Schmidt and Etches combine their expertise as user experience (UX) designers and insights as professional librarians into a practical how to guide for web site user experience design. They provide a concise guide in nine chapters that “covers everything you need to jump into using UX practices to improve your library's web site” (p. xi).
There is a raft of user experience design books on the market and the authors draw on many of the ideas and principles presented in them. They present a good balance between aspects of web design principles, project management and user experience practices, so the reader is not overwhelmed with technical techniques. There is a good blend of best practice with easy to understand step‐by‐step advice. The use of examples specific to the library community makes this particular publication applicable and relevant to libraries and their stakeholders.
Initial reaction to the title was that this work would encompass facets of physical layout, workflows, and electronic presence, etc. but the opening sentences of the preface soon made it clear that this book would be discussing aspects of web site design (web UX).
Web UX is only a small part of the user experience and the authors dedicate a large part of Chapter 1 to explaining the bigger picture and where web UX fits in. Chapter 2 is largely a collection of tools covering hardware, software and techniques. There are specific software vendors and applications mentioned with referring URLs and costs. This information is highly susceptible to change (some of the URL links were not working) and the costs are not entirely relevant to readers outside of the UK. That said, it is a good starting point for ideas for different types of useful applications to consider. The planning chapter was well done and stressed the importance of considering “Why?” for every item and aspect being redesigned. The authors also highlighted the need to keep it simple to reduce the cognitive stress on the user when making changes. The inclusion of “social mechanics” highlights that redesigns do not happen in isolation but are part of the overall user experience and needs consultation and evaluation from different stakeholders (e.g. staff, administration, systems people and users). Evaluation techniques are mentioned in Chapter 5 with different approaches outlined in detail. Chapter 8 outlines how to collect and analyse analytics from your web site to evaluate the usage trends before and after redesign. Marketing ideas are discussed in Chapter 6 across a variety of platforms and social media. The recommended reading section has a list of relevant publications and sites which can expand on the concepts and tools discussed in this book.
At 112 pages, this book is not exhaustive, but is a good guide to start anyone thinking about the user's experience and exploring how to make their library web site a positive part of the whole user experience.
