Updating an academic library website to current design expectations can involve an enormous amount of time, requiring testing and development in a number of areas that affect the user’s ultimate experience. This session uses the recent update to the [http://www.library.unt.edu UNT Libraries’ website] as a case study in guerrilla tactics, discussing our study of analytics data and peer sites, adoption of the bootstrap library for rapid development, early html prototyping, patron interviews, and good commons sense in our typographic choices and content strategy as we developed both a mobile-responsive site and bento-box style search application. We’ll also take a detour into the world of device-based testing and demonstrate how in-browser testing, paired with a small collection of phones and tablets made troubleshooting the design process far easier, how having these types of devices makes sense as a public service within libraries in general, and some of the new user testing tools/toys we have on hand to bring user testing in the libraries up to a whole new level in the coming months and years.
This is part of the Designing for Digital Conference. Learn more at www.designingfordigital.com.