9.1 Overview

With guidance from our mentor at IDEO, my capstone team addressed the following question: 

How might we help America’s public libraries to build stonger communities? 

Project Details

Mentor: Sean Mulholland from IDEO
Duration: 22 weeks
Teammates: Nora Owens, Oliver Engel
Project roles: UX researcher, UX designer
Project tasks: primary and secondary research, research synthesis, storyboarding, wireframing, digital prototyping, usability testing, information architecture, visual design

9.2 Discovery

My team had an initial interest in how to use technology to strengthen communities. We became interested in libraries after reading Eric Klinenberg’s book Palaces for the People where he describes how public libraries act as a hub for social connections in local communities. (Terminology note: For brevity I’ll refer to public libraries as libraries from this point on.)


Site visit to Seattle’s Beacon Hill Library

Research Questions

1. How do libraries respond to the needs of their communities?
2. What services does the library provide for the community, and how have they changed over time?
3. How do libraries serve as more than just physical spaces?

Research Methods

• Literature Review: A review of journal articles and news sources related to public spaces, social capital, the digital divide, and the current role of libraries. 
  
• Competitive Assessment: Assessment of digital products mentioned by librarians in interviews as sources for programming inspiration (Facebook Groups, Pinterest, Programming Librarian, Instructables) or those that could be useful during collaboration (Github, Dropbox Paper, Basecamp, Codepen).
  
• Semi-structured Interviews: Twelve (12) One hour interviews with librarians working in branches across the country
  
• Expert Interviews: Four (4) 30-minute interviews with three library administrators and one executive from the Project for Public Spaces
• Participatory Design Workshop: Partnered with King County Library System to run a participatory design session with 18 library staff members. The goals of the workshop were to validate research findings, generate concept inspiration for the design phase, and further narrow the design space. 

Ideation during the participatory design workshop

Downselection during the participatory design workshop

Thematic analysis in progress

Themes grouped into insights

Key Insights

1. Evaluating the success of programs is difficult because single data points don’t capture the complexity of outcomes–they need to be captured in stories.
2. Librarians readily share ideas and support one another’s efforts, but communication is fragmented through a wide variety of channels.
   

Design Opportunity

How might we create new ways of evaluating the outcomes of library programs?