This talk was given on June 14, 2015 at the Special Libraries Association conference in Boston, and sponsored by the Taxonomy division. The full handout with additional resources is available here: http://bit.ly/1IdmoZE

1. An Introduction to Developing
a Better Web-based User
Experience
Sarah Barrett, SLA Boston, June 2015
http://taxonomy.sla.org/eval

2. First, an anecdote.

3. “An introduction to developing a
better web-based user experience.”

4. “An introduction to developing a
better web-based user experience.”

5. “An introduction to developing a
better web-based user experience.”

6. Some Assumptions:
• You’re not hiring anyone
• You need some ideas to integrate into
your current work & process
• You don’t think you’re a designer

7. UX and IA need you.

8. User Experience
Information
Architecture
Taxonomy

9. Tools, resources, vocabulary
How to know what to do, how to do it, and
how to talk about it.

10. Resource:
Christina Wodtke’s “Fundamentals of User
Experience Design” presentations
http://bit.ly/1QwN94Y

11. Resource:
Abby Covert’s book, How to Make Sense of
Any Mess.
http://bit.ly/1ITELZm

12. How to figure out what to do

13. Vocabulary time:
Heuristic -
“A heuristic is just a fancy word for a measurement of
something that can't readily be quantified.” - Smashing
Magazine

14. Find the right heuristics
Make them work for you.

15. Resource:
Dan Brown’s “8 Principles of Information
Architecture.”
http://bit.ly/1dEtm1H
http://bit.ly/1QX4bnO

16. Dan Brown’s 8 Principles of IA:
1. The principle of objects – Treat content as a living, breathing thing, with a lifecycle,
behaviors and attributes.
2. The principle of choices – Create pages that offer meaningful choices to users,
keeping the range of choices available focused on a particular task.
3. The principle of disclosure – Show only enough information to help people
understand what kinds of information they’ll find as they dig deeper.
4. The principle of exemplars – Describe the contents of categories by showing
examples of the contents.
5. The principle of front doors – Assume at least half of the website’s visitors will come
through some page other than the home page.
6. The principle of multiple classification – Offer users several different classification
schemes to browse the site’s content.
7. The principle of focused navigation – Don’t mix apples and oranges in your
navigation scheme.
8. The principle of growth – Assume the content you have today is a small fraction of
the content you will have tomorrow.

17. Resource:
The heuristic evaluation sheet that I use.
http://bit.ly/1QwMqkj

18. “Links should be differentiated
from other interactive functions.”

19. “The system resembles the user’s
real world.”

20. What do your users need?
Do primary research! But make it count.

21. Resource:
Indi Young’s Mental Models.
http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/

22. Guidelines for primary research:
1. You can get great information from four people.

23. Guidelines for primary research:
1. You can get great information from four people.
2. It’s a lot like a reference interview.

24. Guidelines for primary research:
1. You can get great information from four people.
2. It’s a lot like a reference interview.
3. Always identify research objectives.

25. Guidelines for primary research:
1. You can get great information from four people.
2. It’s a lot like a reference interview.
3. Always identify research objectives.
4. Listen for problems, ignore their solutions.

26. Taking it further: decide
what “good” really means.
Dan Klyn on Performance Continuums
http://bit.ly/1Gm6pdH

27. How to do it

28. Translate your ideas into plans
Stick to words, you can still do great design.

29. “Users need to navigate by state.”

30. For a vacation rental site
What’s there? What’s important?

32. Home Page
About
About Author
Link to Pen Name page
Series for New/Featured Book
Title
Summary
Link to Series page
On every page
Top Navigation
• Blog
• Most recent/important series
title
• Pen Names
• More by Author
New/Featured Book
Title
Cover image
Summary
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Smashwords
Buy on other services
Link to Book page
Newsletter
About
Sign up for the newsletter
Newest Blog Post
Title
Excerpt
Read more link
Author Website:
Preliminary Site Model
These diagrams are intended to define
the templates and give an idea of
what elements will be on each
template, before we start designing
what they should look like.
In each case, when a box is nested,
that element (like a book, series, etc.)
can show up one time, or many times,
depending on what is needed. A
series will have many books show up,
but probably only one pen name
associated with it.
For an author’s website
What’s there? What’s important?

33. Home Page
About
About Author
Link to Pen Name page
Series for New/Featured Book
Title
Summary
Link to Series page
On every page
Top Navigation
• Blog
• Most recent/important series
title
• Pen Names
• More by Author
New/Featured Book
Title
Cover image
Summary
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Smashwords
Buy on other services
Link to Book page
Newsletter
About
Sign up for the newsletter
Newest Blog Post
Title
Excerpt
Read more link
Author Website:
Preliminary Site Model
These diagrams are intended to define
the templates and give an idea of
what elements will be on each
template, before we start designing
what they should look like.
In each case, when a box is nested,
that element (like a book, series, etc.)
can show up one time, or many times,
depending on what is needed. A
series will have many books show up,
but probably only one pen name
associated with it.

34. Exercise Time!

35. http://healthlibrary.uwmedicine.org/

36. http://healthlibrary.uwmedicine.org/

37. What’s on the page?
Write down what you see on
this page.
What content, metadata, and
links to types of pages are
here?

38. How is it ranked?
Based on how things are on
this page, what’s most
important?
What is the page currently
prioritizing?

39. Does that seem right?
Re-rank the elements on the
page, if needed.
Write down questions that
need answering.

40. What do we have?
Testing and Evaluation
What do we need?
Research and Design thinking
How should we do it?
Planning and Specification

41. Taking it further: Plan how to
get there
Change is hard, it needs to be planned.

42. Resource:
Switch by Chip & Dan
Heath.

43. How to talk about it

44. Talk to anyone who will
play along.

45. Test early
and often.
Review of testing tools:
http://bit.ly/1vcII27

46. Resource:
Getting to Yes by Roger
Fisher & William Ury.

47. Taking it further:
Look for stories, not just data.

49. Thank you!
#SLA2015
@documentalope
@factorfirm
http://taxonomy.sla.org/eval