Usability of Websites for Teenagers from Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox

Update: here's an article from CNN about the new study...

This is a must read: Usability of Websites for Teenagers (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox).

From the article: "Many people think teens are technowizards who surf the Web with abandon. It's also commonly assumed that the best way to appeal to teens is to load up on heavy, glitzy, blinking graphics. Our study refuted these stereotypes."

Teens succeeded in the usability tests only 55% of the time, which in usability is BAD. The study showed that teens' poor performance centered around three things: "insufficient reading skills, less sophisticated research strategies, and a dramatically lower patience level." - in other words, they're... well... teens.

Teens DO like cool-looking websites, and pay more attention to graphics... but found modest clean web design to be more usable.

Here's another good quote from the article: "Teenagers like to do stuff on the Web, and dislike sites that are slow or that look fancy but behave clumsily." - think about that one - can teens DO stuff on your library's website? Or is your teen's site made up primarily of lists of links and books?

Here are some suggestions from the article about interactive stuff to include on a teen's website:

online quizzes: How about a Harry Potter quiz, with a drawing for free movie passes for the winners?

feedback/comment/question forms For starters, you could ask teens what they want the website to do (of course, then you just might have to DO what they asked for).

online voting: Have them vote on local issues, surround the voting page with explanations of the issues, and see what happens - could be fun.

games: Gaming is HUGE right now for teens. Buy books on gaming, point to gaming websites, or even go one further and set up gaming days at the library.

sharing pictures or stories: Hold a photography contest, and put the winner's pictures online.

message boards: teen book/music/dvd clubs, local and world issues, etc - just a place for teens to connect with each other to get and share information.

offering and receiving advice: This can be where you use that virtual reference service to connect with teens.

a way to add their own content: We've thought about online poetry slams and articles written by teens/for teens...

These are just a few ideas. Go read the Nielsen article and start thinking!

Commenting on "books will rule over internet"

I just read this at LISNews:

"A Piece From India Says In the age of internet, books would continue to dominate the minds of readers for taking society forward. This from West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee said today. Speaking at the inauguration of 30th Kolkata Book Fair here, Bhattacharjee said the importance of books would not be undermined, adding that the print media was one of the important pillars of culture."

He's not getting it. I'm reading The Picture of Dorian Gray right now. On my PDA. It's still a book, just not on paper. And I downloaded it. From the Internet.

Whatever.

An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design

Just saw this, and found it quite useful... it's titled: An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design, by 37signals.

It's a simple way to sketch out web design, in an organized way. Basically, they go through these steps:
1. List stuff that needs to go on the page
2. Figure out what's related
3. Prioritize
4. Design each part
5. Put the designed parts together
6. Actually create the page

Go read the article and try it out!

Day in the life of a web manager

Just what does a web manager do? Here's a list of stuff I did at work today:

• Checked email, bloglines, news sites (I really need to aggregate some news feeds). I did this constantly throughout the day.
• Met with supervisor about different projects - once formally in her office, a couple more times informally around the office.
• Added our new interim executive director's name and email to our contact us page (still need to check the spelling...).
• Had email and phone discussions with reference staff about a tax season article for our website.
• Read about WebTrends 7 on their website.
• We filter - I checked some unblocking requests to see if the sites were porn or not... they were so they stayed blocked (how do you like that for a line in my job description?).
• Started working on the 2005-2006 web budget.
• Went for coffee.
• Updated text on a page and closed the helpdesk ticket (we track all IT requests).
• Discussed possible presentation ideas for an upcoming presentation, and sent proposals.
• Started designing a new website - did that the rest of the day (ate lunch somewhere in here, too). Involved creating and editing images, looking at CSS books and hacking CSS off our public website's style sheet, and working in Dreamweaver.

Whew! I'm tired!

A Podcasting Librarian!

Greg at open stacks just made a podcast! How cool is that? He even succinctly explains what a podcast is:

"Don't be afraid of the word podcast; it's just an mp3 file, as normal as can
be. However, if you're an iPod user or have an aggregator that downloads
enclosures automatically, you might want to grab my podcast feed."

Really, a podcast can be many things. As Greg shows, it can be basically a library conference-type presentation, or it can be a live concert recording (and many other things as well). So, how can a library use podcasting for customers? Here are some ideas:

• local storytellers
• teen poetry readings
• oral histories (much better than simply storing old cassettes in boxes!)
• My library does something called Dial-a-Story... why not "Podcast-a-Story?"
• Ever have music in the library? We do... we could record them and podcast it...
• How to use stuff (could be boring "click file, then click on open folder, then...")

Just some ideas.... (now I gotta go listen to that Medeski, Martin and Wood recording of Greg's...)

walking paper: some problems with virtual reference

Aaron Schmidt at Walking Paper just posted some great points about Virtual Reference - go read it.

One point the Bailey-Hainer article Aaron mentions should be highlighted: marketing, marketing, marketing! I have seen libraries with dismal usage statistics... but they also claim to have not really marketed the service (even on a bookmark), have part-time hours for the service, etc. If you don't tell anyone about it, no one will come. Period.

