Presented by Jharina Pascual and Sarah Wallbank. The presentation provides people with simple techniques for analyzing their local workflow and information-sharing practices, some ideas for interrogating and improving intra-technical services communication, and ideas for simple changes that can improve communication and build a sense of community/joint purpose within or across departments.

1. NASIG 2020
Analyzing Workflows and Improving
Communication Across Departments
A Quick and Simple Project using Rapid Contextual
Design
1
Jharina Pascual
Sarah Wallbank
June 9, 2020

2. University of California, Irvine – Orange County, CA
Image: University of California, Irvine
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3. UCI Libraries
● Libraries
○ 3 libraries, Langson, Science, Grunigen Medical
○ 1 technical services serves all 3 libraries
● Electronic Resources Management
○ Acquisitions Dept. manages licensing, ordering, activating,
maintenance, and troubleshooting
○ Cataloging Dept. manages bibliographic record loading,
cataloging, and bib record maintenance
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4. Why did we do this?
"Which Way" by oatsy40 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 : image is of a road sign that says “new road layout ahead with a figure that seems
to be shoveling with a confusing set of wiggly black arrows

5. Rapid Contextual Design: a user
experience research and design method
Contextual Design:
“A scaffolding for
user-centered
front-end design”
Users = library staff
Image of text cover from amazon.com

6. The methodology
● Define the scope:
○ Quick fixes
○ Gather user data
○ Evaluation of a system or website
○ Evaluate different methods of supporting a coherent task
● Make it rapid (5-7 weeks)
○ Consider whether you need all the steps to answer the scope
○ Chunking
○ Do not break up a coherent workflow
● Making the case
○ Address specific objections
○ User data - fast!

7. Workflows
Electronic resources
lifecycle:
● Licensing
● Activating
● Cataloging
● Maintenance
"Road signs in Poland" by Marcel Musil is licensed under CC BY-
NC 2.0: this image is an upside down yellow triangle road sign
with no witing, with another road sign underneath that is a blue
circle with white arrows
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8. The methodology
● Interviews
● Interpretation sessions
● Sequence modeling (individual and consolidated)
● Affinity notes
● Affinity wall

9. The methodology (what we left out)
● Personas
● Visioning
● Storyboarding

10. Methodology: the interview
● USER AS EXPERT
● Users based on role
○ Consider context
● Environment-centered interview style (one of
several options)
● Capture key actions
● Breakdowns and interruptions
● Look beyond the actions for intent
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11. Methodology: the interpretation
session (1)
● Minimum of 2 people
○ Interviewer
○ Moderator/commentator
● Specific session roles (if more that 2)
○ Note-taker
○ Commentator(s)
○ Invite participants from outside the
department or unit
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12. Methodology: the interpretation
session (2)
● Insights
● Bottlenecks
● Design ideas
● Missing information
● Follow-up
● Rat holes (non-productive discussion)
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13. Methodology: workflow model
Artifact model
Physical model
The sequencing model
● Steps
● Triggers
● Intents
● Breakdowns
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14. Methodology: Consolidated Sequence
model
"Take turns merging" by storm2k is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 : this image of some cars passing by a
yellow sign that says “take turns merging”
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15. Methodology: Affinity notes
● Standalone ideas or actions
● No jargon
● Anonymized
● Facts only -- no opinions
● Be specific
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16. Methodology: Affinity wall (1)
● CONSOLIDATE,
CONSOLIDATE,
CONSOLIDATE
● Good color labels
provide a narrative
without having to
read the individual
notes below
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Image is of our affinity notes on yellow paper

17. Methodology: Affinity wall: Blue labels
● CONSOLIDATE, CONSOLIDATE, CONSOLIDATE
● Good color labels provide a narrative without
having to read the individual notes below
● BLUE labels
○ Grouping individual notes into routine
workflows
○ What are the individual steps and/or
requirements needed for working on a specific
task?
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18. Methodology: Affinity wall: pink labels
● CONSOLIDATE, CONSOLIDATE, CONSOLIDATE
● Good color labels provide a narrative without
having to read the individual notes below
● PINK labels
○ Grouping BLUE labels
○ What overall goals do these individual
workflows accomplish?
○ Does a sequence not make sense?
○ Could there be some missing data?
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19. Methodology: Affinity wall: green labels
● CONSOLIDATE, CONSOLIDATE, CONSOLIDATE
● Good color labels provide a narrative without
having to read the individual notes below
● GREEN labels
○ Grouping key workflows
○ Grouping PINK labels
○ Reveal major themes in workflows
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20. The Project
How we used Rapid Contextual Design
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21. Our Plan
● Contextual inquiry:
interview staff
members
● Interpretation sessions
● Affinity Diagram
Building
● Workflow sequence
modelling
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p
Image: public domain. geralt
(pixabay.com)

