2022
University of Washington Suzzallo Library
UI / UX
UX Research
“Article Galaxy Scholar provides cost-effective and time-saving solutions for academic institutions to supplement their interlibrary loan (ILL) needs and subscriptions, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
(1) Introduce AGS service to students (Target graduate and undergraduate students.)
(2) Design “Request Article” button on the library website for students to request articles via AGS
(3) Empathize and understand the user journey of request an article through AGS by creating mock-ups from the article’s search result page to the AGS landing page(s).
(1) Examine how students interact with the AGS service and the FAQ page.
(2) Learn what questions students have about the process that is not apparent from the web design in order to customize FAQ page content and improve their user experience.
(3) Improve students' experience of getting online resources/articles from AGS.
(4) Better understand user needs and pain points through think aloud user testing (participants verbalizing thoughts)
We interviewed 4 graduate students and 8 undergraduate students. Most of the interviewees were not familiar with library services. Some group members did their interviews face-to-face, while others did theirs over Zoom meeting.
Key questions:
(1) What are some pain points/challenges/confusions that users encounter when getting/requesting articles?
(2) How easy/hard is it to understand the AGS service?
(3) What are some things users like/dislike about the user experience of AGS?
(4) What is the natural user journey of users requesting/getting an article through the UW libraries website?
Overall, our test users were satisfied with our high-fidelity prototype. Our major goals for the prototype were that the layout should be intuitive and that the design shouldn’t overly complicated, and both of these goals were met. However, our test users gave us numerous pieces of feedback, both for things we did well and things we could improve.
Email confirmation would be helpful.
Waiting time can be more specific.
Not interested in AGS but the process of requesting articles.
3 participants were confused and clicked on the wrong link.
2 Buttons version is confusing and no need for keeping the old service
Some users mentioned it would be helpful to preview PDF articles
Requesting an article will take 2 hours or more
Not sure who to contact if they do not receive the article
Need confirmation text or email
Discuss with Reprints Desk and re-wording to "typically within 1 hour"
Create FAQ page and includes detailed process of requesting articles (including contact information)
This was fixed by sending confirming email and showing completed page once the user requested an article
For the High-Fidelity prototype we individually produced mockups that we believe fulfilled the requirements. We took these into account along with the content of our interviews to make the website as user friendly to its stakeholders as possible.
Based on various feedback from our supervisors, I continually iterated my design over the span of 1 weeks. The major changing were: design various version of buttons (including the layouts), design landing page with the focus on wording, and decide where to place the FAQ link.
Collaboration and communication is the key. I am very grateful to work with my colleague, supervisor and developer. There're few things that I learnt and could be improved:
1. More iteration. We designed a lot of variations during the wireframe phase. However, due to time limit and system limitation, we can not changed a lot of the design. If I have more time, I will do more iterations to ensure the user needs are met.
2. Discuss with the developer more. There are a lot of limitations while we designing the button and the work flow. If we do have more time, I would like to discuss with the developer and find potential possibilities of new design.
3. More interviews or questionnaires. We conducted interviews in this project through face-to-face and zoom. But in order to get more data and learn more about students from different cultural backgrounds, I would like to get more information in the future to make sure my sources are reliable.
5. Constantly update and pursuit of progress. Take the time to understand market trends as well as recent design trends. Also, I would apply the tendency to this app. I think younger students are more attracted to what's trendy today, which also increases user usage and loyalty.
