Information users and usability constitute the main building blocks of today's electronic information world. This important new text is the first to give a holistic overview of all of the necessary issues relating to information users and the usability of information services in the digital world, including user-centred design, and the characteristics and behaviour of information users. This book helps readers understand why information users and the usability of information services are important and equips them to play a proper role in designing user-centred information systems and services and to properly exploit information services for the maximum benefit of users. It covers all of the major issues, the current situation and what the various research studies from around the world show.

Whether you’re designing consumer electronics, medical devices, enterprise Web apps, or new ways to check out at the supermarket, today’s digitally-enabled products and services provide both great opportunities to deliver compelling user experiences and great risks of driving your customers crazy with complicated, confusing technology. Designing successful products and services in the digital age requires a multi-disciplinary team with expertise in interaction design, visual design, industrial design, and other disciplines. It also takes the ability to come up with the big ideas that make a desirable product or service, as well as the skill and perseverance to execute on the thousand small ideas that get your design into the hands of users. It requires expertise in project management, user research, and consensus-building. This comprehensive, full-color volume addresses all of these and more with detailed how-to information, real-life examples, and exercises. Topics include assembling a design team, planning and conducting user research, analyzing your data and turning it into personas, using scenarios to drive requirements definition and design, collaborating in design meetings, evaluating and iterating your design, and documenting finished design in a way that works for engineers and stakeholders alike.

Digital information is a constantly developing field. The first title in the Chandos Digital Information Review series, Trends, Discovery, and People in the Digital Age, summarises and presents key themes, advances and trends in all aspects of digital information today, exploring the impact of developing technologies on the information world. This book emphasises important contemporary topics and future developments from a global perspective. Dynamic contents by leaders in the field respond to what is happening in the field of digital information literacy, and anticipate future developments. Topics include: the future of digital information provision; Enquire; cloud computing; building an information landscape; e-books and journals in a changing digital landscape; discovering resources; citizens and digital information; data-management; community usage patterns of scientific information; software citations; the future of data curation; JISC; Skills Portal; the future information professional; university library and information services; academic libraries and their future; and impediments to new library futures. - Covers major aspects of contemporary digital information provision - Provides practical advice - Structured so that each chapter stands alone while contributing to a coherent overall text

An authoritative and truly global exploration of current research in digital libraries. Internationally-renowned academics discuss what has been achieved with digital libraries and what we can expect in the future through the prism of research. The increasing number of digital libraries in all sectors and the pressure of ever demanding and diverse user needs has encouraged development of user-centred interfaces, intelligent search and retrieval capabilities, effective metadata description and contents organization. In addition to the two editors who are renowned for their works in digital library research, this collection brings together established international names in the field to analyse these developments in relation to users and information access and the future trends and challenges that practitioners will face. Readership: LIS students, academics and researchers interested in digital libraries and access and those developing, managing or just starting out with digital libraries

If you want to provide an information service that truly fulfils your users' needs, this book is essential reading. Analysing and assessing the information needs of clients is key to the provision of effective service and appropriate collections in both face-to-face and virtual library services. The importance of information needs analysis is widely recognized by information professionals, but currently there is little substantive, detailed work in the professional literature devoted to this important topic. This new book is designed to fill that gap, by supporting practitioners in developing an information needs analysis strategy, and offering the necessary professional skills and techniques to do so. It will offer guidance to team leaders and senior managers in all areas of library work, especially those involved in collection management, service provision and web development, and is equally applicable to the needs of academic, public, government, commercial and other more specialized library and information services. The text adopts a hands-on, jargon-free approach, and includes relevant examples, case studies, reader activities and sources of further reading. Key areas covered include: - what is information needs analysis? - how is needs analysis conducted? - what are the varieties of needs analysis? - how are analyses evaluated and reported? Readership: The book will be essential reading for library and information practitioners, team leaders and senior managers. It will also be a core text on course reading lists in departments of library and information studies.

