Purpose & Goals

The poster discusses University of California San Diego Library’s process in developing a Library-wide User Research Hub using UX design principles. Across our library, many programs and units collect data about library users' interactions with library resources and services, preferences, and more. There was no mechanism for consistent and broad sharing of these rich datasets across programs, which resulted in duplication of effort and missed opportunities for collaboration or data-driven decision-making. Our project aimed to develop a user-friendly mechanism for collecting and sharing user research.

Design & Methodology

We used the UX design process, including stakeholder interviews, persona and user story development, competitor research/landscape review, platform selection, prototypes and evaluation to help us pinpoint our user needs and select a tool as a depository for in-house user research studies and data.

Findings

Since there may be many users for the research hub, finding and developing the hub for a primary user is important; Developing taxonomy and templates provides guidance and governance for the staff contributing their studies to the hub. Tool selection should focus on database features including tagging that allows for similar research to be identified.

Practical Implications & Value

The project will allow library staff to find and view related research from programs across the library; provide a structure to ensure the ongoing growth and organization of the Hub with guidance for what information should and should not be included in the scope of this project, with special attention paid to user privacy.