LESSONS FROM LIBGUIDESLaura Harris @ Baker College, 11.24.09
Why LibGuides?
Online system created by the university was very limited – customization difficult
LibGuides’ 2.0 features seemed to offer more flexibility
How did GVSU do it?
We started our contract with LibGuides in late December 2007
Didn’t launch until Fall 2008 Lots of workshops & how-to documents
Our initial guidelines…
Minimize white space Think about your users Quality over quantity; many users don’t
bother to scroll, so put the most important information “above the fold”
While these were good guidelines to begin with, they weren’t enough…
Challenges we faced
LibGuides is a little too awesome Librarians want to use LibGuides for everything Advice: define the scope of your guides
carefully. Stick to subject guides and course guides, and think carefully before you use LibGuides for something else
Incomplete understanding of usability guidelines Librarians may not understand the reasoning
behind the guidelines Advice…
A few tips on usability
Organize by task – “finding articles” rather than “indexes & databases” or “citing sources” rather than “RefWorks”
Be as brief as possible. Keep in mind that the attention span of the average web user is low.
Use graphics to show real content, not just to be decorative
Limit your font styles, colors, etc.
So, please don’t do this…
Or this…
One last challenge…
Browsability – Ranganath’s Fourth Rule – “Save the time of the User.”
We wanted to reduce the number of clicks our users had to make
So we did this, but it got a little unwieldy…
So this is what we’re trying next
Opportunities
Springshare is very responsive to customer feedback and suggestions
Creativity Interactivity Up-to-date information
Creativity
Interactivity
Up-to-date information
Up-to-date information
Opportunities for instruction
Interactivity – LibGuides provides a ‘feedback’ box type; you can embed many things into LibGuides
Go where the students are – using LibGuides’ API, you can embed LibGuides boxes directly into Blackboard
Assessment – guide statistics can show you which links students used the most
LibGuides in Blackboard
Guide statistics
Recommended reading…
Jakob Nielsen - usability expert Any of his books Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html 113 Design Guidelines for Homepage Usability
http://www.useit.com/homepageusability/guidelines.html
Robin Williams - the designer, not the actor The Non-Designer's Design Book Bad Web Design Features
http://www.ratz.com/featuresbad.html John Kupersmith – librarian
Library Terms That Users Understand http://www.jkup.net/terms.html
More recommended reading… LibGuides Style Guides from Boston
College http://docs.google.com/Doc?
docid=dg6z5m5m_93gg37x4dx http://docs.google.com/Doc?
docid=dg6z5m5m_93gg37x4dx http://docs.google.com/View?
docid=dg6z5m5m_92dghmhdd7
Presentation & links available online at:http://slideshare.net/rikhei
Questions?
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