Our library has a User Experience group. This is not a unit, but consists
of 4 people whose part of work is related to user experience. This group's
main focus primarily on the online experience: website, catalog,
e-resources, and accessibility. We did quite a number of usability tests,
shared the results with the stake holders, and recommended the changes. The
changes that we recommended on our web presence tend to be small. The idea
is not to do big change where it's very noticeable, but make it incremental
so users won't get disoriented. Hence the frequent tests. For the
accessibility part, I hired a blind student to assist me assessing our web
presence and e-resources.

We just hired a dedicated user experience librarian whose work would also
include customer service assessments and user space area.


ranti.


On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:24 AM, Andrew Darby <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Hello, all.  This is perhaps a bit off-topic, but I was wondering how many
> of you have a dedicated usability person as part of your development team.
> Right now, we have a sort of ad hoc Usability Team, and I'd like to make a
> pitch for hiring someone who will have the time and inclination to manage
> this effort more effectively.
>
> Anything you'd care to share (on-list or off-) would be welcome.  I'm
> especially curious about whether or not this is a full-time responsibility
> for someone in your organization or if it's shared with another job
> function; if you find this position is working out well or you wish you'd
> spent the money on more robots instead; where this person resides in your
> org chart; what sort of qualifications you looked for when hiring; etc.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andrew
>
> --
> Andrew Darby
> Head, Web & Emerging Technologies
> University of Miami Libraries
>



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