One other point. Aaron states “We need to be connecting to our patrons online.” And I agree completely... but I'm going to remove one word from his statement. It should read: “We need to be connecting to our patrons.” No matter where those patrons are - cell phone, SMS, IM, email, web-based chat, snail mail, live-in-person, at home, at school, at their job (outreach services), etc.

Forwarding... Call for Speakers: Implementing Top Tech Trends for Public Libraries

Michael Stephens is organizing a track at the Internet Librarian 2005 conference. This could be a VERY COOL THING.

So take a look and send him ideas! What would YOU like to hear, if you went?

What the heck is RSS?

Aaron over at Walking Paper just posted something that I was thinking about last night. He's quoting someone else's post about if customers know what blogs and RSS is/are.

For my part, when I read Jenny's post about SIRSI, I emailed it to our automation librarian. He hollered over to me "David, what the heck is RSS?" Here's what I said in explanation - "It's a way to subscribe to a webpage, so you get the updates pretty much when they are posted." He got it. But not until I removed the jargon (rss) from the explanation.

I think RSS, blogging, and aggregators are easy enough to understand... but the naming of these things is a huge hinderance. RSS, Aggregator, Really Simple Syndication, XML, etc - all this is jargon. Does it mean anything to the normal joe? I doubt it.

RSS jargon needs to be re-worked to make more sense to our average library customer, at the least - especially since it's going to be a feature in most of our products within a couple of years (assuming RSS continues to take off).

So what should we call it? Here are some ideas:

myweb, my library, content grabber, InfoFinder... anyone else got some? And of course, public training classes will go a long way, too!

KCResearch - a cool project my library is working on

My library just received some good local press in the Kansas City Star. The article describes (very briefly) a new project my IT department is invlolved in, called KCResearch.

Basically, our two Project Librarians (three year grant-funded positions) are collecting all research done about Kansas City, and storing it in a database we created. We're also planning on pointing to research that's already represented online via fretwell-downing informatics CPORTAL software. It's an exciting project, because community and academic organizations are working together.

And, I'm speaking about the KCResearch project at Computers in Libraries 2005 in March, so I thought I'd supply a reading assignment before the presentation (the article). Should be a good time had by all.

SIRSI Has RSS!

Just saw the SIRSI RSS thing that Jenny Levine posted. Very cool on first glance! I hope it ends up to be what SIRSI is claiming it will be. If so, that'll be one awesome product.

But for me, there are some questions I'll need to answer to become completely satisfied with the product. Mainly, because the way I'm reading SIRSI's PDF, to use the RSS feed part, you have to purchase SIRSI Rooms (a separate product from the Unicorn ILS system my library has).

So the first question is this: will you be able to use the RSS feeds mentioned without purchasing the separate SIRSI Rooms product?

Also, it sounds like the newest version of SIRSI Rooms is really trying to become a Content Management System (CMS), which is cool... unless your library system already has one in place. Then it's not so cool - who wants to operate two CMS's? That sorta defeats the purpose of content management, doesn't it?

So my second question is this: how well wil it integrate with my present website? Can I hook up parts and pieces of the SIRSI product with my website as needed?

Or maybe I'm off my rocker, and still trying to do it the hard way (build it yourself, rather than piggybacking off someone else's hard work)? Not sure.

Of course, first things first. I want to see some more info, and I want a DEMO!

MindMapping Software

I have started playing around with mind mapping software, and I have to say - it's pretty cool! I was familiar with the concept on paper, but wanted to play with a software version. And I found one! It's called FreeMind, and it's FREE (I love open source!).

What can you do with FreeMind? Well, I'm currently working on rough drafts of outlines for my Computers in Libraries 2005 conference presentations, and I'm using FreeMind to do it. Once I get my presentationfigured out, I'll transfer it over to something like Powerpoint. But for now, I'm really enjoying thinking in a non-linear way. I can see my whole range of ideas laid out before me, rather than having to page up and down in a linear outline.

Another idea with FreeMind - you know how "Real" web designers use pricey Visio to plan out databases and websites? Well, why not just use this free thing? Much cheaper, if nothing else!


freemind example

Comments on Twelve Techie Things for Librarians part two: Presence and Social Networks

Reading Michael's section about presence and online social networks made me think... there are lots of new, cool online social types of stuff out there. And I know how to use them as an individual. But how can libraries use them? What would that actually look like?

Here's one idea, sorta shooting off something my library already does. We have subject blogs that focus on local and library content. But what if we took that concept a little further? What if a library developed a localized online social network?"

For example, my library has a fiction Subject Guide, and we have book clubs that do the traditional book club stuff - meetings at our library, reading books and discussing them, and socializing in the process. But how about this as a new paradigm for an online book club: posting a list of books to read on the book club's blog. Making comments about the books on the blog, or in the comments section of the blog post. Or wiki'ing the comments, and allowing book club "members" to change/add/edit comments. Blogging about the book, with comments on those blog posts. Using a wiki to plan physical social gatherings. Communicating via IM or SMS when some cool, inspiring thing hits you that's related to your reading. Using Flickr to post actual author events and social gatherings.

Get the idea? Don't be scared by the idea of some high-falutin', formalized "Social Network" ... It's about connecting with each other, even when you can't be physically present.

