VALA2024 Concurrent Session 04 Armitage

Journeying into user empathy: the UoM Library’s quest to understand and transform the online library experience

VALA2024 CONCURRENT Session 04

Tuesday 9th July 2024, 3:05-3:35pm

Hannah Armitage

  • User Experience Specialist
  • University of Melbourne

Presentation

Abstract

This paper presents a two-year user research project that investigated the way the University of Melbourne (UoM) Library users interact with digital library resources. By employing in-depth user interviews and observations, a series of user archetypes emerged from the research. Positioned along a scale reflecting the users’ information and technical literacy proficiency, these archetypes surpass conventional user profiling, capturing the subtleties in how individuals discover, access, and engage with library information. This paper will take you through how this framework
was used to shape the online library environment, reflecting the user perspective into the library culture and overall library experience.

Biography

With over a decade in the user experience (UX) field and four years dedicated to library UX, Hannah Armitage brings extensive expertise. While well-versed in various UX areas, her true passion lies in research, enabling her to unearth the whys and how’s behind problems to craft practical, effective solutions.

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International.