CIL 2008 Wrapup

So there was a lot of buzz at this year’s Computers in Libraries. Unlike last year, it wasn’t all about Twitter, though many of us were twittering away throughout the conference. And granted, I could only attend Monday and Tuesday, so perhaps I missed out on what the hot trends were…

The theme was “InnovativeChange: Integrating High Tech With High Touch”. (Hey wait a second, I missed half the conference – I didn’t notice the “high touch” aspect… except for the reference by the “rock stars” – the Shanachie boys – to “library spin the bottle”. But that’s a whole other story & nothing to do with this very professional blog posting.)

Trends I noticed were user-generated content, creation of videos and screencasts (e.g., for YouTube), embracing Lib2.0/Web2.0 philosophy (there’s the innovation piece). These topics were accompanied by the usual nuts and bolts tools to help us improve our websites and catalogs (not to mention to amuse ourselves with!).

There was also a lot of talk about using open source solutions for everything from ILS to website content management. Open source has come of age in libraries – it’s truly an alternative these days, and it doesn’t necessarily require a team of IT gurus to implement (yes, you have to be somewhat tech literate, but on the scale of difficulty, using open source today just doesn’t rate that highly).

On the philosophical front, there was a whole track on innovation this year – fostering and supporting it in libraries. And in the “Woepac to Wowpac” session, alongside the tools and how to ideas, such as implementing LibraryThing For Libraries (nicely presented by Connecticut’s own Kate Sheehan - http://loosecannonlibrarian.net/ - formerly of Danbury Public Library, now of Darien Library), John Blyberg (also one of our Connecticut colleagues from Darien Library) challenged the audience with a higher-level discussion focusing on analysis and rebuilding systems completely, as needed, to get a more holistic approach in providing online services. I know I’m not doing his words and points justice, so let me point you to his blog - http://www.blyberg.net/ - where he regularly posts his innovative thinking on the provision of library services. He even offered up what turned out to be my favorite quotable phrase from the conference – “the succubus of the committee”.

And BTW, in my opinion, he’s absolutely and utterly correct. Putting a pretty face on a lousy ILS doesn’t get us where our patrons need us to be. Separating our website and catalog efforts reflects a massive failure to understand the situation – the catalog and the website may be separate systems at this point, but the underlying truth is that they are aspects of providing online services to patrons that should be integrated. Why – in some libraries - is a tech services person, with their cataloging expertise, but lack of user interface experience, in charge of the OPAC and the webmaster completely out of the loop? We need both people working together. Yet things can be so divorces in today's libraries that the webmaster may not even be apprised of major OPAC changes until after the fact. It makes no sense. Let the web professional do their job & have them be involved enough to get the OPAC in harmony with the website. In some cases, the webmaster comes from a library systems background, but due to the artificial divisions that place the ILS in one conceptual box and the website in another, we are unable to effectively integrate these aspects of our web presence. The outside world doesn’t care who runs what or why these things are so awkwardly cobbled together, why some data is not available in our catalogs, etc., they just want online library services that make sense. They want the website and catalog to work together seamlessly so they can be successful in doing their online library-related tasks. It’s really that simple, folks!

What’s Hot In Libraries

One thing I noticed was that the cool kids are all in the LSW (password notala) - see http://librarysociety.pbwiki.com/. So it seems that Meebo - http://www.meebo.com/ - is a must-have and those of us who haven’t Meebo’ed are a little behind. And the boys from Delft, Netherlands and their ShanachieTour - http://www.shanachietour.com/ - were definitely still the rock stars. To explain, the Delft Public Library has a video creation lab, among other innovative features in their library. Three of the innovative librarians within the library decided to take their videography & sound equipment over to the US and embark on a cross-country tour wherein they talked with innovative librarians about their efforts. They mixed in great music and voila – a sensation was born – the rock stars of the library world! They were keynote speakers for Tuesday and really got us all motivated for the coming sessions and for – ultimately – a return to our own libraries where we can implement the many great ideas we got from CIL!

