learning about users in a library web design workshop

In this workshop, participants will learn a method for gaining insight into their community’s use of their library website. Workshop participants will mark up printouts of their library main page to indicate the page elements they use, the ones they do not use or understand, and additional items that they would like to see on the page. We will then analyze the results of our own mark-up activity, interpret the analyzed data, and talk about possible implementations based on what we learn. Participants will be able to conduct this activity at their own institutions with students, staff or faculty members to understand more about whether and how members of these groups use different elements of the library website and how to address work practice needs that emerge during the analysis. This method can be adapted to each participant’s institution. It can also be expanded by substituting the interface of a particular database or another specialized web page.

Prerequisites: To participate, you must read the following article before the workshop: Foster, Nancy Fried, Nora Dimmock, and Alison Bersani, “Participatory Design of Websites with Web Design Workshops,” Code4Lib Journal, Issue 2, 2008-03-24, (http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/53). You must also bring a printout of the main page of your library website or notify us in advance so that we can print it out for you.