I’ve started working on a new website project for my new job (another library). Most of the groundwork was laid down by my predecessor, so I don’t have to do everything from the ground up, which is kind of nice. Still, I would be remiss if I didn’t do some research myself. So I went to user experience blogs I knew, and did some poking around. These are the things I’m reading now:

The Library Journal article (sponsored by EBSCO), “Four Library User Challenges to Address,” posits that the library website user challenges are website navigation (free of jargon), streamlined authentication to resources, an intuitive path for discovery of collections, and direct links to full text access from the website.

On UX Mastery, “The Autistic UXer: Understanding, Researching and Designing for Autistic People, the author, on the spectrum herself, seeks to explain the way she thinks and processes information, as a gateway into the minds of those on the autism spectrum. She then concludes the article with examples of websites with autism friendly designs, and explains why they work well.

A UX Movement article, “Why Mobile Menus Belong at the Bottom of the Screen,” discusses the idea of the thumb as a mouse on a cell phone, and how that affects navigational choices users make. The author suggests putting mobile menus at the bottom of the screen to make them more thumb accessible, and therefore, easier to use.

In UX Booth, an article titled, “4 Ways to Make Online Content More Accessible,” provides a good reminder on making sure your website is accessible for those with disabilities, like including headings, and alt text for images, but also for the general audience, by making sure you know how to write for the web.

Lastly, in that same vein, reDUX, a blog by the Discovery & User Experience department at Indiana University, wrote a post on what reading a website with screen readers is like, and how we can make our sites betters for those who do use them.

That’s all I’m thinking about for now. Happy holidays, and I’ll come back in the new year!

References:

“Four Library User Challenges to Address.” Library Journal, EBSCO, 14 Dec. 2017, lj.libraryjournal.com/2017/12/digital-resources/four-library-user-challenges-address/.

Haines, Anne. “Writing to be read… by a screen reader.” ReDUX, Indiana University Bloomington, 23 Feb. 2017, blogs.libraries.indiana.edu/redux/2017/02/23/writing-to-be-read-by-a-screen-reader/.

McKay, Ashlea. “The Autistic UXer: Understanding, Researching and Designing for Autistic People.” UX Mastery, UX Mastery, 15 Nov. 2017, uxmastery.com/researching-designing-for-autism/.

T, Anthony. “Why Mobile Menus Belong at the Bottom of the Screen.” UX Movement, UX Movement, 4 July 2017, uxmovement.com/mobile/why-mobile-menus-belong-at-the-bottom-of-the-screen/.

Tolisano, Jaqueline. “4 Ways to Make Online Content More Accessible.” UX Booth, UX Booth, 9 Feb. 2016, http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/4-ways-to-make-online-content-more-accessible/.