Card sorting in the library's grassy room
Yesterday was one of the most challenging days this year. We didn’t have to code anything, we didn’t have to solder anything, but we had to speak with people! We are currently in the user research phase of our service design class where we are designing for libraries. Earlier in the year we had a week long course on user research during which we found ourselves in elderly homes trying to speak to people suffering from dementia. But strangely enough, talking to average people in the library and on the street seemed more challenging.
The challenge probably results from the fact that our project is so wide open right now. Since we are still exploring, it is difficult to know what to ask people. This means our questions are not focused and we find ourselves having casual conversations. It is not always easy to keep those conversations going when you are approaching strangers.
Because our group was somewhat weary of this, we prepared two different activities to help spark more interesting conversations. Once we got the hang of this, our day became much easier.
A young girl's sketch of how she perceives the library
The first activity asked people to make quick sketches of how they perceive the library. The results were nice and provided a conversation starter, but we still felt like we were not learning anything new.
More card sorting
The second activity was much better because it helped guide a longer conversation about different topics, a lot of which went beyond the library. We gave the participants three place mats (book store, library, internet) and a bunch of small cards with keywords on them. We asked the each person to place keywords on the place mat it best described. We were less interested in the final layout of keywords than we were about asking them about their choices along the way. We also included blank cards and allowed them to write their own keywords.
Compiling the results back at school
These conversations were much more rich and much more natural. It might also be worth mentioning that it was Sid, Eilidh and I conducting these activities. This seemed to be the perfect amount of people (one lead, one photographer, and one note taker). Back at school we organized our notes and photos for each person we spoke with. Hopefully after another session or two of this kind of research, which we plan on doing outside of the library, we will be able to identify specific problem areas that will make for an interesting service design project.
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