LibraryONE
LibraryONE:
LibraryONE is a user-centred interface of a digital library for academic purposes which allows researchers and other users to reach open-source academic documents.
Project Aim:
Although there are numerous resources, it is not always easy to find the required information and reach the documents that needed. The aim of this project is to create an interface of a library for academic use and create a flawless user experience.
RESEARCH
NUMBERS OF RESEARCH
16
9
Platforms examined
User tests performed
12
Major issues identified
LITERATURE RESEARCH
GOOGLE SCHOLAR
When you do an academic research, there are two main sources that everyone thinks of at first. One of them is Google Scholar.
Google Scholar is not a library itself, but a search engine like regular Google designed for academic documents. Academic papers and books are listed and users are able to reach the resources they need.
Yet, it is only a bridge between users and resources and it has several difficulties on user experience.
ONLINE LIBRARIES
Most of the time users have to visit another source to reach the documents. These sources are online libraries, journals, university archives and other platforms.
When users are switching between different platforms, it is not possible to remain a decent user experience. Using a different interface for every single document is both time consuming and inconvenient.
It might not be possible to find information about the document all the time or there might be too much or unnecessary details in every other platform.
We cannot mention a decent user experience with a variable interaction.
INSTITUTION LIBRARIES
The other platform that everyone use is the institution libraries. Because of the easy and free access, both physical and digital university libraries are practical.
The drawback of these sources is that they have a limited archive. There are always some studies and papers that are not listed on these libraries and users would have to use other platforms to reach more resource.
OTHER DIGITAL LIBRARIES
There are other types of digital libraries nowadays and many of them are frequently used by millions of users. It would be highly beneficial to review these platforms to check how they manage their sources.
One of the biggest digital libraries in the world is Steam. It is a video game library with an online store. It is active in many countries in 28 languages.
Steam adjusts its store in 29 currencies. The adjustment is not only converting the prices but also arranging them according to affordability and market volume in that region.
LIBRARY INVESTIGATION
Although this project is to create a digital library interface, a visit to couple of libraries would be inspiring.
I spent a day at British Library and City University Library for each while doing literature research and tried to observe people.
At the end of the day, I was able to see hundreds of people who are studying and doing some research. If I could create something that helps those people even a little bit, I would be really happy.
PRE-QUESTIONNAIRE
As a part of research, I needed to run several user test sessions to be able to understand the methods that users usually do and the issues that they have.
I asked 6 questions about their approach, sources that they use, their preferences about resources and methods of searching.
But first, I wanted to ask some questions to figure out how they start researching. I wanted to learn if they start with going a library, using any other source apart from libraries or any other method that helps.
USER TESTS
After a short questionnaire, I moved to test sessions. I had 8 participants who were currently studying in a master degree and doing academic research at the moment.
Participants were given a simple task. They were ask to find some academic resource for a specific topic. Yet, there were not any method or guideline to follow. I wished to observe how users start a research and which tools they use.
While they were researching, I asked several questions about their experience. What they are looking for, what they expect to see, how they decice on a document if it is useful or not.
What is more, I wanted to see if they struggle to reach any kind of resource. Minimising or eliminating the issues between users and resources is one of the major purposes of this project.
Therefore, I asked questions about their experience on the search to detect issues they have, in addition to my observation.
At the end, I was able to collect valuable data for a new design with pre-questionnaire, observation and questions during the user tests.
ANALYSIS
USER TEST RESULTS
At the end of the research phase, with a qualitative data analysis, 12 major obstacles were identified. We can define these issues in 3 main groups, general issues, results page and book page.
GENERAL
PORTALS
MEMBERSHIP
RESULTS PAGE
ADVANCED SEARCH
TOPICS
SORTING
BOOK PAGE
ABSTRACT
REFERENCES
DOWNLOAD
NAMING
LIST
CITATION
DICTIONARY
ISSUES
PORTALS
As described one of the participants, "portals" are one of the biggest obstacles between users and resources.
