Time critical user centred web design
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This document discusses improving the accessibility and usability of a university library website. It outlines work done to gather user feedback, benchmark other institutions, analyze usage data, and identify top tasks. The library has made changes to site structure and navigation based on this research and user testing. Iterative improvements are ongoing, including analyzing engagement and working with teams to enhance digital services for the academic community.
Time critical user centred web design
- 1. Time critical user centred library web design @AntonyGroves
- 3. Kellie Mote and Mark Ayton ‘Strategic approaches to implementing accessibility’ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lVDVvIw4dmv5eCQEQvElHn9gofNfTcw9/view
- 4. Proactively working towards the Government deadline of 23RD September to make our website accessible Reactively working to make our website and services as useful as possible following closure on 20th March
- 6. 2019 saw over a million visits to the Library website; 6,170 on busiest day (Tuesday 14th May).
- 7. Government Design Principles • This is for everyone • Start with user needs • Design with data • Build digital services, not websites - A service is something that helps people to do something. Our job is to uncover user needs, and build the service that meets those needs. Of course much of that will be pages on the web, but we’re not here to build websites. • Iterate. Then iterate again www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design-principles
- 8. Start with user needs •Spoke to academic community and gathered feedback •Over 100 pieces of feedback collected and grouped into four main themes: architecture, behaviour, content and labelling •‘Top Tasks’ identified (e.g. searching for and finding books, booking rooms, accessing account) https://alistapart.com/article/what-really-matters-focusing-on-top-tasks/
- 9. • Architecture: “Confusing having two types of navigation” • Behaviour: “Have never used Library Search tabs” • Content: “More photos of the Library and more infographics” • Labelling: “Skills Hub should have a description mentioning academic skills”
- 10. Design with data •Benchmarked with other institutions •Looked at analytics - most/least viewed pages, along with bounce and exit rates •Ran ‘card sorts’ to determine site structure •Created user stories to help edit pages
- 12. User stories 17,892 views of this page (and subpages in Autumn term 2019). This page had a bounce rate of 8.43% and an exit rate of 2.12% (similar to ‘Study rooms’ page). The ‘Find a book in the Library’ page had 6,785 views compared with 1,182 in the 2018 Autumn term when it was located in the ‘Using the Library’ section. Views of Library News page (now in the new ‘News, events and workshops’ section) risen from 222 views to 1,154 over Autumn term. The new ‘Making your research available’ section has very low bounce and exit rates, and these have also dropped across the whole site, indicating that people are finding what they expect to.
- 13. Iterate. And iterate again •There is still much to unpack and much to improve (and these should be ongoing pieces of work). •UX Group currently organising user testing. •Analysing usage to see which parts of the website are seeing fewer views and less engagement. •Working with teams inside and outside of the Library to make our digital services as useful as they can be to our community.
- 15. Pivot Add Hide
- 16. Pivot
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- 22. Recognition
- 23. Revisiting Ranganathan: Applying the Five Laws of Library Science to Inclusive Web Design Ten changes we’ve made to the Library website since lockdown www.mmitblog.wordpress.com Questions?
- 24. Usability 1. Think about some of the primary users/stakeholders of your service. From what you know about those users, what are they likely to be trying to achieve? Will this have changed in the past three months? 2. Write a user-story for that user i.e. As a… I would like… So that I can… 3. What do you think would be a top task for this user? Visit a page or service that you think they would use. How successful is it in helping them to fulfil their user story? Accessibility Part of the Government’s basic accessibility check will involve assessing your homepage, which is likely to be your most viewed page. 4. Enter the URL of you homepage into the Wave Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. In particular look for any ‘errors’ or ‘alerts’ that are highlighted. You do not need to share with the group (but should with your institution). You can use the tool to look for missing alt-text, headers and more: it’s an invaluable resource. 5. Does your website have an accessibility statement? Can you find it easily and have you read it? How does it compare to the Governments sample accessibility statement? Exercises