or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk


When To Use .jpg vs. .gif vs. .png

   January 21st, 2015 Brian Herzog

If you work on your library's website, this infographic on when to use different graphic formats might be useful. Tech things like this always interest me (if you're only a little interested, skip down to the What Should You Use section at the very bottom for the summary). (via)

And speaking of image stuff, Here's a List of More Than 30 Free Image Sites That Don't Look Stock-y. Nice-looking free images are always a good resource. (via)

graphic format inforgraphic


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Web Designer-Client Translation Infographic

   November 12th, 2014 Brian Herzog

My library is in the very beginning stage of redesigning our website, so I've been collecting various links on the subject. I thought this infographic was funny, and maybe actually useful too.

The "translations" down the right side are actually a nice little collection of sample ideas. And of course, when our design team starts getting input on early drafts from staff and patrons, the translations themselves will surely be invaluable.

webdesigntranslation

via Lifehacker.



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CIL2011: Building Great Websites

   March 21st, 2011 Brian Herzog

Amanda Etches-Johnson and Aaron SchmidtAmanda Etches-Johnson, Head, Discovery & User Access, Univ. of Guelph
Aaron Schmidt, Consultant, Influx Library User Experience

Two areas of websites we don't have easy control over

  • Catalog
  • Databases

Websites must be three things:

Useful

Our Content Strategy (planning the creation, deliver and conveyance of UUD content) must address this question: What do people want to do on our site?

  • Identify your critical tasks
  • Spend a few minutes each day just asking people what they want to do, and whether or not you're meeting their needs
  • Perform a content audit - not just pages, but the images and information on each page (cataloger, being detailed oriented, are good at this). Is each page: accurate, usefulness, used, web-written, on message, last updated. Rate each piece on a scale of 0-2 to identify areas to keep, remove or improve.

 

Usable

  • Smaller is better
  • Websites should not be junk drawers - "just in case" is not the right approach
  • Design your website around your FAQs - if it's on an FAQ, it doesn't get on the site
  • Write for the Web - we keep hearing that people generally don't read on the web (though this might be changing with tablets and larger mobile devices). What people do is Function Reading - skim to find what's important to them
    • Write with a conversation and friendly tone, not like a policy document
    • Put the most important stuff at the top of the page
    • Use bolded headlines, bullets, and white space - it is easier to scan - be sure to use white space correctly to group related headlines/content
    • Use simple urls: http://library.org/kids vs. http://library.org/kids/pages/content.php?p=423
    • One idea per sentence (fragments okay), not too big, bot too small, never all-caps, use active voice, correct contrast
    • Refer to library as "we" and patrons as "you" or "I" - good example "How do I reset my PIN?"
    • Never use "click here" - make the link text meaningful ("Search Catalog" instead of "Click here to search the catalog")
  • Do usability testing - You can find this out by simply watching people use the website - walk out, ask a patron if they have a minute, give them a task ("use our website to find a receipe" or "can you find out our branch's Tuesday closing time on Tuesday") and then watch them
    • Use Google Optimizer to test multiple versions of pages with the same content, to see what content is important and which design works best

It's also important to have a mobile version of your website. Visit Influx.us/onepage - a library website template that puts this idea into practice - works on mobile devices

 

Desirable

  • Choose a good color palette - use a professional, use a free website color matcher, etc
  • Don't use clipart
  • Use common conventions, grid layout, pre-made themes from the community
  • Make content interesting - example: transmissions between NASA control and space flights presented in back-and-forth Twitter-like conversation
  • Make it convenient - definitely a mobile-friendly version
  • Marketing: put your stuff out there, and keep at it

 

Four Stages of Library Website Development

One builds on the other, and you can't move up until you finish the lower levels (like Maslov's Hierarchy)

Basic
Necessary information, relevant functionality, no major usability issues

Destination (a "destination website")
Librarian-created content, basic interactivity

Participatory
Serious user generated content, patrons creating culture - library acts as the aggregator, and patrons have reason to do this here, instead of somewhere else
example: Hennapin County bookspace

Community Portal
Library website as community platform, the website becomes a community knowledge bank (tool like this is Kete)

 

Take-away goal

Reduce your site by half - it doesn't mean you have bad content, but people cant find it because there is too much to look through - bit.ly/smallsites



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Resources for Redesigning Websites

   November 18th, 2010 Brian Herzog

Thinking about the new design of the San Jose Public Library reminded me that I've been collecting links to tools and articles about web design. I posted a few resources before, but the demise of Bloglines has prompted me to pull out all my bookmarks and do something with them.

