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Helping the help: a history of libraries and usability through help documentation

Helping the help: a history of libraries and usability through help documentation. Ilana Barnes. Why do libraries matter?. Because we provide research instruction no on else does. Because we are a dominant access point for the public for internet

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Helping the help: a history of libraries and usability through help documentation

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  1. Helping the help: a history of libraries and usability through help documentation Ilana Barnes

  2. Why do libraries matter? • Because we provide research instruction no on else does. • Because we are a dominant access point for the public for internet • Because it is one of our missions to “provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources” – ALA Code of Conduct

  3. Why does library help matter for UX? • A vital intersection between online help documentation, research instruction and user research • Hundred of libraries across the country implementing similar models- tremendous opportunity

  4. Critical Questions Moving Forward No single model exists for - describing characteristics of help from both content provider and user's perspective. - identifying any gap between existing help content and user needs. - helping identify appropriate representational format for user needs in different context.

  5. Critical Questions Moving Forward • How do we contextualize help for those that avoid reading help documentation? • How do deal with expert and novice users? • How do we continue to create systems that allow us to reuse the content from our multiple customer service attitudes? • How do we tell if it worked?

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