website redesign and users (OMG! not the user!)
amy posted this September 8th, 2009 | filed under: general | 2 comments »
cc licensed flickr photo shared by ntr23
so at least two of us in the collective have recently gone live with new library websites (probably more, ’tis the time of year). as i was dealing with the fallout from this (and yes, i know, there will always be fallout – some of da peeples will never be happy, not never) i started wondering about the whole process of redesigning library websites.
what are we trying to accomplish with these redesigns? the answer is usually “to make things easier to find for our users”. but this is where it gets all kinds of sticky. libraries have _so_many_ different user groups. in my own library we have:
- undergraduates
- graduate students
- researchers
- professors
- librarians (both chez nous and at other institutions)
- continuing education students
- students who speak neither English nor French
- citizens of the city & province
- and, oh ya, ANYONE WHO FINDS US THROUGH THE GOOGLEMACHINE!
what does this mean for library site design?
how many groups do we need to consult prior to making a big change?
do we then weight the opinions of certain groups more than others?
when doing the redesign, should we do it in-house, or outsource it to a company that can make it sleeker than your average web services librarian has time for?
should we be designing for the 800×600 IE6 group of folks out there, or should we use the redesign of the library site to teach them that the minimum standards have changed, and they should join us, the friendly library, in this new (upgraded) online world?
where’s the line between accessibility and ease of use? is there one? is it possible to have a site that meets accessibility standards, is mobile-ready, and isn’t nine kinds of fug?
so, who wants to take a stab at answering some of these questions?
We are in the process of re-designing – in fact, for the time being we are just changing the appearance of the site (original design goes back to the mid-90′s!!). Come back in early October to see the difference.
But you are right, at some point we’re gonna have to do usability testing and move some things around too. I hope we do get around asking our users’ opinion, but if we don’t, at least we have data from Google Analytics that will give us a hint on how deep some pages are buried.
We did outsource for the redesign, and in my opinion this is a good thing. This way, we can get a nice, fresh design and make sure it fits with our purposes.
It’s true, 30% of our users are still using IE6 (couldn’t believe it myself!). I like your approach – follow the upgrades, dear users.
As for mobile-friendly… one step at the time!
I worked on a university library website and developed personas to help answer this questions — here’s the link to our project. Check out the Sources page for a thorough collection of links to research about academic library patrons.
Also wanted to mention, for those contemplating redesign, you’ll need a thick skin. The flood of negative feedback we got was disheartening…until I stumbled across YouTube’s blog about their redesign, and saw the incredibly negative and hostile feedback they’re getting.