The Product
A mobile app for student workers, volunteers, and staff to help manage a range of common library tasks – from reshelving items to basic inventory. By replacing paper workflows, this product can save time and improve both efficiency and accuracy of the users' work.
My Role & The Team
As the Sr. User Experience Designer assigned to this task, I met regularly with the products Business Analyst and two primary developers. I was responsible for creating a functional prototype that was desirable, useable, and feasible. Additionally, I worked to provide stills of the prototype to the user research team to upload and perform usability testing with.
02 Discovering the Problems
- - Paper logs are arduous to maintain
- - Students may pull a book and place it on the cart for any number of reasons, it is easy to lose track of why an item was pulled from the shelf for review
- - The process of pulling a misshelved item and making sure it gets to the right spot are often two different workflows
03 Defining the Problems
I poured over research previously performed for this produce and I was able to gain the following insights:
- - Libraries need the ability to split lists of inventory across multiple devices so that more than one volunteer at a time is able to perform the shelf reading workflow.
- - Items may be pulled from the shelf for many reasons but the most common are:
- Missing label
- Damage to the item (such as water marks)
- Content that is outdated
- Item is misshelved (in the row but not supposed to be)
04 Defining the Main Problem
How might we empower student workers to feel more confident when checking shelves for missing inventory and inventory that needs to be recycled or relabeled.
05 Designing the Solution
Fortunately for me, I picked this project up in the middle of the concepts phase. Leveraging what was not working well with the original prototype, I was able to rethink the approach.
06 Delivering the Solution
- - Mark an item as on the shelf without issue
- - Mark an item for review – note the reason
- - Export finished list
- - Go to last marked item
- - Manage an unexpected item
CLICK TO VIEW THE INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
07 Testing the Prototype with Users
Unfortunately, due to the nature of my contract position I was unable to see the outcome of the usability test performed for this project. 😥
Recommendation
“I had the pleasure of being Courtney's manager as she transitioned in the user experience design industry. Her design thinking, strong collaborative and organizational skills, and focus on accessible design made her an immediate contributor that everyone enjoyed working with. When I think of Courtney, I think of the phrase, "A rising tide lifts all ships." I look forward to when we can work together again."
Binaebi Akah Calkins
Experience Design Manager at OCLC