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Posts tagged with User Experience in Blog Library Tech Talk

Showing 1 - 3 of 3 items
Illustration of three people with thought or speech bubbles representing their survey feedback
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  • Ben Howell
How 1000+ Users’ Feedback Has Transformed Library Search
The second Library Search Benchmark Survey launched earlier this year and we gathered feedback from students, faculty, staff and library employees about finding and accessing materials through Library Search. We also measured changes in user satisfaction, ease of use, user challenges and wins from our first survey in 2022. Participation from users outside the library grew significantly and responses helped us identify clear and actionable insights we’re excited to share and act on in the coming year.
Sample results from the library's default "Everything" results screen showing three results from the Catalog, Articles, Databases, and Online Journals search areas.
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  • Ken Varnum
Improving Search Results Display
LIT’s Design and Discovery department received generous support from an anonymous donor to fund a Library User Experience Research Fellow position. Our first fellow was Suzan Karabakal, a master’s student at the U-M School of Information. She investigated and recommended changes to the way Library Search presents results. Suzan conducted user research to identify specific changes we could make to improve our “Everything” results screen and search results for Catalog and Articles.
Two screenshots of the Plain Language Medical Dictionary before the updates showcasing the features of searching the dictionary by a single word or by paragraphs of text.
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  • Josh Salazar
Bringing Images and an Accessibility Focus to the Plain Language Medical Dictionary
In 2024, updates to the Plain Language Medical Dictionary (PLMD) included big improvements for accessibility and user experience, plus adding support for images. We fixed contrast issues, unclear icons, and missing labels to meet WCAG 2.1. Search also got smoother, and instructions are now clearer. In addition, we added image support with JSON updates for URLs and alt text. With our legacy hosting environment shutting down, we moved the PLMD moved to GitHub Pages as part of the project. This provides better stability and automatic updates via GitHub Actions.