University Library Website Redesign

Role

Lead, Researcher, Designer, Project Manager

​

Objective

Redesign a medium-sized private university libraries website to be more modern and user-centered, within the confines of what could be achieved due the university-wide web design guidelines and page templates.

 

Methodology

Utilizing previous user research and a landscape assessment of other university library sites, I successfully pitched to the university marketing team that the library had a different user base than the rest of the university website (current versus prospective students and employees). This granted us some additional freedom to work with the marketing team on developing content and templates, rather than the marketing team prescribing the new site design, architecture, and content.

Engaging with stakeholders and users across campus (students, faculty and staff), we used card sorting, tree testing, and user interviews in the discovery phase. Heuristic evaluation, accessible design principles, plain writing, and content management were applied during the design phases. Extra emphasis was placed on parts of the site that library staff has previously received the most questions about, and in promoting aspects of the library that were deemed important to users and stakeholders but had very few traffic on the previous site. Moderated user testing was conducted throughout all phases for validation, including post-launch.

 

Impact

After the new site launched, there was a significant reduction in the number of questions library staff received regarding website content. The new site scored much higher in accessibility audits than the previous site, and any remaining violations were not issues the project team had access to resolve but instead reported the issues to the university-wide web team.

 

​