Sources: Useful, Usable, Desirable: Applying User Experience Design to Your Library

Abstract

It’s all about the user. This point is made clear in Aaron Schmidt and Amanda Etches’s new book, Useful, Usable, Desirable: Applying User Experience Design to Your Library. The conversational tone of this book adds to the growing body of publications on the user experience. It serves as a step-by-step guide to developing a welcoming library based on a number of library “touchpoints,” or key components, that affect the user experience, such as the library website, signage, furniture, restrooms, policies, and collections. Although many of the recommendations (such as ensuring that furniture is intact and keeping restrooms clean) are common sense for any public service manager, the book stresses the importance of the local environment and the need to focus on the members of the local library community.