Metric

Tim Spalding (LibraryThing and TinyCat) is on this episode of the podcast in which we are critical of library software, libraries' relationships with vendors, designing and developing TinyCat, and much more.

• 3:34 – There is a Revolution Ahead and it Has a Voice

What if we didn’t need to learn arcane commands? What if you could use the most effective and powerful communication tool ever invented? This tool evolved over millions of years and allows you to express complex ideas in very compact and data dense ways yet can be nuanced to the width of a hair [2]. What is this tool? It is our voice.Brian Roemmele

• 5:16 – Hound

• 8:46 – We talk about the benefits of the data-crunching power behind the Amazon Echo in Amazon web services compared to Apple’s Siri.
• 10:10 – IBM Watson‘s API and developer community
• 11:30 – HTML5 Web Speech API

She saw this as an entity, as a person – not as a thing, but as a conversational partner!Jason Griffey, on his daughter’s reaction to Alexa

• 17:00 – It’s all about empathizing with the things we use! We tend to think voice interfaces are cool because it makes doing hard programm-y things easier, but the tangential thing they bring is company, community.
• 18:45 – On interfaces responding to your tone of voice.
• 21:19 – Have we seen any of this implemented in libraries or at the higher-ed level?
• 24:00 – On gender

It is no accident that every single one we have named that is commercially available and sold to people — Cortana, Siri, Google Now, and Alexa — those are female gendered. These are all bots that are the result of someone building them, they are all gendered in a way that I think is problematic.Jason Griffey

• 30:23 – Creating a personality that would anticipate the personality you need at at that time!

Michael  talks shop with Penelope Singer (@pushingvision) -- an awesome UI designer at a major vendor --  about cross-platform and cross-media brand, animations, material design, cats, and anticipatory design.

Amanda and I interview Lisa Rabey ( Twitter ) ( Journal ) about how the trials of the job hunt for library technologists are exacerbated by employers’ unrealistic expectations for unicorns — full-stack engineers* who work the reference desk — given that, well, libraries aren’t really sure what they need.

This lack of definition is really a detriment. Her recent writing on this — “I Want to be a XXX Librarian” / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four — exposes just how goofy the job titles are, let alone their descriptions, unearthed and logged over the course of more than a hundred applications.

What libraries think they want versus what they actually need is the big thing nobody actually talks about.LISA RABEY

We asked her to swing by though because we echoed similar frustrations back in Episode 008: Hiring a Web Librarian, where we gawp at the b******t of being expected to keep-up with the rapid pace of technology outside of the job for which one is intended to use it. We bring it up again later in this episode.

Loads here. Lots of wisdom.

• 5:40 – TThe lack of consistent vocabulary to describe the kind of position employers are trying to hire for


• 7:17 – On “unicorns”


• 9:30 – Degree requirements and pay


• 13:55 – Leaving the library world into doing back-end, server, or front-end development


• 15:40 – Lisa’s current plan of attack


• 18:00 – On Bootcamps and learning to code


• 24:05 – Wisdom for librarians on the job hunt


• 29:50 – Advice to people making hiring decisions


• 34:45 – Getting in touch with Lisa

You might remember that in our 2016 Design Predictions episode, my number one was that we are going to see an explosion of “Service Design” in writeups, job descriptions, and the like. I hadn’t really heard about Service Design until winter 2015, but as I was editing this episode — a recut of a talk from June prior — my spiel about conceptualizing the user experience as a measurement led into a totally unintended talk about service design. This makes sense, because when we think about UX as a measurement we are thinking about holistic experiences that transcend the screen which reflect back at us the quality of the services we provide.

As usual, you support us by helping us get the word out: share a link and take a moment to leave a nice review. Thanks!

 The third episode in our new question-and-answer bonus series raises more questions than anything. Meg Ecclestone stumbles into a blooper reel. We hope you enjoy.

• 0:32 – “I worry about the state of virtual reality for libraries.”


• 0:45 – “I always tell people that in librarianship we need to dream smaller, but you have dreamed very small, Michael. Very small indeed.”


• 2:16 – “How goth is the state of library user experience?”


• 3:35 – Meg and Michael go to camp.

This is so Hot Topic.MEG ECCLESTONE

• 5:05 – We are clearly off topic.


• 7:48 – “On Friday, April 16th, Deathrock came to town.”

You can subscribe to LibUX on Stitcher, iTunes, or plug our feed right into your podcatcher of choice. Help us out and say something nice. You can find every podcast on www.libux.co.

The second question asked in our new question-and-answer bonus series. Meg Ecclestone and Michael Schofield talk about the plight of library web design.

Stephen Francoeur is among the first user experience librarians and in this episode he shares his insight about thriving as a one-person UX shop. We talk about organizational buy-in, how best to pitch and communicate UX work, as well as a super interesting tear on imposter syndrome. For show notes, articles, and more episodes, visit www.libux.co.

We read "The FANG Playbook" on Stratechery by Ben Thompson, which inspires some thoughts about the opportunity for libraries to exert control over the user experience and their negotiations with vendors, because libraries supply the commodity vendors want: patrons. 

In a new question-and-answer bonus series, Meg Ecclestone and Michael mull over one user experience topic at a time. This week, "what research techniques and tools are actually used in library UX work?"