President’s Message: UX Thinking and the LITA Member Experience

Abstract

My mind has been occupied lately with user (UX) thinking in both the web world and in the physical world around me. I manage a web services department in an academic library, and it's my department's responsibility to contemplate how best to present website content so students can easily search for the articles they are looking for, or so faculty can quickly navigate to their favorite database. In addition to making these tasks easy and efficient, we want to make sure that users feel good about their accomplishments. My department has to ensure that the other systems and services that are integrated throughout the site are located in meaningful places and can be used at the point of need. Additionally, the site's graphic and interaction design must not only contribute to but also enhance the overall user experience. We care about usability, graphic design, and the user interfaces of our library's web presence, but these are just subsets of the larger UX picture. For example, a site can have a great user interface and design, but if a user can't get to the actual information she is looking for, the overall is less than desirable. Jesse James Garrett is considered to be one of the founding fathers of user-centered design, the creator of the pivotal diagram defining the elements of user experience, and author of book, The Elements of User Experience. He believes that experience design is the design of anything, independent of medium, or across media, with human as an explicit outcome, and human engagement as an explicit goal. (1) In other words, applying a UX approach to thinking involves paying attention to a person's behaviors, feelings, and attitudes about a particular product, system, or service. Someone who does UX design, therefore, focuses on building the relationship between people and the products, systems, and services in which they interact. Garrett provides a roadmap of sorts for us by identifying and defining the elements of a web user experience, some of which are the visual, interface, and interaction design, the information architecture, and user needs. (2) In time, these come together to form a cohesive, holistic approach to impacting our users' overarching across our library's web presence. Paying attention to these more contextual elements informs the development and management of a web site. Let's switch gears for a moment. Prior to winning the election and becoming the LITA Vice-President/President-Elect, I reflected on my experiences as a new LITA member and before I became really engaged within the association. I endeavored to remember how I felt when I had joined LITA in 2005. Was I welcomed and informed, or did I feel distant and uninformed? Was the path clear to getting involved in interest groups and committees, or were there barriers that prevented me from getting engaged? What was my attitude about the overall organization? How were my feelings about LITA impacted? Luckily, there were multiple times when I felt embraced by LITA members, such as participating in BIGWIG's Social Media Showcase, teaching pre-conferences, hanging out at the Happy Hours, and attending the Forums. I discovered ample networking opportunities and around every corner there always seemed to be a way to get involved. I attended as many LITA programs at Annual and Midwinter conferences as I could, and in doing so, ran into the same crowds of people over and over again. Plus, the sessions I attended always had excellent content and friendly, knowledgeable speakers. Over time, many of these members became some of my friends and most trusted colleagues. Unfortunately, I'm confident that not every LITA member or prospective member has had similar, consistent, or as engaging experiences as I've had, or as many opportunities to travel to conferences and network in-person. We all have different expectations and goals that color our personal experiences in interacting with LITA and its members. …