The Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation is one of Idaho’s oldest and largest charitable foundations. The Foundation provides over four hundred fifty scholarships to Idaho students at community colleges, technical colleges and universities every year. The Foundation also funds nonprofit organizations throughout the State of Idaho through a competitive grant process every year, strengthening our communities and the state as a whole.
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Saturday, January 30, 2010
User Experience -- Not Just a Trend
Steve B in his blog Designing Better Libraries states "... that user experience should be at the foundation of what drives the library to deliver memorable and unique experiences, and that it must become a core guiding strategy for the present and future."
Unlike technology tools and applications (eg., texting, e-books, blogs, email, etc.) which keep changing at a mind-numbing rate, User Experience (UX) is here to stay. People are here to stay. And the focus of the library should be on the UX -- this is what brings 'em back -- creates sustainability -- and generates library supporters. This is one component of a business model that can be adopted by each and every library into their strategic plan and daily work flow.
Create a UX that meets the needs of the community. If it is a quiet place to study and learn ... then create that. If the community needs a social place to congregate, then so be it. This will require the library staff to be very much aware of their community as well as flexible to incorporate the right combination of UX. Be sure though it is the needs of the community that are being met and not just what library staff "thinks" the UX should be. Definitely a challenge ... however, libraries are up to it!
Unlike technology tools and applications (eg., texting, e-books, blogs, email, etc.) which keep changing at a mind-numbing rate, User Experience (UX) is here to stay. People are here to stay. And the focus of the library should be on the UX -- this is what brings 'em back -- creates sustainability -- and generates library supporters. This is one component of a business model that can be adopted by each and every library into their strategic plan and daily work flow.
Create a UX that meets the needs of the community. If it is a quiet place to study and learn ... then create that. If the community needs a social place to congregate, then so be it. This will require the library staff to be very much aware of their community as well as flexible to incorporate the right combination of UX. Be sure though it is the needs of the community that are being met and not just what library staff "thinks" the UX should be. Definitely a challenge ... however, libraries are up to it!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
User Experience
User Experience as presented by Jesse James Garrett is captured in Lori Reed's blog post on the Learning RoundTable Blog ... I loved the piano staircase! When I was at ALA Midwinter in Boston this week .. I didn't encounter the conversation of user experience too much...seemed to me the conversations still focused on the tools ... not the users... mmmm.... How can you make a routine task fun for your library users?
Simple Advice
On the Learning RoundTable blog, Marianne Lennox posted some basic advice on customer service. Here are her ten points -- go to the blog post to read it all!
- Greet every customer
- Be aware of non-verbal clues
- Listen
- Restate the problem or question
- Be Empathetic
- Provide alternatives to “No”
- Reserve judgment
- Get (back) to them as soon as possible
- Follow your gut instinct
- Thank them for using the library
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