To get more information on the CIL2008 presentations, try the following (including postings of presentation slides):

http://www.infotodayblog.com/

http://cil2008.pbwiki.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/tag/cil2008

And for those of you into RSS, try the superfeed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/Cil2008Superfeed (add this url to your feeds in bloglines, for example)

Innovative Libraries

Innovative Libraries

- Zoho suggested (web2.0 tool they used in collaborative research & recommended that people try)
- "Failing to innovate: not an option" CIL 2006 presentation:
Recap: libraries need to innovate to remain relevant; to accommodate future generations' needs & expectations
- Used qualitative research for best practices – to get richer data
- Manager personality: could see bi picture, organization level goals; proud of their staff, system, accomplishments; willing to ask for permission sa well as asking for forgiveness
- Model behavior expected from staff
- Supportive bosses (interviewees in the study said that they were "lucky")
- Wonderful staff (interviewees in the study said that they were "lucky")
- Creating their own luck by hiring amazing people; want to work with people who want to try new things; want to work around uncooperative people
- Some had healthy budgets, lack of funding could itself promote innovation
- Used tools to increase efficiencies/free up staff to be nnovative
Formal vs. informal
- reported both formal and informal brainstorming, submission, etc.
- formal processes included innovation goal on all staff evaluations; written into the strategic plan; expectation to serve customers; recognition for innovative ideas; where possible, opp’s for innovation delegated down to as low a level as possible (e.g., low level staff task forces)
- informal processes: key to innovation, allow staff to have time to play/experiment; permission must be given, increases confident
- informal processes: innovative approaches: look for ideas everywhere; imp. To look outside of libraries, e.g., business, non-LIS conferences
- innovation encouraged for everything
- always looking for what we do & how it could be done better
- informal: living the innovative life: we live it – so things don’t seem innovative to us
- entrepreneurial role: library would try, learn about process, pilot project, push off to another dept. once launched
- the library is seen as source of innovation in some orgs: does environmental scanning
- there are no failures
- we asked managers about things they’d tried that had filed; overwhelmingly managers said there were no failures:
o some innovations were too early
o some had unexpected consequences
o some did not have customer/patron/staff buy-in
o came up with a better innovation later
- successful library leaders reframe failures as learning opportunities
- don’t worry about mistakes, know that things will break
- staff & structure that leads to innovation
o need to do more with fewer fte
o limited hierarchical structure
o aging staff needs to work smarter
o want staff to be self-motivated
- mentoring
o our participants hire creative, enthusiastic staff, and have them manage projects. They offer coaching and mentoring in project management; provide consultants to teach staff to be innovative and to move those ideas forward.
o Provide staff time to be innovative – one library gives every staff member time each week to innovate & teach others innovations
- Everyone needs something to feel passionate about in their job
- Conclusions:
o All libraries had moved from being non-innovative to innovative (sometimes a decade or so)
o Motivation
§ Funding (increased or decreased)
§ Staff size (increased or decreased)
§ Something had to change in org structure (a person left; new people came) or patron base
o Atmosphere: EVERYONE had to be seeking new ideas
o Low risk experimentation and play
o Committee of the whole to bounce ideas off of
o Training: ways to think about innovation; planning/project management
o Advice; Leadership
§ Be committed
§ Embrace technology or promote those who can
§ Be open to successes and failures
§ Have a plan / long-range plan
§ Have courage
§ Make a financial commitment
§ Hire a consultant
o Advice: Training:
§ Everyone attended workshops & conferences (leadership & staff)
§ Trained each other
§ Teach techniques that help with innovation
§ Read & share what you read
§ Reward staff for participating in training
o Advice: Focus
§ Focus on your users & their needs
§ Make yourself available to your users
· Implement their good ideas

Who inspired these librarians to be innovative?
- other libraries & library associations & library systems
final advice: you need excitement, passion, and to have fun – Jill Hurst-Wahl, Hurst Associates hurst@hurstassociates.com
Christina K. Pikas: The Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics lab, Christina.pikas@jhuapl.edu

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Rhumba with Joomla: Using a CMS to Build Community

Tao Gao, Web Administrator, South Carolina State Library
Catherine Buck Moran, Information Technology Director, South Carolina State Library

This had to be by far the most valuable session at the whole conference for me so far (this is due to my context and current needs, not meant to be a slight in any way to the many other excellent presentations I've gone to) & it was worth whatever the price of admission was - and then some!

