Assessment:User/UX

The User Experience (UX) Working Group is a subset of the Digital Libraries Federation User Studies Assessment Interest Group and previous named Usability Studies Guidelines and Best Practices Working Group. The working group formed in 2015.

This working group builds on the following work products of previous AIG working groups:

1. A literature review and compiled bibliography
2. The white paper: Surveying the Landscape: Use and Usability Assessment of Digital Libraries

It takes a multi-faceted approach to determining the best way to develop guidelines and best practices in user and usability studies related to digital libraries. There are many aspects to user and usability studies, and we welcome others who would like to pursue them. Suggested areas of investigation within the scope of this group includes: identifying users and user behavior, learnability, accessibility, and usability. As this is a tremendous task, we encourage you to join in the effort, as clarity in this area will save us all a great deal of work, resources and confusion.

UX Areas of Investigation

We are taking a multi-faceted approach to determining the best way to develop guidelines and best practices in user/usability studies. As this is a tremendous task, we encourage you to join in the effort, as clarity in this area will save us all a great deal of work, resources and confusion.

Areas currently under investigation include:

Identifying users and user behavior. What are the methods used? What are the components of how that occurs? Are there measurable comparisons on how that's being handled? How do we determine the effectiveness of the methods in use?

Learnability. How is learnability being measured? What is the definition of learnability? What is the most effective method for assessment?

Accessibility. This is a relatively new area, and one which is legally mandated. Implementation outside the digital library community is fairly standardized, but we need research within the digital library community, and case studies on how accessibility is implemented in common digital library systems.

Usability. What is the definition of usability, and what are its components? The [ISO 25000 series standards][1] provide clarity on several aspects of quality measurements for software. However, there are aspects of usability that are critical to digital libraries which are not covered in the standards, such as discoverability of content via web search engines. Determining what the critical aspects of usability are which are *not* covered via standards is the first step to developing guidelines for assessment.

There are many other aspects to usability and user studies, and we welcome others who would like to pursue them. Here is where we have shared working areas, and can provide open access for white papers and other results, with excellent visibility. If you would like to join us, please join the Google Group and speak up about your interests.

Get Involved in the working group through our Google Group

The only requirement for participation in a DLF AIG working group is a willingness to dig in and devote a small part of your time contributing to the tools, methods, and body of knowledge on digital library assessment. Attendance at the DLF forum is not a requirement for participation in any of the working groups. Additionally, if your institution is not a DLF member, you can still participate.

Meetings

Our meetings are traditionally held on the 2nd Friday of each month at 2pm ET/11am PT unless otherwise noted through our Google Group.

Projects on Open Science Framework

We use a number of collaborative tools to facilitate our work and use the Open Science Framework as a central portal for our projects, initiatives, and completed work.

Digital Libraries User Personas Best Practices

The aim of this project is to create a web resource for digital library (DL) practitioners to reference when creating user personas for development and maintenance of digital libraries. First the the UX Working Group plans to to reach out to libraries, museums, and archives and gather examples of personas designed for DLs. After gathering these resources the group will evaluate them to identify commonalities and differences. A summary of work will then used to support the creation of a best practice guide that is informed by user personas research internal and external to DL practitioners. The final output of this project will be a web resource that includes best practices and highlighted DL user personas from libraries, museums, and archives. This online resource will be made available through the Digital Library Federation.

Inactive Projects

Usability Standardization - Literature Tagging Project

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