To Plan For First-Time Users, Think Like First-Time Users | From the Bell Tower

Campus libraries have to plan now on how to get that first impression, and the first user experience, right.

Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA -- Library Journal, 06/11/2009

Summer is a time when academic librarians begin planning for the fall semester activity. One of the most important ones is the welcoming of new students to campus. Chances are most of the incoming freshmen entered the library sometime during their campus visit, but that will be forgotten by the time they meet a librarian. As we prepare for this opportunity to greet our new students for real it may be helpful to think carefully about how we want to welcome these first-time users to our communities, and what is important about their experience. We only get one chance to make a great first impression.

You’re a first-timer once
I got to thinking about this when I came across an article published in the Cooper Journal about how we are all first-time users just once, whatever it is we encounter. The author, Steve Calde, makes a distinction between first-time impressions and first-time user experiences. It’s important for academic institutions to do well at both. The first time impression has to be made when prospective students and their families visit and tour the campus. The library is a frequent stop where tour guides boast about the number of books and databases available, as well as the friendly help dispensed by always-cheerful library workers. Those first impressions are likely shaped far more by the library’s physical appearance than its staff or resources. When enrolled students return for their first semester a much more critical impression is based on the library use experience.

We get one chance
As soon as those syllabi get into their eager hands, students will want to know if the library has required texts. What impression does your library make on the first-time user needing to navigate the library web site to determine if the library has a needed book or article? How about a trip to the stacks to find that book? A poor design could mean losing that potential user right away. That’s why it’s critical to create an experience that makes the best possible impression on the first-time user. Calde suggests that a metric for that experience is “Would my mother/grandmother/Luddite Uncle Bill be able to use this product on the first try?” In the case of most library electronic resources I suspect Calde would find we fail. But there may be hope.

Getting beyond first use
Let’s keep in mind that the first-time user experience has multiple dimensions. It’s about more than electronic resources, although that is increasingly where our students will go for their information. There is the human dimension as well. Many of those first-time users will go to the library in search of help. That makes it vitally important to think about the totality of your library’s user experience. It encompasses your electronic resources, your staff resources, your physical resources, and they all need to work together to create a flow that helps users get their work done efficiently without needing to think much about the process. How do the organizations that get it right design good user experiences?

Adapt a design process
The reality is that most academic libraries will fall short of Disneyworld or Las Vegas when it comes to designing a user experience. But there is plenty we can do to make sure those first impressions are good ones. Try a five-step design process. Start by understanding the users. Talk to the first-timers to learn their impressions of your library. In what ways did it delight or disgust them? Ask them how it could be made better. Next, identify problems before deciding on the solutions. Look around from the outsider’s perspective and make an inventory of what’s broken; then start to fix the most serious ones. Third, use a brainstorming process in your library to solicit ideas from as many staff members as possible. Great ideas can come from anywhere. Fourth, start developing prototypes for possible solutions. The library web site is a good example of a resource that benefits from a series of models that can be tested and improved through an iterative design process. Finally, take time for evaluation to determine if your objectives were met, and if not, what work remains.

That second chance opportunity
While he admits that it’s critical to win over first-time users, even Calde points out that when it comes to a more complex operation it may take more than one time to win people over. Library research at the college level has some inherent complexities, and many freshmen raised in a Google world may find it overwhelming. That’s where learning comes into the picture. It pays to establish a research education program that gives academic librarians a better opportunity to connect with students when it’s time to get down to the real work of higher education. But don’t blow your do-over. Design it right.

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