The issues that the South Carolina State Library () faced were on par with those faced by my library in the arena of web development. Tao and Catherine reminded us that what the web, in the end, is all about the people… the people we librarians serve. They used their website redevelopment project, in fact, not just to better meet the needs of their website users but to help establish community. They did this through the use of a Content Management System called Joomla.

They chose Joomla -- http://www.joomla.org/ -- because:

• free, open-source
• easy to install, use, manage, and reliable:
  
• Joomla vs. Drupal (thought Drupal was too hard technically to implement compared with Joomla)
• Joomla vs. Blogs


• Separation of Content and Form
• Portable
• Extendable (more extensions than Drupal/blogs; over 1000, from calendars to newsletter mgt to community builder)
• Strong support Communities (lots of users support each other - this from a posting on Tuesday, 10 April 2007 100k Reasons: It's official — Joomla! has the largest Open Source CMS focused forum on the planet.- joomla.org)
• everything's in CSS, standards-compliant, interactive calendar, drop-down menus, etc.
• You can use free templates out there or design from scratch. Joomla offers tag clouds, calendar, rss feeds, blogs, event registration managementt, groups, blogs, photo galleries, book reviews, member profiles, discussion forums, and more…

Who's using Joomla: Government agencies; commerical businesses; non-profits

SCSL developed the Joomla in libraries site – see http://www.joomlainlibrary.com/

The amount of information produced in the world is increasing by 66% per year? Webmasters need better ways to manage it all. Content Management Systems can help. Use CMSmatrix.org to compare content mgt systems

The Case Study: Migrating SCSL to a CMS

The South Carolina State Library provides services to libraries, state employees, citizens with disabilities, and the general public. Over the years, they had only made one change - to the banner. Their site had expanded to approximately 500-1000 static html pages. When there was any layout at all, it was table-based, not CSS-based. Though there were a few basic perl scripts for forms, mostly there wasn't interactivity on the site. There was a lot of outdated content. There was also a major lack of navigation - no cues, breadcrumbs or anything of that nature.The site was graphically unappealing. And there was no way to check/control the
growth of the site.

what SCSL wanted in a redesigned website:

• wanted standards-compliant, accessible design -- section 508
• intuitive navigation
• staff wanted to get involved
• separation of content and form
• wanted site-wide search
• online job submissions
• RSS feeds

Phase I: Initial Planning Process

In September 2004, they submitted a redesign proposal. They began the process by:

• creating a home page team (mostly made up of subject specialists from around the library)
• using SurveyMonkey to conduct website feedback surveys (March-April 2005, 227 responses)
• 10 people on the website committee, including a public relations person
• the committee reviewed current content

Lessons learned:

• the survey was excellent, and the most useful information from surveys came from responses to open-ended questions
• they decided to have people not familiar with the subject areas review key content areas. This worked well - fresh eyes.
• need a well-qualified and dedicated team to do the website development: project manager, graphic designer, web developer with css & php experience, content developer

Phase II: Design

• Agency Rebranding, Feb. 2005 - new logo
• Interface Design and Review
• Process stalled: a new library director came in; she did away with committees (I believe she let the web committee continue, though, since they were only partway through the redesign), part-time p.r. person didn't understand the library environment; graphic designer didn't understand the business case at all
• there was still the question of who was the project manager?
  