Searching in a platform like Google Scholar directs you to another platform and you need to move between several platforms. It makes time loss and lack of convenience because using a different interface at every time might be distracting.
"It feels like a puzzle."
MEMBERSHIP
In addition to portals, some online libraries may ask a membership even though the desired document is open-access resource. The same issue exists for institutional libraries too because they offer their resources only to their own students.
Users are able to reach the documents by logging in, but it makes one more step on the way.
ADVANCED SEARCH
User tests showed that users start searching with a keyword most of the time. Keywords are practical, yet not good enough.
There are countless publications and there are many different aspects of a topic. When a keyword is used, there are always some results in different disciplines and purposes.
To achieve this, users tend to make adjustments on their search. Choosing a discipline or using a filter might work better.
Yet, they also want to see everything that is out there. They do not want to miss a useful paper. Therefore, searching in advance mode is required but also not easy to manage.
ABSTRACT
When a user wants to check if a paper is related with the study or not, they need to read the abstract. Although this is the first information that they look for, it is not always provided.
After the abstract, they might look for table of contents to see more details. And then they might check the reference list to see more related works about the topic.
To be able to understand if the publication is related and useful for users, a number of information is required.
LIST
Another issue comes when lots of documents are found. Users might need some papers for a long time and looking for the same document again and again is frustrating.
They require a folder or a list of resources that they use and they would like to reach that documents some other time, maybe with other devices.
A personal list of resource function would save some time and make people's work easier.
CITATION
Citations are the way to show which academic papers and sources are used for that study. Users have to use citations all the time, yet citations are long texts and they hold many details.
A citation feature is necessary for any kind of academic library. It would be fasten things up and provide mistake-free citations.
OTHER FINDINGS
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
When I visited British Library, I noticed that my pc connected to wifi automatically. It used my university account to connect to wireless internet connection.
It was a great inspiration for account management. All institutional accounts and other digital library accounts/memberships could work seamlessly while researching.
An idea of a platform uses all account that registered before would work more efficiently and makes users' lives easier.
LICENCE & PRICE
Steam offers a video game library in many countries with different currencies. Although most of the games are the same in all countries, there might be minor changes due to laws and user expectations.
Users are only able to reach products that only served in their region and in their currencies, because of the DRM protection.
Steam is a perfect example for a digital library. This system could be adjusted for publications with licence agreements and price regulation when needed.
DESIGN
LibraryONE
Interviews and user tests showed that users are not happy with their research experience. There are several obstacles on the way and it is not easy to eliminate those obstacles.
The idea of this project is to create a digital library for academic publications. In addition to open-access documents, it is desired to provide a bridge between other institution and library resources seamlessly.
LibraryONE is designed to be a digital library with no publications at all. It helps users search, find, preview and download the documents that needed.
While doing this, it uses other platforms' and libraries' sources and show them in one simple interface. Therefore it provides a convenient user experience.
INTERFACE
LibraryONE is a master library that combines all digital libraries, platforms and other sources. It offers a user-centred design and makes it possible to reach all resources through one top level interface.
HOME PAGE
Users usually start with a keyword, or a name of an author or a book most of the time. The home page is meant to be simplistic with only a search box because complicated and disorganised interfaces were one of the issues that users mentioned.
There are also a section for easy access to saved books, account adding and profile page. Users are able to add their institutional accounts and other subscriptions to reach more exclusive resources.
RESULTS PAGE
Results page is crucial because there are always some unnecessary details and so much information about publications. The aim of the research was to figure out what users are looking for at results page. Accordingly, a simple and handy interface was created.
On the left column, there are filters and sorting options. These options are chosen by the feedback from user tests. Putting tens of options would create complexity and it would become less user friendly. So, only the required options are located at that column.
At the results, there are so many details about publications. Yet, the ones that looked for were identified and located at this page. There are some details that users look for here like citation or year, but abstract and other details about the context are not shown in this page.
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In this way, results page would be simple, practical and easy to use.
