Eastern Kentucky University Redesign of Library Website
Eastern Kentucky Libraries desired more engagement with their 200-plus research guides and an overhaul of their 200-plus frequently asked questions section.
After conducting a needs assessment and analysis, other areas were identified as problematic for the results they wished to attain.
To complicate things, the users were not just students but faculty and staff. Moreover, the research guides are written by different librarians, so two audiences needed to be factored in. The guides need to be analyzed from a student perspective, encompassing various ages, yet librarians need to be educated on the value of following a consistent design.
Increase user engagement with the library website, focusing mainly on the frequently asked questions and user guides.
The needs assessment and analysis determined that Eastern Kentucky Library’s website did not factor in much positive user experience. The navigation bar was dated and contained symbols that implied forward navigation when no navigation was there. The website had inconsistencies from the top navigation to the footer areas, and the library didn’t maximize hero images to communicate to its mass audience. Also, some images could be considered offensive to some viewing groups, and some photos were poor quality. Many videos and instructions were dated and no longer instructed the viewer on the correct way to accomplish something, and there was an extremely high degree of broken hyperlinks.
The frequently asked questions area (FAQ) was buried in submenus, and the research guides, which different librarians wrote throughout the years, had no consistency and were also difficult to find.
The plan was multifaceted.
The main navigation areas needed to be fixed for the research guides and frequently asked questions (FAQ) section to be utilized. If one can’t find it, one can’t use it!
I created a mock-up for a new navigation, which showcased the different sections of the library. A new footer area for the library to use on every webpage was created, as currently, some pages don’t have footer areas.
The main landing page was overhauled, and new hero images were created. The hero images not only directed traffic to the pages the library wanted to be highlighted but also showcased the value of the library, which was another area identified as lacking in the needs analysis and assessment stage.
I culled the FAQ section by 50%. Then, information was chunked into headings for ease of use. A new webpage mock-up was created to showcase how they could facilitate “contacting” us and reduce ten FAQs. All FAQs were visually annotated and rewritten.
I created a template for all the librarians to use for the research guide area. This template allows consistency between librarians when creating research guides, produces visual consistency for student engagement, and reduces student cognitive load between research guides.
Posters were created to market library services to faculty, students, and staff.
Zoom was used to conduct meetings.
Microsoft products were used to create wordage and send communications.
Qualtrics was used to conduct the survey results and provide in-depth data analysis. Graphics were created in Adobe Photoshop.
Adobe Xd created the new web pages and allowed library administration to engage with a fully functioning website.
The posters for marketing to faculty and students were created in Adobe InDesign.
Organizational planning to showcase the plan of action as well as visually communicate the scope utilized Miro.
Snagit was utilized for all visual annotations of web pages.
The results were exported by Adobe Acrobat and delivered through OneDrive.
I created an evaluation within Qualtrics to evaluate the research guides for two groups. One group was student engagement and how they utilized the guides. The other area was assessing how well the librarians wrote their guides, keeping them current, and helping students with pertinent information. Between both areas, the evaluation was aimed at level four of Kirkpatrick.
I recommended the following:
Navigation
1. Become current. Don’t have dotted lines around the hover state.
2. Don’t use”>” as a decorative feature; it implies a drop-down menu.
3. Make sure there is a footer on every webpage with the same information to allow easy navigation.
4. Remove unneeded informational pictures that don’t highlight or inform the student about important items.
Image Selection
1. Get rid of unneeded pictures that don’t highlight or inform the student about things of importance. For example, you don’t need a “welcome to the library” image.
2. Get rid of images that can be offensive.
3. Get rid of blurry images.
4. Remove all images that do NOT show what a current student sees, which is a problem with many step-by-step tutorials.
Hyperlinks
1. Get rid of hyperlinks that are not working or are being flagged by Kaspersky as unsafe.
Library Videos
1. Get rid of dated videos that do not show the correct steps.
2. Get rid of videos that have sound problems.
Research Guides
1. Follow a template so all guides have uniformity.
2. Have strict guidelines of what can be included in a guide.
3. Create a policy that a link can not be included in a guide unless a short description is included on why it is a valuable link. Have the creator check out the link before including it; if it isn’t easy to follow, don’t include it.
4. Create a policy that dead links must be fixed within three months (this was the timeframe the library was set on. I believe broken links should be fixed sooner than this). It is useless to the student to be confronted with links that don’t work, and it wrecks the credibility of other guides and the library in general.
FAQ
1. Get rid of FAQs that are not FAQs.
2. Fix broken hyperlinks.
3. Get rid of poor-quality pictures. There should be no blurry images.
4. Get rid of step-by-step tutorials that are not current.
Key Point
It is better to have NO content than poor content or incorrect content!
It diminishes credibility and trustworthiness.
The first set of visuals are a couple of the annotated notes showcasing problem identification.
The second set of images is the posters I created to showcase the library’s offerings. Different images were used for different colleges within the university.
The third image set is Adobe XD mock-ups of some of the library’s web pages.
The fourth set of images is a range of graphics I created for the website.
The last set of images was a wireframe of how I grouped information and felt the new navigation should look for the main website and a mobile device.