Phase III: Development

• put Cathy in charge of the redesign project
• content audit & review (conducted summer 2005)
• explore CMS options
• find outside host server for development (Nov. 2005) because of local limitations
• Joomla learning curve
• translate graphical interface to joomla templates
• content migration (a lot went away completely
• during the development process, people sending updates like crazy, in the meantime, they had to get the redesign done - new director gave them a deadline of July 2006 (deadline was helpful)
• continued to update static site

Phase IV. Deployment and Evolution

• staff to review website, June 2006
• new website went live, July 2006
• site moved to new in-house server, August 2006
• evaluate
• growth and refinement
• lessons learned: despite mandate to do so, few staff reviewed the site ahead of time - only when on desk & needed information after the go live; customers loved the site - phone rang off the hook, happy patrons; much easier to see depth of content through CMS – Joomla automatically builds a sitemap
• give the web administrator a vacation (sent him home to China) after the process is done
• remaining issue: how to integrate with Sirsi catalog

Before: they had a homepage committee, public relations (p.r.) committee, a web administrator

After: 2 web managers, 25 authors, 326 registered members; 130 not yet approved (all citizens of S.C. can be part of community, at session, Cathy invited us all to join their online community)

Joomla in a Nutshell - http://www.joomlainlibrary.com

server specs: php, mysql, joomla 1.02, apache server, xampp, win server 2003
hardware: dual xeon 2.8 GHz

process:

• download joomla
• prepare MySQL database
• unzip & upload files to server
• browser install
• template design: index.php, tempate_css.css, images, templatedetails.xml
• Joomla template flexibilities: movable boxes, easy to customize UI

static content: assessing ownership- instruct staff in adding content (WYSIWYG)
active content: sections, categories, content items; user submission process; review & approval; authors on the Joomla-based site don't need to know html - easier than MS word; predefined content formatting

Website Administration

separation of content & form; reinforcing accessibility guidelines; file handling (document mgt system component in Joomla; image management; free templates out there or design from scratch - want it to have the structure you're seeking & that it's CSS-based; had to strip all old formatting out of old webpages to put into new website

Additional coverage of this session can be found at David Lee King’s blog (http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/04/17/computers-in-libraries-2007-day-2-rhumba-with-joomla-using-a-cms-to-build-community/)

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Cool tools and websites for the Librarian2.0

My 2 big discoveries this conference (yes, I'm hopelessly behind the cool kids, but I love running to catch up!)

• http://twitter.com/
• (Twitter explained for librarians - http://www.davidleeking.com/2007/03/10/twtter-explained-for-librarians-or-10-ways-to-use-twitter/)
  
• http://www.ning.com
• (join ning.com networks - like the Library2.0 network set up by Bill Drew - I just did! Friend me if you go!)
  

[and somebody told me to check out the booth of Answers.com today, I believe... I haven't gotten there yet...]

Of course, what makes these tools truly cool is that they're free and/or open source! 3 presenters gave this entertaining talk at a ridiculously overcrowded session in a slightly too warm room (don't tell the fire martials down here about how things went - I'm sure we were in code violation... fortunately, no one was hurt and I didn't faint after all... ) All 3 presenters taught at the Webmasters' Academy preconference (which was also excellent): Jeff Wisniewski, Darlene Fichter, and Frank Cervone.

See a post on this topic at http://comartslibrarian.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/webmaster-cool-tools/:
From Jeff Wisniewski of the University of Pittsburgh:

• pipes.yahoo.com - RSS feed aggregator (use it to manipulate feeds, perhaps filter, e.g., and create a master feed)
• My Maps (new @ Google Maps)
• developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns - Yahoo's open-sourced the hard work their web developers have done in this Design Pattern library by sharing patterns and code with other developers (yes, that means you, library webmasters!)
• The Rasterbator (allows image to be enlarged into huge dimensions (E.g., for banners, posters, etc.; usually that's the kind of thing you'd have to pay a printer/copy shop to do - or to get $$$ software to do in-house)
• Firefox Web Developer Toolbar - a suite of indispensable webmaster tools that plug into your Firefox browser