I'll be using these when we redesign our website, and hopefully you'll find them helpful too:

Web Design Overview

 

Design Tips & Goals

 

Testing & Development Tools

 

And the final word on this subject will come from Chuck - Design Coding is not only hilarious, it's amazingly accurate:

But I'm sure there are tons of other tools out there, so please share your favorite in the comments. Thanks.



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Upcoming Workshop: CMS Day!

   May 19th, 2009 Brian Herzog

website designer comicI'm a member of the IT section of the New England Library Association, and we're holding a workshop on popular CMS software. If you're thinking about redesigning or updating your website, or would are just curious about what CMS' are and what they can do, then this workshop is for you.

CMS Day! Build a better website with Content Management Systems: Drupal, Joomla, Plone, & WordPress
Keynote by Jessamyn West

Date: Friday, June 12, 2009
Location: Portsmouth Public Library, Portsmouth, NH (directions)
Cost: NELA members - $50; Non-members - $60
Registration Fee includes lunch & a NELA USB hub!

To Register
Secure online registration & downloadable mail-in registration [pdf] are both available at http://www.nelib.org/its/conference. Registration Closes Monday June 8.

Program Schedule
10:00 a.m. - Registration & Coffee & Library Tours
10:30 a.m. - Keynote: CMS options - Jessamyn West
12 noon - Lunch (provided!) and Library Tours
12:45 p.m. - Librarians share their real-life CMS experiences:
--Drupal - Darien (CT) PL (darienlibrary.org) & Paige Eaton Davis, Minuteman Network
--Joomla - Randy Robertshaw, Tyngsborough PL (tynglib.org)
--Plone - Rick Levine & CMRLS Librarians
--WordPress - Theresa Maturevich, Beverly (MA) PL (beverlypubliclibrary.org)
3:30 p.m. -Wrap-Up!

Keynote by Jessamyn West

Jessamyn West is a community technology librarian. She lives in rural Vermont where assists tiny libraries with their technology planning and implementation. Her favorite color is orange. Jessamyn maintains an online presence at: librarian.net and jessamyn.info

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NELA Program Refund Policy: A full refund shall be granted provided that the registered attendee has contacted the authorized representative of ITS responsible for taking registrations, at least ten (10) business days in advance of the program. In the event that notice is given less than ten days, a refund is not granted, however, they may send a substitute to the program.

For more information, please contact Scott Kehoe at 978-762-4433 x16 / [email protected]



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Web Design for Libraries

   August 23rd, 2007 Brian Herzog

Unsleved ComicThe Unshelved comic strip is generally pretty good, but this particular strip (and the next few days) really made me laugh.

As a librarian and a web designer, I can certainly relate. But increasingly, based on what I'm hearing at various meetings around the region, the budget itself isn't the real issue - it's staff and time. Either libraries have a staff member who knows how to maintain a website but doesn't have the time to do it, or they have someone willing and able time-wise, but who doesn't have the actual skills necessary to maintain a good website.

What librarians I know keep asking for (in desperation, in some cases), is an easy and quick way to update content on their website.

They don't necessarily want to outsource, don't want to heap all the responsibility onto one staff member, and also don't want to spread around responsibility (because that usually diminishes the quality and coherentness of the site).

CMS tools like Joomla and Drupal keep getting talked about, as do blog software like WordPress. There's a growing buzz about Scriblio too, but no one seems to know enough about it to view it as anything but a distant glimmer. Libraries in my consortium are considering moving from Frontpage to Dreamweaver, which seems to me to be more of a lateral move than an actual improvement.

All of these have a learning curve, plus time and effort to migrate/recreate the existing website. Which I think is acceptable, if the library knew that maintenance, once there, will not require a great deal of knowledge or time.

Library 2.0 tools are great, as they save the patron's time and let them get a better web experience without requiring a lot of web-savviness. But saving patrons effort usually means the library is doing more work, and a lot of us, again, don't have the time or skill to integrate these tools into our websites.

And this is just websites - online catalogs are a whole different story.

Errg. A solution? Anybody?

</frustration>

cms, libraries, library, overdue media, public libraries, public library, unshelved, web design, website, website design, websites



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