Building the Digital Branch

Staff member: Tracy Carroll
Original event date: August 3, 2010
Original event time: 2:30-4:30 pm
Speaker: David Lee King, Digital Branch & Services Manager at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

Building the Digital Branch with David Lee King provided lots of insight on how to approach redesigns, which are coming up soon for a few libraries. One thing that he suggested in usablity studies is to make it short and sweet, no more than 5 minutes to complete 8-12 questions and to ask questions like "where would you go to find..?" to see if patrons can find stuff. He even suggested special computers (like the lab) to take the survey.

In focus groups try to "weed" out what can be combined or just removed from the sites. He suggested going to the public to find out what they call stuff and rename parts of the site based on what they call it, which was a great idea! Like what do patrons or students call the "databases" page? Making things that patrons are looking for more prominent, like a "Fee Information" bright and bold on the front page.

I also found out that I'm not the only person who is doing it solo, there are a lot of libraries where there is only 1 person doing the web, if they even have a web presence. He suggested getting a good CMS (Content Management System) to make life easier. After my Drupal class I'm convinced that I need to carve out more time to get to know more about Drupal.

I have to go back and review the webinar again because between the instructor and the chat, there was so much information being passed around I need to go back and catch what I missed.

Looking forward to the next redesign and will definitely implement the suggestions from this webinar. Here are some notes and handouts that I will be using for my next redesign.

http://64.26.76.140/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://ala.ilinc.com/content/phpjmfv/vvxjyvy