From Darlene Fichter, University of Saskatchewan - see http://library2.usask.ca/~fichter/blog_on_the_side/2007/04/cool-tools-and-toolkits-for-webmaster.html:

• Zamzar.com - convert lots of files without download any converters
• Gliffy.com - create flowcharts and floorplans quick and easy
• Firefox link checking (other years we mentioned the Webmaster toolbar)
  Firefox linkify - Xenomachina - highlight word/phrase, "linkify" it and find the URL, click and create the HTML encoded link
  MyxterTones.com - create your own ringtones with you're libraries jingle
  MyBlogLog.com - stats for your site PLUS community
  CrazyEgg.com - different display of stats including a heatmap view. Free to 5,000 views and 4 pages
  Pixer.us - online photo editor
  Trailfire - create library tours e.g. Finding Library Weblogs
  Swivel - load tables and data and create charts to share
  Many Eyes - add data, create tag clouds of texts, bubble charts etc.

From Frank Cervone, Northwestern University:

• Google Webmaster Tools
• SiteMapBuilder.net — download a freeware application to make Google XML Site Maps
• oswd.org — Open Source Web Design: stylesheets, templates/CSS
• openclipart.org - Open Clipart Library (it's all free, aggregated with public domain creative commons licensing; they won't hassle you to buy in either, since it's designed to be like an open source software site)
• freedigitalphotos.net - 1,000s of royalty-free photos to use on your site/in presentations, etc.
• Gvisit.com — geomap the visitors to your website
• Last.fm - online "radio" that learns what music you like & offers appropriate selections
• dbWiz — open-source federated search tool for libraries
• Talis Keystone ILS

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To keep up with CIL

even before I get my notes uploaded, take a look at:

• http://www.infotoday.com/cil2007/
• http://www.infotodayblog.com/
• http://cil2007.pbwiki.com/
• http://www.technorati.com/search/cil2007
• http://cil2007.pbwiki.com/ConferenceBloggers
• http://hurstassociates.blogspot.com/2007/04/cil2007-sunday-monday.html
  

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CIL 2007 Official Kick-off and Keynote

At this morning’s conference kickoff, I learned that this CIL (2007) attracted a record 2061 conf attendees; that 48 states were represented (only the Dakotas were missing); and 12 countries were represented.

Lee Rainie, Pew Internet & American Life Project - http://www.pewinternet.org/ - presented the keynote “Web2.0: And What it Means to Libraries”.

He began with the reminder to us bloggers to publicize how much he loves librarians! But we know he’s a great library supporter, so no fears, Lee, we love you, too. He brought us immediately into the Web2.0 world with a very cute YouTube video that I hadn’t seen before – askaninja.com. Look it up!

As for the most important things that I took away from Lee’s presentation, here they are:

• Being online is becoming more and more a part of daily life for everyone
• We are broadening what we do online and what our expectations are for online sites – we now use the Internet (the 'net is always on via broadband) for entertainment and social activity – it’s much more than a research/info tool nowadays
• Visual images are at least (if not more) important than text nowadays
• Users expect to participate in (and help to create) their web experiences
• All of these things are doubly true for today’s teens and young adults
• Libraries have to recognize how things are changing and meet the challenges brought on by those changes

Lee covered – with some fascinating statistics about the topic – the hallmarks of web2.0 and the challenges it presents. He noted that web2.0 is characterized by:

• web as platform
• harnessing collective intelligence
• Software above the level of single device
• rich user experiences

[He mentioned a few sites to check out online: Upcoming.org & EVDB]

