FUTUREReimagining the User Experience in Archives PASTS Pasts Future 1 ©2019 ArtCenter College of Design All rights reserved ISBN 978-0-578-43161-1 (Print) ISBN 978-0-578-43162-8 (Digital) 4 Introduction About this Book / The Collaboration of Designers and Librarians 10 Approach Strategy Diagram 16 Immersion Understanding the World of Archives / Activities 32 Insights Insights / Personae / Information Architecture / Prototyping 44 Synthesis The Processing Table / Annotations / Curated Collections / Timeline 70 User Feedback Quotes from Students / Advisors / Users Pasts 74 Conclusion Summary / Final Tips Future 2 3 Pasts Future Introduction Future Pasts class field trip Los Angeles Public Library Special Collections How do artists, designers and librarians work together to craft the art and design archive of the future? Pasts Future How can we use emerging 4 interactive technologies to mine the 5 information, heritage and work in Pasts ArtCenter’s archives? Future These questions led us to reimagine the user experience of the archives-an initiative we call Future Pasts. The resulting projects include approaches to crowdsourcing, search strategies, digital/physical materials, managing backlog and crafting new interfaces for discovery. These projects may themselves be inspiring and useful to other institutions but we feel it is the methodology, mindset and activities that will support other teams in their own work. This set of tools and case studies aims to guide designers and archivists through the process of working together on any project. Future Pasts is the culmination of an ArtCenter College of Design project partially funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) titled “Reimagining the User Experience in Archives and Special Collections: Best Practices for Library Collaboration with Designers.” The project was a collaboration between the ArtCenter Library and the Interaction Design Department that centered around a 14-week design studio where the students, faculty, and archivists applied a design approach to develop new methods of access. Librarians and designers share some common goals; they both aim to create accessible, informative experiences that variously delight, educate and satisfy a wide range of audiences. Yet they also face a set of shared challenges; how to leverage new technologies, understand the needs and desires of the people they serve, meet new audiences, and work creatively within dwindling budgets and resources. Pasts The challenges facing librarians and archivists are complex ArtCenter Archives ArtCenter College of Design Future and varied but so too are the opportunities. Innovative The book is primarily for librarians and archivists, who want to perspectives, new tools and collaborations can bring together apply design methodology to projects aimed at improving the 6 human-centered design with an archivist’s expertise in a 7 user experience. The approach we present offers a framework structured empirical process to create services and programs. and the case studies show examples. Readers are encouraged to Building on existing creative approaches to expanding libraries’ expand on these ideas to develop their own access tools. Pasts missions, we address specifically how designers and archivists can work together and how emerging technologies can be Future We also hope to provide valuable insights and tips to designers harnessed to improve access. and students of design. The use cases presented took place in a classroom, but reflect real world designer/client relationships. Since user experience was at the forefront of our planning, Since designers often work with clients from different it was a natural fit to collaborate with the Interaction Design disciplines, the descriptions of how we collaborated can Department. Interaction Design at ArtCenter focuses on the be useful. user experience by studying how people think, feel and behave when they encounter any product, environment or system. Transportation Design photograph collection ArtCenter College of Design As working professionals, ArtCenter faculty Our Future Pasts class followed a Classic Design Process. The Observation triggers new ideas, and starting from observation structure studios with many similarities to faculty team structured a range of activities to help students of real-world needs and behaviors avoids creating ideas based their own practices in industry. deeply immerse themselves into the world of archives. on assumptions. Students derived important insights and Approach synthesized them into specific design concepts that were tested with real users. January 2018 march 2018 april 2018 Project Kickoff Midterm Final Presentation Design Process Getting Started Inspiration Ideation Iteration Demonstration Future Applications Pasts Future 8 9 Pasts Future Immersion Insight Synthesis User Feedback Activities Scavenger Field Trips Personae Key Insights Expert Input Strategic Prototyping Play Test Hunt Understand Understand Identify the Get feedback Identify the key interactive With your Be an the range of the different most prominent from people in elements to build intended user archive user contexts kinds of users user needs the field Pg 33 Pg 52 Pg 16 Pg 20 Pg 28 Pg24 Pg 60 Our project team consisted of two project directors, two In our pilot, we worked with a class of undergraduate students It may be tempting to skip to the final prototype ideas, but faculty members to teach the class, four librarians and a faculty who had no background with archives. While there were instead we encourage you to work through the following member to act as advisors and three external advisors to help advantages to working with new users there was a learning sections first. Some of the user personae and insights will guide the project. The external advisors included an archivist, curve to quickly understand the intricacies of archives. be similar, but you will likely come up with new ones that fit special collections librarian and a software engineer who all your institution. And while we hope the prototypes will spur approached it with fresh eyes and very specific skill sets and interesting conversation, you will undoubtedly come up with Tips! experiences. your own innovative ideas. Pasts Determine length of project Future Run a pre-project Outline project timeline The methodologies presented here can be used It is important that a timeline is established with 10 Assemble the team for small projects with a short timeframe or larger 11 The project team should consist of core staff plus brainstorm session midterm and end goals. This will help keep everyone projects. Regardless, all of the steps should be taken, others who have an interest and would benefit from Given that new projects require staff time and on track. but you may spend more time on certain areas. the project, such as library patrons, staff from other resources, consider running a short brainstorm Pasts For example, a project aiming to improve physical departments, and faculty. It is also highly desirable session before committing to it. Invite the people collection displays may need less time for the Future to invite external advisors and collaborators to help directly involved and also other staff members and immersion phase than a project to incorporate data guide the project. Define responsibilities and roles for collection users. This will help shape the project and visualization to archival finding aids. Also, in some the team members, such as project director, content bring up issues you probably had not considered. cases you may already be familiar with, and need less creator, programmer, advisor, etc. During the planning phase we held a design charrette with archivists, librarians, design faculty, grant time to develop, various personae of people who use writers, and students to begin developing the areas your collections. we wished to explore. We talked about access to archival collections, brainstormed ideas, identified challenges, and defined terminologies. Having different constituents in the room was crucial to better understand everyone’s perceptions about access and the user experience. ArtCenter (Europe) Holiday Card ArtCenter College of Design Immersion Pasts Future 12 13 Pasts Future One of the key factors in designing for a particular context, is how well the designer understands that context. It is important for designers to be open to observation (without assumptions) while learning about a new domain they’re designing for. “Being the user,” or engaging in the standard activities of a system, provides the opportunity to experience first-hand the way a system works, both good and bad. Talking to experts and real-world users, and visiting similar systems, gives insight well beyond what one can experience first-hand. The class objective of improving access to archives uncovered a range of overarching issues and opportunities. Conduct an exercise Create broad topics to explore Have the project team and a group of users do an User experience with digital collections Before coming with up solutions and prototypes, it Many archival collections that were once hidden from public exercise that demonstrates real world use. Depending is important for everyone on the team to understand view are now available online. Archival reference has drastically on your project, an exercise could take the form of a the subject area. Start by having a discussion changed, as has the user experience. Users are not only number of things such as navigating a new website about