Blog topic: Digital library

What has the web redesign project been up to in the past three months?

April 20, 2012
Digital library

Between January and March of this year the web redesign project took a small break in full-time engineering to focus attention on design work, bug fixing, user testing, and analyzing user feedback. The outcomes of this work have been positive, as we've learned a great deal from students, faculty and staff about how they would use the new site and whether or not it will help them successfully complete their most important tasks.  Many small and large improvements to librarypreview.stanford.edu have already been made, and continue to be added.

Writing for the web resources

April 12, 2012
by Ray Heigemeir
Digital library

The Online Experience Group is increasing its focus on enabling content creators to author clear, concise content for the new website. While an exact date is not yet set, technical developments are progressing at a pace that will soon allow content creators to access the site, update existing content and build new pages. In the spirit of laying “fresh eyes” on current content and developing good habits for continual content review and updating, we recommend the following e-resources on writing effective web content.

New Subject Guide design coming soon!

January 20, 2012
by Ray Heigemeir
Digital library

The Online Experience Group has been working hard on a proposed new design for subject guides. Subject guides are envisioned as tools to help users navigate a broad or specific subject area and to identify key SULAIR specialists.

We carefully considered how the website redesign would impact the many and varied subject guides. Based on user studies and subject specialist interviews, the proposed subject guide model is intended to provide maximum flexibility for providing content within a visually consistent, branded framework; and to support maximum ease in content creation, organization, and maintenance. The guide model strives for a simple, intuitive design, with support for media, automatic feeds, and custom design within a standard framework.

Six personas (user categories) were developed, each with specific needs. The new design intends to meet the needs of each of these user types:

Tell us what you think!

December 7, 2011
by Ray Heigemeir
Digital library

Hello all!

This is just a friendly reminder that the new SULAIR website preview is available for your viewing pleasure! We have begun receiving valuable comments which will inform our continued building-out of the site. We encourage the Stanford community to continue sending in requests, comments, complaints, questions, and praise. The feedback link may also be accessed on the preview site. Happy exploring!

Website Preview and Testing at the Library Open House

November 9, 2011
Digital library

The new library website had a table at the Library Open House, at which we did some light-weight testing and previewed a live test site to visitors. It was a big success in that the table received approximately 50 visitors, 21 of which participated in the live test. The breakdown of testers included:

  • 10 undergraduates
  • 4 graduate/professional school
  • 3 lecturers/instructors/visiting scholars
  • 2 library staff
  • 2 other SU staff

Testers were directed to a laptop and asked to perform 3 to 5 common website tasks. Charles Kerns introduced the tasks and recorded whether or not it was successfully completed. All tests were recorded using Camtasia so we can replay them as videos and analyse how testers navigated the site to accomplish common tasks. The following is a list of some of the tasks we tested:

New Visual Design - Hours & Locations

October 7, 2011
Digital library

We are excited to share with you a preview of another section of the new library website. We are especially proud of the new look for Hours & Locations, which makes this critical information much more accessible to patrons. Moreover, this redesign leverages Drupal's content management function to provide library staff with a much simpler, more streamlined back-end process for gathering and displaying hours and location information.

Library Website Development is Right on Schedule!

September 6, 2011
Digital library

The work is divided into month-long "sprints". Sprints are intense work cycles in the Agile software development methodology. During these cycles, stakeholders and developers agree on priority tasks and functionality for each sprint.

Sprint 1 includes:
* getting the development website up and running
* implementing the website "theme"
* creating home, about, project, ask us, and search pages

Traveling Road Show Update

September 2, 2011
Digital library

The Online Experience Group has been busy reaching out to groups all across SULAIR to present exciting information about the website redesign project. In these hour-long visits, we have presented hot-off-the-press glimpses of the look and feel of the new design, sketches of new pages and functions, and the timeline of the work ahead. But most importantly, we have had the opportunity to discuss the redesign progress with interested library staff who have shared important insights, suggestions, and reactions.

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