Guiding Interface Design with Ethnographic Methods

1. Guiding Interface Design with Ethnographic Methods ALA Annual 2013 Usability, the User Experience & Interface Design The University of Chicago Library

2. Our Research Project • Model the research practices of UChicagograduate students • Compare the approaches to research taken by students with the approaches recommended by Librarians

3. Seminar Paper Topics Included: • Depictions of the Holocaust in Film • Djinns in Islamic Poetry • Hooliganism Crimes in 1950s China

4. Example Interview Questions • What do you anticipate will be the most difficult part of the research? • How do you evaluate sources? • How have you converted your topic into a searchable phrase or keywords?

6. 1 Ask a Librarian Articles Plus University of Chicago LIBRARY CATALOG 1 1 1/1 1 1 Advanced Search 3/3 1 Search for in in in 4/1 2 4/1 Add Field… (What is a field?) Add Group… (What is a group?) 1 3/1 Limit by Language Year Range to Format 1 Location

10. Focusing searches I guess it’s a question of how ideas germinate. I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for going into the search, but when I find something that will be helpful, I know that I found it. -Study participant

12. Focusing searches

15. Browsing “When I find a helpful book I like to go to the stacks to see what’s around it, and I’ve gotten fair amount of material that way.” -Study participant

20. Browsing

21. Augmented Browsing + Checked out items + Other Locations Ebooks

22. Feast and Famine 45,522,461 Results for…

23. Feast and Famine

25. Limited Database Usage

29. Perceptions of Librarians “I think [subject specialists are] this high up and far away kind of person. I don’t know what they are doing in the library. Being Indiana Jones collecting books or something.” -Study participant

30. Perceptions of Librarians

31. Perceptions of Librarians

32. Implementing Change • How do we translate findings into change within our organization?

38. Thank you! Full report available at: www.lib.uchicago.edu/gradstudy David Bietila dbietila@uchicago.edu Gina Petersen gmpetersen@uchicago.edu