Abstract
Amherst College renovated our library feedback board from a locked-box, opaque model to a transparent community board, integrating users’ feedback into a regular assessment and planning cycle.
Library Feedback Board
What happens when you contact the FCUX
The Five College User Experience Committee welcomes contact from each of the library committees, as well as individual staff members, regarding UX projects with a Five College impact or addressing cross-campus issues.
Contact the FCUX chair or any member of the group as soon as a need for UX work is anticipated.
Timing and scope for collaboration depends on the workload of the FCUX and the timeline of the requesting committee. The UX committee normally meets monthly and communicates regularly between meetings. The FCUX will determine priorities and set an agenda that strives to balance realistic expectations about what can be accomplished with the needs and ideas of our users and colleagues.
Point persons from FCUX and the other committee will be designated to keep communication rolling.
Joint meetings for selected members or full committees are recommended.
Scope and Purpose of the proposed FCUX work should be framed with shared Five College needs in mind, addressing issues related to users across our libraries.
Commitment is essential. The requesting committee should clearly articulate their desired outcomes and what they intend to do with the insights gained from UX work, and how this will be accomplished.
Identification of the problem(s), purpose and needs is a joint process, guided by FCUX prompts to:
Define the issue or problem
Gather relevant background information and historical data
Understand and articulate the question(s) and need for UX study
Set goals for the study
Consider techniques and methods
Possible roles for the FCUX include:
- Identification of relevant materials and related studies to assist a committee in preparing a UX project
- Consultation on aspects of a particular issue and UX study, including recommendation of methods and project management
- Collaborative design work with a committee for a cross-campus UX study
- Referral with recommendations to appropriate library staff at one or more of the five libraries, concerning campus-specific UX issues
- Exploration of a problem to discover issues and define questions for cross-campus UX study
- Education, training, and sharing of UX information with a broader Five College audience
- Leading or taking responsibility for conducting a study of broad relevance to the Five College libraries, related to priority needs anticipated by multiple Five College library committees
Wayfinding at Frost Library
Abstract
Two wayfinding tests (Spring 2016, Spring 2017), with 6 and 7 first-year students attempting to find three items in Frost Library, using talk-aloud protocol to voice their thought processes and reactions. The second test included a pair of video-recording glasses, to help in observing which wayfinding tools students used in their process.