• The number of people who use computers is almost identical to that of internet users (75%, 73% respectively) these days
• 72% of adults use the internet, 90% of teens use it (double check my numbers at Pew, I might be off a digit on either of these)
• More people are on broadband than ever & broadband users use the inet in dramatically diff. ways
• Wireless connex growing & more people access the inet from more places than ever before
• 50% have gone online from a library (200% growth in 4 years, I believe he said)
• 43% of inet users just hang out online, browse for no particular purpose, the web is now entertaining as well as informational
• 85% of young broadband users watch online videos, 62% have watched YouTube videos
• People share more info online now – inet more social now

Hallmarks of Web2.0:

1. people more willing to participate in online culture
2. more people creating content / sharing info online (55% of online teens created profiles on a social network site, 20% of online adults have such profiles; 51% of young adult inet users have uploaded photos to the inet)
3. more internet users are accessing the content created by others (46% of young inet users read blogs; 44% of young people seek info thru wikipedia; tend to have highest levels of education or are young people or are college students; most do not believe that it’s the be-all, end all of info; in fact, young people will turn to social networks for verification of Wikipedia info;)
4. more users are sharing what they know & feel online (enabling youth to do things with your site – let them co-create in order to have them interested in your site; 33% of them have rated a person, product, service online; 32% have tagged content
5. tens of thousands of internet users are contributing their know-how and computing resources to Internet projects (e.g., open source, grid computing, etc.)
6. Americans are customizing their online experiences more and more using Web2.0 tools (among teens, 40% customized website; 50% part of listserv/specialty topic group; 25-33% subscribed to RSS feeds)

Pam Berger http://www.infosearcher.com/ – 5 challenges for libraries to deal with in Web2.0

• Navigation: transition from linear to nonlinear format
• Content – learning to see connections
• Focus – practicing reflection & deep thinking; relaxation = new ideas, but how do we relax
• Skepticism – learning to evaluate information
• Ethical behavior – understanding the rules of cyberspace

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CMS, Wikis, Using Databases for Websites, and Usability Testing

My final notes from the Web Manager's Academy Preconference - Computers In Libraries 2007

Jeff Wisniewski, of the University of Pittsburgh, offered an overview of Content Management Systems or CMS'. He described what they are, what they do, what the benefits are, why you’d need one and what the benefits would be. Basically, they are web publishing systems. They allow a planned and controlled process for getting multiple authors to publish to a website. They are useful for the obvious reasons - you know, to allow your webmaster to go on vacation.

Interestingly, it turns out that his institution uses the client-based Macromedia Contribute system as a CMS. It’s interesting that I’ve heard several speakers describe Contribute as a CMS. Yet, my own experience with Contribute is that its functionality is similar to that of FrontPage with FrontPage Server Extensions used for website Administration. And I wouldn’t consider that a CMS. But maybe I should. Or perhaps there’s more to Contribute nowadays.

Darlene Fichter highlighted wikis, which are collaborative web authoring tools (Wikipedia is probably the most famous wiki on the web at this point). She noted that wikis are intended to be simple to use, create, and edit. Usually many people create and edit wikis – sometimes they are open to editing by all visitors, in fact. Wikis are uniquely well-suited for group endeavors. She cited the need for openness and trust among collaborators who develop wikis. She also mentioned that wikis are designed to evolve, to be incremental in their development. Wiki pages can link to other wiki pages, even those that are not yet built – creating a kind of place-holder for these other pages (usually the links to pages not yet built are in red). Wikis progress in an observable manner – you can see the changes being made and review the revision history of wiki pages. Wikis are organic in their structure and will evolve and change over time. Darlene mentioned that if your library creates a wiki, you’ll want to assign “wiki gardeners” to ensure that your wiki links and pages are maintained.

Marshall Breeding spoke about using databases and web services to enhance/empower your website. The key concepts were that you shouldn’t repeat data, but rather put data into databases and leverage those databases by displaying their elements in web pages as needed. Though he showed a dazzling array of examples in which he had built database-backed sites/pages, he told us that creating such things is not technically complex. Though there may be an initial investment in time to learn how to program such things, it is worthwhile because it will allow your library to better meet users' needs via your web presence.

