That's a point well-taken and I totally agree. The amount of decisions and back-and-forth with design is truly huge. My thinking was that we would develop something like a primer for wide circulation with the large volume of nitty-gritty best practices available at a central location (in addition to all that extra stuff I mentioned regarding library products.) On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 5:43 AM, Alex Armstrong <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > TMI? > > Sweating the details IS how you get good user experience design. > > I am sometimes reminded of the Oscar Wilde quote:"I was working on the > proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the > afternoon I put it back again." > > If you replace "poem" with "site" and "comma" with ".button > {text-transform: uppercase; }", then I considerthat a day well-spent :) > > Alex > > > > > On 2014-10-02 22:04, Brad Coffield wrote: > >> So many responses to address! ah! >> >> The LITA support to this idea is lovely to see. Thank you very much. >> >> I agree that code4lib is awesome and that we could potentially create a >> document which would gain traction in the wider community BUT I really do >> think official support/integration is the best case scenario. >> >> >> Shaun, http://guidelines.usability.gov/ is a neat site and I'll have to >> explore it more, even just for myself. How does this differ from my vision >> of what we're discussing (to say nothing of Josh's vision or anyone >> else's): >> >> 1. I think that it makes best sense as far as official >> validation/circulation (and for ease of use by all librarian's regardless >> of experience) to have a much abbreviated document listing best practices. >> And works cited. And maybe an appendix with more information. A sort of >> list that the group could agree upon that "Well, if a library does these >> things they are well along the way to great usability." It wouldn't >> address >> a lot of the nitty gritty details that guidelines.usability.gov does, for >> example "13:9 Use Radio Buttons for Mutually Exclusive Selections." That >> is >> an excellent point but TMI for the document I'm describing. >> >> 1a. This document would be succinct enough that managing it would be easy. >> We need to have something easy to update or it risks becoming old and >> useless. >> >> 1b. I really like the point made by Christina about not re-inventing the >> wheel. And this is exactly where I'm coming from. Yes, there's a ton of >> great UX stuff out on the web but what would be a great service to >> libraryland would be for a group of knowledgeable librarians to come >> together and do all that research work and present everyone with a >> simplified 'wheel' for general use. >> >> 2. But I'm picturing a lot beyond this. Some sort of website (wiki, >> whatever) where library people are able to pool knowledge and resources. >> Best practices with libguides. Libguides customizations. I recently did a >> complete makeover on our Illiad site - I could share info/steps on how I >> did that, for example. People could share useful scripts etc. etc. >> >> The first document would primarily/exclusively be general web best >> practices but the second thing - that would go beyond. >> >> Just my thinking. I'm game to help whatever ends up taking shape :) >> >> >> -- Brad Coffield, MLIS Assistant Information and Web Services Librarian Saint Francis University 814-472-3315 [log in to unmask]