22. Interviews
1 hour per interview
● Specific tasks and actions
● Detailed steps
● Avoid generalizations and summaries of tasks

23. Interpretation sessions
●Within 48 hours of the
interview
●Details of the work
●Triggers for work
●Tools involved
●Bottlenecks
●Communication
breakdowns Image is of our interview notes.

24. Affinity Notes
Images of our affinity wall.

25. Results
Results by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0
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Affinity wall session
● Dispelled
assumptions
● Very little overlap in
work
● Refocused
● Communication
issues

26. Implemented Steps (1)
● Clarify electronic record choices in OCLC
● ER Acquisitions librarian is passing along issues that
are more cataloging-related
● More clarification needed on larger structure of DDA,
discovery layers, CDL consortium info, etc

27. Implemented Steps (2)
● Quarterly group meetings of all staff working with e-
resources
● We established some standing items for meetings
(batch loads, other updates)
● Alma activation list is currently being used
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28. Lessons Learned
● Limited scope works
● Invite outside participants to interpretation sessions
● Start affinity note creation early
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29. Two years later ...
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30. Assessment: Survey re: meetings
Opinions regarding:
● Value of information shared
● Effects on workflow
● Overall usefulness of meetings
● Improved workflows
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31. Assessment: Survey parameters
● 63% of staff returned the survey
○ 7/11 staff
● Qualitative vs quantitative data?
● Do we include ourselves?
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32. Results: Examples of quantitative (1)
2. Have the Combined ER Meetings helped you understand the over-all electronic
resources workflow?
· Score 5: 2
· Score 4: 4
· Score 3: 1
3. Do you feel that you understand your role in the electronic resources workflow
better as a result of these meetings?
· Score 5: 3
· Score 4: 3
· Score 3: 1
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33. Results: Examples of quantitative (2)
4. Has the information shared in these meetings helped you do your work?
· Score 5: 3
· Score 4: 2
· Score 3: 1
· Score 2: 1
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34. Results: Examples of qualitative (1)
● “anything that's simpler would be better … one of the
big issues from my point of view is that assigning tasks
on the ER queue within Alma is extremely inefficient
because Alma is somewhat ridiculous.”
● “Maybe create short instructional videos on
demonstrating procedures? The wikis are very helpful,
but adding in instructional videos may be helpful for
audiovisual learners.”
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35. Results: Examples of qualitative (2)
● “All the meetings were very helpful and informative. It
may not apply to my daily job but it may be very
helpful in the near future”
● “I think things are pretty decent now. I think I could
do with understanding a little bit more about what
the steps for ordering and activating eresources are.
● At this point I am just listening and learning more
about the whole concept of the Electronic Resources.
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36. Results: Examples of qualitative (3)
● “I thought that the explanation of portfolios and
collections was helpful, especially in regards to
migrated records from Millennium, and what we can
expect from the upcoming merge with the rest of the
UC libraries.”
● “Information on why WorldCat is dependent on
bibliographic 856 fields was a useful reminder. It may
be a necessary legacy step going forward after the
SILS transition.”
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37. Rapid Contextual UX Research - useful?
● Possible to streamline research method
● Method produces an analysis of problems
● Analysis produces actionable solutions
● Solutions have had a positive impact
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38. Next steps
● Identify goals in migration to a UC-wide Alma/Primo
system and design workflows as needed according to
our survey results
● Once we stabilize from the UC-wide migration, we
plan on examining our workflows in the new system
using rapid contextual UX research method
● Complete both individual and consolidated work
modeling

39. Contact us
Sarah Wallbank
wallbank@uci.edu
Jharina Pascual
jharina@uci.edu
@librarypj
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