I recently completed an instructional design certificate program. Since then, I’ve been noodling over the similarities between developing asynchronous educational materials for an LMS environment and creating online library instructional tools such as LibGuides. Therefore, I was excited to see that this summer’s SpringyCamp featured four sessions on UX design principles. Specifically, I was interested in learning about principles that may apply to creating both types of materials.
SpringyCamp
SpringyCamp is a free virtual conference where the presenters are Springshare users. Attending these presentations is a terrific way to learn about real-world applications of LibGuides and other Springshare products. The SpringyCamp website has recordings of the sessions, along with presenter resources.
The theme of Track Four of this summer’s SpringyCamp was UX Design Improvements with Springshare Tools. All four sessions are worth watching; however, my discussion here only covers the two sessions about LibGuides.
Streamline Your Design Process with the UX Brief
This session was presented by Leigh Jackson and Stephanie Quail of York University in Canada. The focus was on using creative briefs (also referred to as UX Briefs) as planning tools.
One presenter is the only librarian responsible for a collection of guides that are in English and French. The other presenter was part of a team that created a guide on library services during Covid-19.
Both presenters discussed using UX Briefs to frame the creation and maintenance of guides. UX design focuses on the end-user: Who is this guide for and what do they need? Understanding a guide’s purpose, audience, and goals enables the creator to determine meaningful criteria for measuring its success.
For groups, a UX Brief can facilitate the collaborative design process by establishing a shared understanding of the project’s goals, timelines, and deliverables. It also supplies some context to help group members understand the reasoning behind decisions about the project.
The “lessons learned” part of the presentation addressed dealing with stakeholder concerns and pushback. The bottom line is to make sure the perfect does not become the enemy of the good. Remember that having some planning and testing is better than having none.
The presenters included a Sample UX Brief and a Sample Alignment Diagram. They also supplied a list of resources about UX design principles.
Next Level LibGuides: Design, Templates and Training
This session was presented by Kat Cain and Danielle Johnson of Deakin University in Australia. The presenters described how a cross-divisional team used design-thinking to improve the creation of LibGuides.
Deakin University has over 60,000 students. Around 70 library staff members create LibGuides. The library provides 120 published guides and 55 private guides. A typical guide averages around 10-20,000 views per year.
Because of the large number of guides and guide designers, the system of bespoke guide development yielded inconsistent results. The library therefore decided to restructure its guide creation process. The new process empowered individual librarians to create guides using state-of-the-art instructional and visual design principles while maintaining the consistency, quality, and branding of all the library’s LibGuides.
Adobe XD was used in the design process. The designs were then transferred into development. This was an iterative process. In the end, not everything the designers wanted could be developed.
Two guide templates were created: one for subject guides and another for instructional guides. In addition, reusable elements were developed. These elements are adaptable for use in a variety of guides. Training sessions ensured that users were comfortable with the new processes and tools.
The presentation included a show-and-tell highlighting guides created with this new process. They are beautiful. Here are a few examples:
- LibGuide Instructions and Reusable Content This is a guide about creating LibGuides.
- Creating a Portfolio This is an example of an instructional guide.
- Copyright Modules for Students This is an example of a landing page for instructional modules.
- Visual Arts and Photography This is an example of a subject guide.
Conclusion
From time to time, it’s nice to step outside the context of academic law libraries and consider what’s happening in the broader academic library environment. I found these programs to be informative and inspiring.
As I noted in my introduction, I’m interested in learning about best practices that can apply to developing asynchronous course materials as well as library research guides. A lot of what was covered in these presentations fits that description. For example, starting the creation of a LibGuide with a UX Brief is similar to starting the creation of an online instructional module by crafting learning objectives. Also, many of Deakin Library’s standardized LibGuide components would be useful in an LMS setting.
As a follow-up, I intend to explore some of the resources on the York presenters’ list. If anyone knows of other helpful resources about UX design for instructional materials, I would be interested in hearing about them.
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