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Techniques for Helping the Public Serve Themselves

Techniques for Helping the Public Serve Themselves. Instructor: Cheryl Gould gouldc@infopeople.org An Infopeople Workshop Winter-Spring 2008. This Workshop Is Brought to You By the Infopeople Project.

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Techniques for Helping the Public Serve Themselves

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  1. Techniques for Helping the Public Serve Themselves Instructor: Cheryl Gould gouldc@infopeople.org An Infopeople Workshop Winter-Spring 2008

  2. This Workshop Is Brought to You By the Infopeople Project Infopeople is a federally-funded grant project supported by the California State Library. It provides a wide variety of training to California libraries. Infopeople workshops are offered around the state and are open registration on a first-come, first-served basis. For a complete list of workshops, and for other information about the project, go to the Infopeople website at infopeople.org.

  3. Today’s Topics • Train your customers to self serve • Criteria for usable help on paper • Audio as a self-serve tool • Video as a self-serve tool

  4. We Automatically Parse Visual Hierarchies • Good designs get preprocessed before thinking • What have we learned from • Newspapers • Books • Magazines • When the conventions aren’t followed it’s tiring for the user

  5. We Train Our Users • Not to read • Not to trust • No reliable written help • You build confidence if things work well and aren’t confusing.

  6. Design Guidelines for Visual Aids • Easy to see • Easy to navigate • Quick to scan • Accurate • Relevant • Clear • Complete (in relation to task)

  7. Usability in General • Make it look simple • Short • Self-explanatory • Clear and specific title big, bold and centered at the top of the page • Make the important stuff prominent • Size, weight, location, box or icon • Be consistent • Contrast brings attention – use wisely From Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug

  8. Content and Design Depends On… • Your audience • The purpose • Method of delivery • How important the info is and what alternatives the user has There is no one solution that will work for everyone!

  9. Save the Time of the User • No jargon • Titles large and specific • Use headings for easy scanning • Chunk to show logical tasks • Consistency • Watch for temptation to add • Omit unnecessary words Jobs or Employment Opportunities or Job-o-rama

  10. Writing in Bullets • Number things done in sequence • Bullet related items • List length three to six entries • OK to leave off punctuation • Parallel construction Written by Kim Long

  11. The fact that you know how to find information means that you're systematically prevented from thinking about information the way your users do.Mary Ellen Bates web.utk.edu/~wrobinso/531_lec_interview.html Youtube video on learning to use a book -youtube.com/watch?v=4pyjRj3UMRM&feature=related

  12. Graphics for Emphasis or Clarity • Draw arrows and boxes • Images • Screen shots • Prnt Scrn • Alt + Prnt Scrn

  13. Who’s Your Audience • Know your purpose • Design for end user • Test with non-library person

  14. Exercise #2 • Look over a piece of instructional material • you brought • one of the samples • look at your own library’s website for examples of instructions of any kind • On paper, improve it based on the concepts so far.

  15. Common Mistakes • Don’t bold and underline • ALL CAPS SLOWS THE READER • Use Title Case for Titles • Use sentence case for headings • use lowercase for sub-bullets • to show relationship • Be consistent with punctuation! • Poor chunking

  16. Theming Your Help Material • Consistency • Color • Size • Graphics • Placement • Test it with users

  17. Use Tabs • When there might be multiple things a user needs help with: • Internet • Printing • Catalog • Database • Like current web browsers

  18. Why Use Audio and Video Now? • Devices are small • Devices are inexpensive • No technical abilities required • Can get decent quality • They are easy to use • Customers have devices for playback

  19. Ways to Make Audio and Video Available to Users • On a device for in-library use • At a self-serve kiosk • Download from website to portable players • On a computer • from your library website • from a blog or podcast or media (youtube) site

  20. Phillips 1GB Flash Audio Player with Direct USB • $86.58 • MP3, WMA playback • Plug-and-play data storage with direct USB • Easy-to-read black and white LCD display • Built-in voice recorder • Digital FM radio with 10 station presets • Includes batteries and earbuds

  21. Common Audio and Video Formats • Audio • wav • mp3 • wma • Video • avi • mpg • wmv • mov

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