BOOK PAGE
The first information that users look for is abstract in book page. Therefore, an abstract section is located just under the publication details.
Similar with results page, there are so many information to show about documents and authors. Yet, users are looking for only some of them.
According to feedbacks, only a number of information and details are shown. In addition to the abstract, references section is also located just under it. Because looking for related works from references list is another way of searching.
Also, chapters of books are important. Although the whole book might not be needed, only a chapter of it could be useful for users. They would like to see these chapters. What is more, some wish to download only the chapter that they need, not the whole book.
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PREVIEW PAGE
The main purpose of preview page is to maintain the user-centred design. Users are not only search resources from several platforms but also preview them through one preview interface.
LibraryONE Preview displays the whole document and allows users to download it if needed. It is possible to move between chapters and download only one or selected sections.
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MY LIST
Another feature is for saved books. When users think that a document might useful, they would like to reach it any time.
In addition, there might be so many items in the list or there might be more than one study at a time, so creating new lists is possible with LibraryONE.
Moving between lists and adding notes are also possible.
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PROTOTYPE
After designing the interface according to research findings, it was time to prepare a prototype to test it with users.
The prototype is focused on the features that designed to eliminate the issues identified. Therefore, there is a user journey which shows the design solutions that participants can follow (you can find more details on the prototype page).
I wanted to test the prototype with the same participants from first user tests. In this way I would be able to see if there is an improvement for the overall experience.
To see more details, you can check the prototype page.
EVALUATION
USER TESTS
Similar with the first sessions, there would be a simple task for participants.
They were asked to do a research about a topic, but this time they were asked to give their thoughts about what they see, what they expect to see and what they would do for the next step before actually doing it.
All participants were able to complete the given task. The topic was same and they could manage to run a research as they used to.
QUESTIONNAIRE
After the second user tests sessions, I prepared a short questionnaire with 5 questions. I wanted to see how successful the new design is.
I asked them if there any issues that bothered them, and their thoughts about LibraryONE in general.
I also asked participants if they are satisfied with the LibraryONE as both functions and interaction. I wished to know if LibraryONE ever become a real platform, they would use it or not.
Are you pleased about what LibraryONE offers as functions?
Are you pleased about how you interacted with LibraryONE?
If LibraryONE completed, would you use it?
DATA ANALYSIS
Although participants were satisfied with LibraryONE in general, there were some minor issues. After the second user test sessions and questionnaire, several minor issues identified.
These issues are not a huge problem for user experience, yet they needed to be eliminated to provide a flawless experience.
TOP BUTTONS
It is possible to add institutional accounts to LibraryONE system to reach more documents exclusive to those memberships. Yet, the button at home page is not clear. It needed to be more clear to be used efficiently.
Similarly, My List buttons was not clear. Therefore a new icon would be more suitable.
ABSTRACT
When users look for a book, the abstract is significant. Because the summary of the publications is a key for deciding whether the document is useful or not.
There is an exact wording that users want to see. Abstract is one of the essentials of a publication and needed to be there.
NAMING
When a document is downloaded, the name of the file is important because there are so many details like author, title or publication year. When a number of documents are downloaded, users would like to name them by themselves.
A custom naming function is required for some cases. Everyone has their own study method and users should be as comfortable as possible while studying.
DISCUSSION
WHAT IS NEXT?
This is a design project that focused on the user experience. The final product is an interface design of a digital library. The aim is to create a better, user-centred experience on academic researches.
Therefore, only one aspect was considered during the project. Apart from the interaction, there are several other aspects related with a digital library.
If it is desired to make LibraryONE a real digital library, which is a confirmed expectation at second user test sessions, there are more work to do.
A new prototype for the whole platform with all pages and sections would give more detailed results. Also a real library archive could be implemented and users would run a research sessions without any guidance.
There are some issues with licensing, region limitations, purchasing etc. Local laws may vary and there might be some publications with time limitations. These kind of technical issues also needed to be solved.
Today LibraryONE is a good example of a user-centred design project, yet it is not a finished one.
