UX Internship
What is User Experience (UX)?
UX is a multidisciplinary field combining research, design, and ethnography (interviews, surveys, observation) to create a better experiences for people when they use websites, interfaces, spaces, or other services.
This is a heatmap from that shows where library users click on the homepage. This tool helps us DISCOVER active parts of the website.
What is UX in the Library?
UX projects in the library eliminate pain points or barriers to students discovering and using library services. A UX internship builds transferable skills (interviewing, design, and analysis) by focusing on a Library service or concept during J-Term. UX interns sharpen their analytical and people skills while working towards the objective of improving the library experience for all students.
This internship was created by James Miller, the Discovery Librarian. He will be your supervisor and you can read about his interests here.
How is it structured? What can I expect from this internship?
1. DISCOVER - via analytics and other data
Interns will discover library users’ patterns and preferences for usage. These methods show us the “WHAT” for our users. What are they doing? What are they clicking on? What are they looking and asking for?…but we need the human skills to get at the “WHY.”
2. UNDERSTAND – through human skills
Interns will learn and use methods to explore the “WHY” and learn the strengths and weaknesses of each method.
3. CREATE – based on findings
Interns will create:
- Prototypes or design ideas to address pain points
- Summaries of findings
- Recommendations
Interns will also discover new issues or pain points that can be explored in later internships.
Sofia Craig – J-Term 2023
FOCUS: LibGuide awareness, navigation and naming preferences
LibGuides
Our goal was to learn students' research processes (e.g. how do they start? Where do they go?) and tools (e.g. databases, Google, etc) they use for research. Are they aware of LibGuides?
Home page to LibGuide
For certain research contexts LibGuides are a helpful and essential tool. However the Librarians don’t consistently make LibGuide pages for classes and research. There was a concern that students may not be aware of LibGuides and their value.
Craig-Interview-Opening
Sofia prepared interview prompts and included plans if students weren't initially responsive. She didn't mention LibGuides and allowed students to share their research process.
Craig-Interviews-Internship
She created a visual guide for sources students mentioned in the interview. LibGuides were not mentioned.
Craig-Cardsorting
Sofia used Google Drawings to create the card sorting exercise, which explored students' preferences for organization and navigation of LibGuides.
Craig-Cardsorting-Internship
Card sorting results showed students leaned more towards organizing by media type, instead of grouping sources together by topic (e.g. film history).
Craig-Solutions-Internship
Sofia had three recommendations. Librarians should agree on ONE name for LibGuides. The Discovery Librarian should ensure LibGuides are discoverable with a Google search. Making LibGuides present in our LMS and syllabi could boost awareness.
Hannah Slusser – J-Term 2022
FOCUS: Awareness of Young Adult New Adult (YANA) collection and how students can suggest purchases for the collection
Finding YANA
Hannah was passionate about our Young Adult New Adult collection and interested in promoting and increasing the findability of the collection.
Slusser-User Testing-Internship
Hannah created and then tested tasks for usability testing, including exploratory questions about locating YANA books and suggesting books for purchase. When conducting live testing she recorded the screen and analyzed the recordings.
Slusser-User Testing-Scoring
Hannah's scoring system in a Google Sheet.
Slusser-User Testing Report-Internship
Hannah placed user responses into different categories, ranking the severity of the problems surfaced from testing. She also provided recommendations.
Slusser-Summary-Internship
This is an attempt to summarize all Hannah's work in an image, which doesn't include everything she accomplished. Her design solution aims at increasing student purchase requests.
Slusser – YANA Collection Exhibit Tile
Hannah created a digital exhibit to help promote YANA
Claire Ross – J-Term 2020
FOCUS: Ask a Librarian service
Ask a Librarian
The Library was preparing to change our desk model of reference services to a consultation service where students booked appointments with specific librarians using Calendly software.
Calendly Booking page
We wanted to know how this software scored on UX aspects, namely LEARNABILITY and SATISFACTION. Would it be easy to do basic tasks for the first time? How pleasant is it?
Ross-design layout to test
Claire's mission was to see if students could find this page (/get-help) from the library website and figure out how to make an appointment using the Calendly software.
Ross-user tasks-revisions
Claire went through my normal internship cycle of reading, reflection, and praxis, which included creating, testing, and tweaking questions for user tests and interviews.
Ross-Recommendations
Claire's findings during testing revealed students skipped over the dropdowns and filled out the embedded form. This finding informed our next design iteration.
Ross-design revision
The next design iteration removed the embedded form and replaced it with a link, foregrounding the Librarian by Subject and Librarian by Name options.
Survey responses
After the new design went live and we had a semester of reference appointments we sent students a follow-up survey to collect more feedback from users regarding the process of making an appointment.
