritized
and valued by leadership; UX part of library decisions
but struggle to balance competing responsibilities
4
4 Integrated UX is core part of organizational strategy; UX librarian
empowered to make decisions but other librarians are
also encouraged to make UX decisions
1
5 Institutionalized Non-UX staff members make UX decisions; shared
understanding of UX standards and guidelines; UX
knowledge fully de-centralized and distributed.
0

Is this bad news?
Notably, 11 of 16 participants interviewed in this
study were at or below Stage 2.
But, increasing UX maturity is a long and arduous
process.
May take 2-3 years to move between early stages.
May take 5-6 years to move between later stages.
All participants said their libraries only began
focusing on UX within the past 5-6 years, with
most starting in past 2-3 years.
Thus, the fact that so many libraries are already at
Stage 2 or 3 is an encouraging sign.

DISCUSSION
Implications for the future of UX librarianship

Implications (1)
Adding a UX librarian isn’t enough; must also
commit additional resources and alter
organizational strategy and decision-making
process.
“It’s kind of the ‘it takes a village’ kind of thing. If
everybody in a library can work closer together on
improving things … then maybe [having] a UX
librarian isn’t necessarily important.”
A UX librarian can be a great bottom-up
advocate, but growing a UX culture also requires
top-down leadership that values and rewards the
use of UX methods.

Implications (2)
UX is more than just a philosophy or staffing
structure – to persist, it must be clearly
articulated in the organization’s written strategy
and be supplemented by design principles and
guidelines.
No participants said they had either a written UX
strategy or guidelines.
UX librarians need to embrace the “dual strategy”
of advocacy plus education/training that
empowers colleagues to make informed UX
decisions.
Distributed knowledge is more effective and reduces
potential bottlenecks.

Implications (3)
UX librarians must hone their skills and become
more knowledgeable of UX principles and
techniques that are used in the UX industry.
Improve design skills and learn from UX
practitioners, not just fellow UX librarians.
Libraries need to find and tell more UX success
stories, preferably with metrics or other data
demonstrating tangible benefits.
Specific, quantifiable impact measures can
convince libraries to invest the time/resources
necessary to grow their UX culture.

FUTURE WORK
Where do we go from here?

Future areas of research
Develop and validate a comprehensive library
UX maturity model.
Identify specific strategies and techniques for
building a UX culture in libraries.
Help libraries prioritize UX through written
strategies and experience guidelines.
Consider possible ways to show UX impact and
share success stories with the library
community.

Q&A
Questions, comments, feedback?