Librarian Design Share

One-half of Librarian Design Share is headed to Knoxville, TN to present at the 2017 Library Collective Conference alongside Amanda VerMeulen (St. Mary’s College of Maryland) and Dan Vinson (Mount Mary University). I’m super excited to be presenting with these awesome folks, and wanted to be sure to share our presentation slides, handouts, and other resources with Librarian Design Share readers. The focus of the conference is “Make it Beautiful, Make it Useable” which was all the sell I needed to attend. The conference schedule looks amazing, and I’d encourage you to check it out.

Here’s the info about our session:

Enhanced by Design: Creating user-informed, aesthetically attractive projects for your library

In this session participants will learn how different visual materials can address user concerns uncovered through focus groups, surveys, and ethnographic studies. Products created from data gleaned through these methods aren’t inherently beautiful, but by applying aesthetic design principles to these projects we can create products where usability is enhanced by design.

What this session IS about: basic user research methods, applying basic aesthetic principles/theories to creating visual materials, design-decision making
What this session is NOT about: in-depth session on graphic design or aesthetic theory,
how to analyze user research data (no coding, no stats).

Some questions to think about before the session:
What is a problem you want to solve in your library?
What is a big picture question you have about your library/users/etc.?

You can check out our session slides below. It’s a mix of lightning style talks, discussion, activities, and Q&A. We hope the session will be interactive and fun, and we’re looking forward to learning from people who attend.

We also have a number of resources we’re sharing with participants, including:

• This fantastic LibGuide Amanda put together.
• Design Best Practices
• User Research Methods Glossary
• User Research Methods Chart 
• From Text to Graphics Handout

You can also find all of the designs highlighted in this presentation on the Librarian Design Share Google Drive in the Enhanced by Design Presentation 2017 folder. If you’ll be at The Library Collective Conference too, stop by and say hello!