Comments welcome...

Comments on Twelve Techie Things for Librarians part one: User Centered Technology Planning

Michael just blogged a wonderful post on things techie librarians need to know about in 2005. It's a great read, and I agree - definitely all stuff librarians should know about. I'm going to comment/piggyback off two of the points ('cause they made me think)...

So for the first one: User-Centered technology planning. Michael focused on making sure technolust does not guide technology planning at the library (very important point). Rather, we should find out what our users need/want, and try to provide that. But what about the flip side of that coin? I know libraries and librarians who'd say something like this: "I don't want to blog/wiki/IM/etc, so I think we'll not make that a priority this year." Or "my staff aren't there yet, so I think we'll hold off on that one indefinitely." Bad, bad librarian!

The goal should be user-centered technology planning. If, for example, your library serves a hip urban community of teens who IM and SMS all over the place, by all means... figure out a way to incorporate that into your library's planning! Even if your library has never done it before. Don't let "Techno Avoidance" or "Techno Huh?" drive your library. Instead, find out what your users are wanting to do (or already doing frequently), and try to provide that.

Another way to look at it - if your library has a website (and most do these days), don't think this: "There. We set up our website. Now we can check that off our list and move on (unfortunately some libraries do this, too)." WRONG! Websites are living, breathing entities, and need to be "cleaned, bathed, hugged and loved" (to quote a favorite children's story I read to my kids). Effective websites require constant updates and maintenance.

The point here? Well, how about three points:

1. Dont' be scared of the technology your customers use. Instead, figure out a way to make it work at the library.
2. If you plan to do anything techie - then jump in with both feet and plan to be there for the long-haul.
3. If your staff doesn't know how to do some of this stuff - find training for them. In fact, make that a training priority in 2005 for staff. Most of this is pretty easy to grasp (or, maybe I'm showing my techno bias here), and training sessions on blogs and IM should be relatively easy to set up.

So put on your 2005 thinking cap and get started!

AWStats - Free log file analyzer

I plan on checking out AWStats, which is a free log file analyzer. Open source software is so cool! This post is a reminder to me more than anything else... LibraryWebChic mentioned it on her blog.

In the same blog, she also mentioned skype... and I saw that Steven Cohen mentioned it... wow - I just heard about it - how funny!

Social Software and Services in 2004

I think I'm becoming a web geek. Or just learning about a lot of new online services... your pick! But here's a brief rundown of services I've signed up for and/or started using in 2004 that have an online, social networking type of vibe:

• IM: I started using IM. Message me at squagmar (AIM), davidking@kclibrary.org (MSN), or daweedrex (Yahoo). As an aside, I'm using Trillian for IM - pretty cool product.
• blogs: I started one (the one you're reading).
• blogs: I started reading blogs with an aggregator. I use Bloglines. Here's my public blogroll (from Bloglines).
• blogs: my library started using blogs to push information to library customers. Find them here - we call them Subject Guides.
• RSS: my library started using RSS.
• RSS: My blog has an Atom feed.
• Images: I signed up for a Flickr account (that's where the images below are coming from).
• Images: A bit more personal - I created a photo feed in my tripod account to go along with an online "what my family was doing in 2004" letter that we emailed to friends for Christmas.
• Bookmarks Management: I finally understood the need for this (I got tired of sitting at home thinking "I wish I could get to my bookmarks at work"). I tried out del.icio.us (VERY cool url, by the way), and settled on Furl.
• Cool games: I admit it. I was a game junky in the 80's. So I tried out a few online games: Runescape and Utopia (technically, I tried Utopia out before 2004... just mentioning it for good measure). The Knightish-looking guy that's waving in the image to the right is my "online double" when roaming around in Runescape. Both these games have a huge following (upwards of 50,000 people will be found playing the games at any one time), and have a social, chat function built in to the games. Jenny over at the Shifted Librarian just posted about her family's experience with Runescape - good reading.
• Online Music: I have some songs posted at Soundclick.

I also walked around Church of Fools during their pilot project last summer. Church of Fools is an online, interactive, 3-D church. It was a pilot project of the Methodist Church of Great Britain - they invited real preachers to step into the virtual pulpit and do their thing.To the left is what a "cartoon double" from Church of Fools might look like.

And I think that's all I did... seems like a lot! So, for 2005... are there other cool online services librarians (or web geeks) should know about? Michael at Tame the Web just told me about skype - it's a free, online phone thingie. Any others? Let me know!

Test of image posting

fishing_6_pb
Originally uploaded by davidking.

I'm testing out image posting. Sorry!

MacDrive is extremely cool!

We're in the middle of a digitization project, and the company that scanned and digitized some stuff for us sent us a very cool external hard drive... that happened to be formatted for a Macintosh. And my library uses PC-based products. Only.

Enter Mediafour's MacDrive. According to Mediafour: "Use MacDrive to open and save files on all types of Mac disks, including CD/DVD, hard drives, floppy, Zip, and more." Including my new LaCie Big Disk Extreme hard drive.

MacDrive installed fast (required a reboot) and now I can access the drive just like any other hard drive on my system. Very cool!