Our first podcast of the new year kicks off with our predictions for trends in library web design. We're stoked to see how we tally-up at the end of the year. 

1. 2:19 - "Service Design" will be the new "User Experience Design"
2. 4:39 - the future of WordPress is JavaScript
3. 5:07 - the library app is finally dead - moreover the app in general as something distinct from the web will bottom-out its unpopularity
4. 9:41 - more predictive / anticipatory services
5. 12:16 - maturing API Driven Design (inspired by [Tim Broadwater](http://twitter.com/tim_broadwater))
6. 15:54 - web animation everywhere you look (follow [Rachel Nabors](http://twitter.com/rachelnabors))
7. 16:51 - #libweb drops the carousel, embraces the gigantor hero-unit search
8. 19:12 - design around time, as in just-in-time information
9. 20:11 - the market for prototyping tools explodes
10. 22:18 - Slack. Just Slack.

Amanda and Michael talk about what it means now that the architecture for making API endpoints easier was added to WordPress 4.4 alongside the announcement of Calypso, the JavaScript front-end of WordPress-dot-com websites. Also, we mull over how WordPress gives libraries more negotiating power and options in the vendor space, as well as learning jQuery before JavaScript - we like it.

Brianna Marshall and Cameron Cook talk content strategy, humor, LITA Forum, and the redesign of Research Data Services at UW-Madison.

Okay, so, ebook readership is fine regardless of misread data about its doom, but as of 2015 it still has yet to pull meaningfully away from print. Amanda and Michael talk about the negative impact of poor user experience on business - except for one outlier: Amazon Kindle self-published books.

Michael was grilled by #LIS3267 about what it's like to do web design, the future of libraries, maintaining work / life balance in a highly disrupted field, and other slightly neurotic grad-student things. Here are some of the gems and Amanda's take!

Chad Haefele joins Amanda and Michael to talk about his book WordPress for Libraries, usability testing using tools from Optimal Workshop, and the inglorious fate of Google Wave. 

Find show notes and more podcasts and articles like this at www.libux.co.

Update: fixed audio! This week Amanda and Michael muse about Anticipatory Design, and whether it is possible - and ethical - to craft a user experience so personalized through data and context that it ultimately eliminates choice.

This is the second part to a talk given June 3, 2015, called The User Experience (here’s part one!).

• What is a “heuristic evaluation”?


• The Truth about Carousels and Other Antipatterns by me — Michael Schofield


• UX, consideration, and a CMMI-based Model by Coral Sheldon-Hess

When an organization is well and truly steeped in UX, with total awareness of and buy-in on user-centered thinking, its staff enact those principles, whether they’re facing patrons or not. In short, UX thinking makes a person considerate. Coral Sheldon-Hess

• Heuristic Evaluations in Reverse by Bohyun Kim


• A customer journey map may be the most bang for your buck

The customer journey begins with a user story: as a _____, I want to _____, so that _____.”

Increasingly, the journey often begins online and is punctuated by time and potential disenchantment before the patron even enters the building Michael Schofield

• X\O Participatory Design by the University of Michigan Libraries UX Department


• A High Functioning Research Website

Libraries are approaching their mobile moment. Whether it’s true for you now, it will definitely be true for you later. … Navigation must flow. The content must be worth it. Everything must be fast. There is no place for b******t. Michael Schofield

• Make sweeping improvements to the user experience by knowing a little about how people read the web.


• The LibUX Core Content Audit


• LibGuides — How Usable is the Three Column Layout? — on LibUX

Where your patrons spend most of their time influences their basic expectations of the library. Being user-centric demands that we are aware and don’t scoff at the habits our users have. Convention matters.Michael Schofield

• The most relevant trends libraries should watch are in e-commerce.


• When people talk about the size of websites in bytes, think in terms of seconds


• After 10 seconds, there is a missed opportunity. You will never know how many patrons you failed to reach, but the data suggests it’s a lot.

The DELIGHTful Episode was the second we ever recorded, but otherwise lost until recently. We read Jim Shamlin's "Satisfaction, Delight, Disappointment, and Shock." We talk about inspiring delight through customer service and novelty. Other gems: we like Treehouse, jingles, book lists, WordPress, and free dessert.

www.libux.co