Nicola Semple

This time last week I was on my way back to my hotel in Brighton after the second day of UXLibs. If you haven’t seen it, you can read about every session I attended over the three days, in detail, over on my UXLibs 2023 Live Highlights post. But now that I’ve had some time to process everything and mull it over, I’ve summarised all the content into common themes, which will hopefully give you a snapshot of what I took from the conference and what will be informing whatever work I do, going forward.

UX Methods:

• It’s time to start using creative methods more. There’s no problem with traditional surveys and interviews, but what more could we gain from asking people to use their creativity to express their thoughts and feelings?
• Design thinking can be used outside of the traditional sense of design. A popular approach for a few speakers at the conference was the double diamond approach – discover/define/develop/deliver).
• UX is not just about digital experiences, but also not just the library space. UX methods can be applied to every single experience within library services.

The Library:

• Treat the library space as the media, rather than a space with media. Consider what makes the library space different than any other space. The users make a library – and generally, they don’t change much over time the way tangible media does. So design it for them.
• Facilitators can only cancel out barriers in the right environment. So even when do have the knowledge and tools to make libraries more inclusive and diverse, if the environment doesn’t allow it, it’s not going to happen as easily as we think.

The User:

• Co-creation is key to achieving a user-centred and user-driven rather than library-centred library service.
• It’s important to meet your users where they are. Take the library outside, like Marie Østergård did at Aarhus Public Libraries.
• Develop a specific user group that you can call upon to provide continuous feedback. Create a ‘challenge panel’ of users as suggested by Arun Verma, library champions like King’s Libraries and Collections, or a Student Connector Programme like University of Sussex Library.
• Develop personas based on who your users are. But look at the whole person, rather than siloed characteristics.

The Process of Collaboration:

• Both UX and collaboration are iterative processes. They are continuous journeys rather than one conversation.
• Don’t be a lone wolf – we need to collaborate, have allies and be able to influence others. One individual / conference / library / organisation cannot change things by themselves.
• A community of practice / formal group / UX Committee is essential for success. If you work in an academic library in the North of England, why not join the ALN UX Community of Practice?
• As Emma Thompson said – “don’t leave your fiddle at the door”. Shout about your successes! Don’t be shy. And if we are collaborating, we can celebrate those successes together.
• We can also support each other when we fail. And failure is a possibility – so fail fast and fail hard. It’s the quickest way to figure out what will work.
• Another reason for collaboration – the more voices you have, the more ideas you have, and somewhere amongst all of those ideas will be an absolute gem.
• And remember: it’s not just you – you’re not alone.

Management:

• Management support is essential – they are the ones who can approve and allow insights to become real action.
• They can also support you by allowing you the time needed to do UX.
• But they also need to be open-minded – UX isn’t a tool for confirmation bias. It is a tool that allows us to see all perspectives. To see the reality of a situation or experience. Do management only want to hear our findings if it confirms or validates existing ideas or practices? Management need to be open to findings that may clash with their existing vision or strategy, and be open to adjusting this vision or strategy if necessary to create a library experience that is inclusive, diverse, accessible and usable.
• It goes both ways though. If we want buy-in to our ideas, we need to align them with the values or strategy of our libraries.

Inclusion:

• Constructive disruption (AKA change management / transformation) is necessary to move things forward, and to create real change.
• Who is challenging assumptions in the room where there is a lack of diversity? Can it be you?
• You need to be consciously aware and acknowledge barriers before and throughout the UX process.
• Participation vs. Inclusion – they are not the same, barriers can prevent us from moving past participation. Encouraging users to participate in a one-off survey may feel like a way to be inclusive, but that shouldn’t be where it ends. It’s just the beginning.
• Improving diversity and inclusion in the library profession is essential, and there are proven ways to increase applications for roles. But consider what the environment is like for those you are inviting in. It isn’t enough to attract diversity, when the environment itself is not adapting and improving itself for this diversity.

Communication:

• Storytelling. Everything tells a story – the users, but also the data. It’s just how you present it.
• Communicate regularly with all stakeholders – who are they and what do they want or need to know?

Collective language:

• Underserved rather than ‘hard to reach’ puts the onus on us, not the user.
• Democratic confidence / self-confidence is key to users feeling heard and understood, but also for them have the confidence to speak up in the first place.
• Our democratic fitness (active listening, empathy, allowing disagreements, compromising) is something we and our users have to train and exercise to maintain.
• Cultural congruence – do people recognise themselves in the research you’re doing?
• But in terms of UX methods, don’t get caught up on the language of UX – you don’t always have to use UX language to prove your work is valid.

External Resources:

• Design Thinking Toolkit for Libraries
• Everyone Belongs: A Toolkit for Applying Intersectionality

And if you would like to read my live highlights from UXLibs 2023, which is a much longer and more detailed post about each session I attended, you can do here: Live Highlights: UXLibs Conference 2023.