The Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL) has a call out for papers for next June’s conference. Suggested topics include user studies. The webmaster library claims that flash websites kill business. Business sites, sure, but what about education sites? NASA is looking for a digital librarian to conduct usability testing, among other things. New to [...]
Monthly Archives: October 2008
Library Usability Links 10/31/08
31-Oct-08Library Usability Links 10/24/08
24-Oct-08LITA National Forum topic on website redesign, including usability Interesting, free, and surprising web analytics service ClickTale. Including heatmaps! Feng GUI analyzes the look of your site’s visual attraction Silverback looks like a useful usability testing tool, but it’s Mac-only Visual Literacy has a periodic table of visualization methods Internet Librarian 2008 related review of [...]
It’s been said that, for librarians, the joy is in the searching while it’s in the finding for patrons. This is what passes for a good time if you’re a librarian: How I came across the idea of pattern libraries, as reconstructed from a Firefox history file: Ran into Yahoo! Design Pattern Library a couple [...]
Fighting “Filter Failure” with AideRSS
22-Oct-08Clay Shirky, in this recent session at Web 2.0, talks about how the filter has moved downstream from those who are responsible for publishing, to those who consume. The initial, visceral, effect of this is the well-known and overhyped “information overload” meme. In the above talk Shirky places the blame for information overload squarely on [...]
The Three Dimensions of User Studies
20-Oct-08Christian Rohrer has a good article up earlier this month on the three dimensions of user studies: Attitudinal vs. Behavioral Qualitative vs. Quantitative Context of Website or Product Use He’s also mapped them out in this chart:
Bookmark: The Experience is the Product
18-Oct-08There are some very interesting lessons for libraries in this slideshare on user experience design: Experience Is The Product View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: adaptivepath dconstruct2007)
Michael Magoolaghan writes about working with library design as an information architect. He includes a very interesting chart that maps out patron behavior: Six Revisions has an excellent post of links to 20 sites for mastering web design Wayne College Library addresses quiet study in their library weblog Edward Lee from Ohio State has an [...]
Library Usability Links 10/16/08
16-Oct-08A user rants against librarians commenting on her books Lots of interesting data points in this CDWG survey of students and faculty: 39% of students want to be able to chat online with their professors while 23% of campuses offer it. 63% of students use technology every day to prepare for class. A Colorado State [...]
Role of Academic Blogging
15-Oct-08Found via Marginal Revolution, this quote sums up the value of (essentially) blogging for yourself in academics: But the Harvard economist [Dani Rodrik] finds the blog — short for Web log — useful because it serves as a reference catalog for his ideas. “I now constantly Google my own blog for ideas that I knew [...]
Library Usability Links 10/10/08
10-Oct-08iPhone users frustrated with mobile news website design The UKSG completed a 3-year study finding that link resolvers are driving article use among academic library patrons [doc] Southwester College student newspaper reports that single students hogging study rooms is impolite Michael Lascarides, the new usability analyst at NYPL, writes about the work of Willliam “Holly” [...]