Breeding talked about Service Oriented Architecture (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service-oriented_architecture), which is popular in IT and web programming these days. It provides the infrastructure for the behind-the-scenes communication among applications. SOA facilitates data exchange, conversions, lookups, etc. All of the components of SOA are expressed in XML. He then talked about the widespread adoption of web services in many industries, using SOAP – Simple Object Access Protocol -- (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP), the “envelop for XML applications” (supported in all common web environments). He also talked about WDSL – Web Service Description Language (the definition of how the web service operated and the data structures involved, expressed through XML; view an example at http://api.google.com/GoogleSearch.wsdl).

He breezed through these and other complex programming topics more quickly than I could grasp and offered more acronyms than I can do justice to in this blog. If you’re interested in delving into this topic further, try the resources he cited: “Web Services and the Service-Oriented Architecture”, Library Technology Reports 42:3 by Marshall Breeding; “Best Practices for Designing Web Services in the Library Context, by NISO Web Services and Practices Working Group (http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/rp-2006-01.pdf)

Darlene covered "Usability Research Methods to Help Redesigns". She noted that ethnographic methods of testing website usability are being increasingly used, but that they are complex, so that she would not give much time to them in this presentation. She also reminded us that focus groups, while ok, are not ideal ways to increase our website’s usability, due to the fact that most people do not accurately represent how they use the website when asked. Instead, she talked about 3 methods for redesigns:

1. Preference testing
2. Affinity mapping
3. Task based testing

She began by defining usability:

• ease of use
• ease of learning
• fitness for purpose

She then explained that user testing involves actual users interacting with the website. They are asked to perform tasks while usability evaluators observe and take note of their actions. User satisfaction is the more important measure of how usable a website is. Even if a user completed the task, if they are dissatisfied, the site has failed.

Why conduct user tests? Darlene noted that web development is an expensive process, and that supporting a poorly designed system is even more expensive. Even the best designers are not representative of the users of their systems, so they are poor judges of what users want and need. The “bitter truth” as she termed it, is that unhappy users will leave and tell their friends, who tell their friends, and so on.

Before conducting usability tests on your site, you should build on the extensive work and research of others. Darlene suggests http://www.usability.gov/ and http://www.useit.com/ to guide you before you begin testing your site.

When can you test? Darlene noted that you should test the existing site for goals and audience. When you have a paper prototype, you could test organization and labels on your site. She showed the “flip test” with screenprints of various prototypes, wherein the web developers behave like optometrists – showing first one screenprint, then another quickly thereafter and asking the user which one they prefer (this or this?). Finally, when you start creating, you’ll need to test working prototypes, demos, and beta of the redesigned site.

Testing techniques:

• Preference testing: zeroes in on troubling labels (what to call a given hyperlink/navigational cue, e.g.)
• Affinity mapping: offers insight into how to organize your content from the user’s perspective. In it, you list the main content and services on your site. Small teams then group items and label them. Then they vote for the ones that seem most important to them.
• Task-based testing: users are given specific tasks and as they perform those tasks, they are asked to verbalize their thoughts. The tester observes, records, and debriefs the user.

She also mentioned that testing should take place at different levels of user, to ensure that your website is redesigned as optimally as possible for the various users’ needs. Finally, she reminded us how iterative rounds of testing and web development really are. You have to keep testing at every level – to fix problems, then test again (and on and on… you get the picture). This is the best way to ensure the success of your website redesign among your users.

Of the additional resources covered in the Web Managers Academy and accompanying handouts, I have to make special note of a topic that seemed to resurface throughout the day, but that wasn’t necessarily focused on in any of the presentations – the importance of learning how to write for the web. Being succinct and allowing users to scan webpages, as opposed to requiring them to really read text on a page is the ideal. When blogging, I know that one should be brief. That doesn't mean I know how to do it... I guess I need to take a course on how to write for the web myself... ;)

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