This presentation will focus on the staff side of a website redesign at a large university library. This presentation will detail how they got staff buy-in, and how to keep staff motivated to participate. Communication between departments has improved, and library staff have been an active part of the process.
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Building a UX Army at Your Library
1. Building a UX Army
at Your Library
NEFLIN UX Conference
May 20, 2016
Carrie Moran
University of Central Florida Libraries
2. University of Central Florida (UCF)
Large metropolitan research
university in Orlando, FL
63,000+ students
93 Bachelor’s, 84 Master’s,
& 31 Doctoral degrees
Heavy emphasis on fully Online &
Mixed Mode courses
Source:
UCF Institutional Knowledge Management
https://ikm.ucf.edu/
4. Web Redesign and Policy Taskforce
(WRAPT)
● 9 members
● Hand picked by Library Admin
● Chair, webmaster, programmer, user
experience, user testing, e-resources,
marketing, graphic design, and guides
● Focus on design, testing,
implementation
Web Working Group
(WWG)
● 25+ members
● Dept heads assigned reps
● Representative from each unit,
plus reps from various
functional areas
● Focus on content and shared
services
A tale of two groups
5. WordPress
● Unofficial campus standard
● Several IT related benefits
● Ease of use for librarians
● Limits on what type of information
can be edited
● Roles for editing access
6. Staff Buy-In
Meetings
All staff, open
Faculty
Departmental
Testing process
User first mantra
Inclusivity
Shared pages
Transparent communication
Will talk about
A little about our institution and where we started from
Talk about the redesign process we used for our new website
Will focus on some of the strategies we used to infuse UX principles, communication, and collaboration throughout the project
Time for questions at the end
Founded in 1963… UCF is 1 of 12 public univs in FL..
So a very young university, but quickly gaining national prominence…
One reason is size! Big is an understatement: 2nd largest 4-year univ in U.S.!
Large undergrad population: 86% undergrad, 14% grad…
Also very diverse, with over 45% of students from minority groups…
UCF also has been on the forefront of delivering courses online… Currently, 36% of all courses delivered Online, Mixed Mode, or Video… last year, over 75% of all students took at least one online course…
As a quick aside, despite the univ’s enormity, the library staff is relatively small and the budget has been flat or declining for almost a decade… I’m sure many of you can identify with these trends!
So, long story short… knew we had to develop a website that appealed to a very large & diverse audience, that was modern and sustainable with a small library staff and budget, and that was fully responsive and mobile/tablet friendly… and that was better in every way than our previous site, which was very good in its heydey, but no longer met our needs...
Silos - old page had repeated info in many places, etc.
Branches and regionals rarely mentioned / had separate sites with redundant content
Old site had at least 500-600 pages, and 1000’s of files of every type
Outdated style
“Old man’s tan”
Lots of large text blocks
Lots of jargon
Lots of drop down menus and accordion menus
Wasn’t fully responsive / separate mobile site
Redesign process started with Library Administration forming WRAPT…
Key players, small, able to make decisions and guide process
My primary role was to be project manager, to handle bureaucracy and administrative tasks
This was important, because it allowed key players to do what they do best
Very soon decided we needed to revive WWG as well
Had existed in the past, but had become inactive and largely ineffective…
Very large group… probably sounds crazy!...
But worked because it involved every department
Rebooted WWG focused on content while WRAPT focused more on design…
Carrie will talk a little more about how we involved everyone one, but this was a big part of it
Catalyst for the change
A new way to do things
Big advantage -- forced us to do everything new, from the ground up -- nothing imported
CM:
Used wide variety of methods and involved everyone:
Environmental scan, surveys, personas, card sorting,social media, usability testing, data analysis
Motivated staff to participate and follow along with the process
Preached user first, inclusivity, cleanness, simplicity, etc.
Used a lot of shared pages -- forced staff to collaborate, reduce redundancy, focus on what user would want
BC (also CM & TB if want):
Joint pages
Most requested info on homepage: hours, study rooms, computers, print/copy/scan, etc.
Clear, concise content throughout - less words, less jargon
More images, photos, and graphics - like Nate Hill said in keynote
Used usability testing to lead design
CM (also BC & TB if want):
Working groups - databases, videos, guides, social media
Manuals - Admin and Style/Procedures
Reports & accountability - public reports, minutes, agenda, etc.
Analytics
My Account page