http://acrlog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/ Blogging by and for academic and research librarians Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:17:25 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://acrlog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/comment-page-1/#comment-31068 More Way Out Than EPIC Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:47:33 +0000 http://acrlblog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/#comment-31068 [...] Now comes a new video called Prometeus: The Media Revolution. I really didn’t know what it would be, but I was interested in it because of a statement from it that “experience is the new reality”. I wanted to find out more about what that meant because we now find ourselves in the age of the user experience. Then I started seeing more statements about copyright, wikipedia, Second Life, media wars, Google buying Microsoft and…well it’s a futuristic vision all the way out to 2050. “Way out” may be a good way to describe this five minutes of animation. [...] [...] Now comes a new video called Prometeus: The Media Revolution. I really didn’t know what it would be, but I was interested in it because of a statement from it that “experience is the new reality”. I wanted to find out more about what that meant because we now find ourselves in the age of the user experience. Then I started seeing more statements about copyright, wikipedia, Second Life, media wars, Google buying Microsoft and…well it’s a futuristic vision all the way out to 2050. “Way out” may be a good way to describe this five minutes of animation. [...]

]]> http://acrlog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/comment-page-1/#comment-25353 Designing Better Libraries » The Age Of The User Experience - Part Two Mon, 05 Mar 2007 14:01:25 +0000 http://acrlblog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/#comment-25353 [...] I had my first enounter with the user experience concept just about a year ago, and I wrote about it in ACRLog. It was an article titled “Features Don’t Matter Anymore” (a link is found in the ACRLog post), and it gives a somewhat different focus on the user experience than the one described in the book The Experience Economy. According to the author, the “Age of the User Experience” was entirely focused on making things, particularly electronic gadgets, as easy to use as possible. Hence, the essence of the user experience is simplicity. Users prefer to do without fancy features. A good example of a user experience, for the author of the article, was an iPod. That is because it is so so simple to operate, and has only the basic features one needs. So if one source claims a user experience is about a memorable purchase and another claims it is about simplicity, are we now less clear on what a user experience is? But if a good user experience is, to a large extent, about giving the user something that is simple, than libraries, with their inherent complexity, have much work to do. [...] [...] I had my first enounter with the user experience concept just about a year ago, and I wrote about it in ACRLog. It was an article titled “Features Don’t Matter Anymore” (a link is found in the ACRLog post), and it gives a somewhat different focus on the user experience than the one described in the book The Experience Economy. According to the author, the “Age of the User Experience” was entirely focused on making things, particularly electronic gadgets, as easy to use as possible. Hence, the essence of the user experience is simplicity. Users prefer to do without fancy features. A good example of a user experience, for the author of the article, was an iPod. That is because it is so so simple to operate, and has only the basic features one needs. So if one source claims a user experience is about a memorable purchase and another claims it is about simplicity, are we now less clear on what a user experience is? But if a good user experience is, to a large extent, about giving the user something that is simple, than libraries, with their inherent complexity, have much work to do. [...]

]]> http://acrlog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/comment-page-1/#comment-15094 ACRLog » Blog Archive » News That We Can Use Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:00:17 +0000 http://acrlblog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/#comment-15094 [...] Ward goes on to point out that one of the reasons for the increase in lost time searching is that Internet search engines provide “inaccurate and irrelevant search results [that] continually defeat users performing search queries”. As someone who watches college students using search engines I’d have to add that searchers defeat themselves by relying on poorly conceived searches, failing to use more than one engine, and ignoring advanced features that could eliminate inaccurate results. In other words, isn’t this a problem that could be addressed or relieved with some good old user education. Of course, in the Age of User Experience people do not have time or refuse to bother to learn something that might help them actually save time. That’s why the study also found that “when seeking information fewer now prefer to get it themselves (51% down from 68%)”. Interesting, but probably too soon to conclude that the self-service trend is about to end. [...] [...] Ward goes on to point out that one of the reasons for the increase in lost time searching is that Internet search engines provide “inaccurate and irrelevant search results [that] continually defeat users performing search queries”. As someone who watches college students using search engines I’d have to add that searchers defeat themselves by relying on poorly conceived searches, failing to use more than one engine, and ignoring advanced features that could eliminate inaccurate results. In other words, isn’t this a problem that could be addressed or relieved with some good old user education. Of course, in the Age of User Experience people do not have time or refuse to bother to learn something that might help them actually save time. That’s why the study also found that “when seeking information fewer now prefer to get it themselves (51% down from 68%)”. Interesting, but probably too soon to conclude that the self-service trend is about to end. [...]

]]> http://acrlog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/comment-page-1/#comment-13514 ACRLog » Blog Archive » Moving Beyond Beginner’s Level Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:22:28 +0000 http://acrlblog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/#comment-13514 [...] Creating Passionate Users is a popular blog, and I came across one or two other bloggers that mentioned this post that appeared there last week. The gist of the post is feature overload in electronic devices that causes their owners to simply stick with the basic default settings (sound familiar?). It made me think about our feature-laden aggregator databases. How many academic libraries stick with the default basic search screen? Basic mode hides many good features from the searcher. The author says: If users are stuck in permanent beginner mode, and can’t really do anything interesting or cool with a thing they’re not likely to become passionate. They grow bored or frustrated and the “tool” turns into shelfware. [...] [...] Creating Passionate Users is a popular blog, and I came across one or two other bloggers that mentioned this post that appeared there last week. The gist of the post is feature overload in electronic devices that causes their owners to simply stick with the basic default settings (sound familiar?). It made me think about our feature-laden aggregator databases. How many academic libraries stick with the default basic search screen? Basic mode hides many good features from the searcher. The author says: If users are stuck in permanent beginner mode, and can’t really do anything interesting or cool with a thing they’re not likely to become passionate. They grow bored or frustrated and the “tool” turns into shelfware. [...]

]]> http://acrlog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/comment-page-1/#comment-3079 ACRLog » Blog Archive » Look Out For the XC OPAC Wed, 03 May 2006 11:44:56 +0000 http://acrlblog.org/2006/02/27/ipods-and-pencils-it%e2%80%99s-the-user-experience-age-and-we%e2%80%99re-not-ready/#comment-3079 [...] In the debate about how to redesign the library OPAC for the Age of User Experience, there have been more than a few complaints about the inadequacies of the OPAC , suggestions for eliminating local OPACs altogether, and some initial efforts to make it more effective for library users. [...] [...] In the debate about how to redesign the library OPAC for the Age of User Experience, there have been more than a few complaints about the inadequacies of the OPAC , suggestions for eliminating local OPACs altogether, and some initial efforts to make it more effective for library users. [...]

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