"This 10-volume compilation of authoritative, research-based articles contributed by thousands of researchers and experts from all over the world emphasized modern issues and the presentation of potential opportunities, prospective solutions, and future directions in the field of information science and technology"--Provided by publisher.

Advice from the experts on how to justify time and money spent on usability!

This landmark text captures a global cross-section of leading voices and provides a clear and coherent overview of the user studies domain and user issues in digital libraries. As the information environment becomes increasingly electronic, digital libraries have proliferated, but the focus has often been on innovations in technology and not the user. Although user needs have become a popular concept, in practice the users are rarely consulted in the development of services. Research and analysis of users is essential to fine-tune the content and approach of digital libraries to the diverging requirements and expectations of incredibly varied communities and to ensure libraries are effective, accessible and sustainable in the long term. Key topics include: • what is the place of user studies in digital libraries and what are the basic user study methods? • explaining user-centric studies, information behaviour and user experience studies • exploring user-study methods such as surveys, questionnaires, expert evaluation methods, eye tracking, deep log analysis, personae and ethnographic studies • critical issues around user studies such as evaluation of digital libraries, digital preservation, social media, the shift to mobile devices and ethics • user studies in specific types of institutions: libraries, archives, museums, audiovisual collections and art collections • the most popular questions and what to do next. Readership: Information professionals involved in supporting, developing or designing digital library services, researchers wanting to address the user dimension in their work and students on LIS and computer science courses who want to understand the importance of the user in information services.

Effectively assess whether any library is making good use of the reference/user service resources available today Libraries need to develop standards by which they can assess their individual performances in a larger context, and Assessing Reference and User Services in a Digital Age makes significant contributions to this ongoing discussion. The book addresses its subject matter via approaches ranging from case studies of individual libraries to general discussions of best practices. The contributors explore the impact of the Internet on the field of evaluation, focusing on electronic reference and instruction. They highlight current issues, present research results, and offer expert advice on how to assess online reference and instruction. All chapters are well referenced to facilitate further study, and many include tables, appendixes, checklists, and other helpful features that make difficult information easy to access and understand. The chapters that make up Assessing Reference and User Services in a Digital Age are as rich and varied as the backgrounds of their authors. Experienced researchers provide the results of studies conducted to determine the nature and effectiveness of the online reference services offered by various libraries. Practitioners and administrators from different institutional settings (academic libraries, public libraries, consortiums, etc.) provide their perspectives on the issues facing librarians who need to assess the electronic services they provide. In this important new book: Andrew Briedenbagh shows how a chat service can be implemented and suggests which data should be collected for it Buff Hirko examines VET: the Virtual Evaluation Toolkit Ruth Vondracek shares the experiences of a university library as it entered a statewide e-reference consortium, and offers advice and issues to consider before entering such a partnership librarians from San Jose State University present a model for evaluating electronic reference services that can be used in public or academic libraries Kathleen Kern discusses holistic evaluation chat transcripts are addressed in several chapters, including Joseph Fennewald’s comparisons of question categories, Lesley Moyo’s analysis of the use of instruction in the virtual environment, and Caleb Tucker-Raymond’s proposed set of quality measures for chat reference Laurie Probst and Michael Pelikan report on the use of a Tell Us What You Think button to gather user feedback Kristi Nelson and Catherine L. Ross examine a research study that asked library school students to submit a reference question online and report on their experiences Melissa Gross, Charles McClure, and R. David Lankes suggest measures to determine the cost and benefits of a virtual reference service librarians from Utah State University describe the development of their online instructional module Assessing Reference and User Services in a Digital Age is designed as essential reading for library administrators, public service librarians, and researchers. It provides general advice for practitioners as well as an examination of research results and methodological issues. We urge you to consider making it part of your professional or teaching collection today.

"A huge investment has been made in digitizing scholarly and cultural heritage materials through initiatives based in museums, libraries and archives, as well as higher education institutions. The 'Digital Economy' is an important component of institutional planning, and much attention is given to the investment in digital projects and programmes. However, few initiatives have examined the actual use, value and impact of digital collections, and the role of digital collections in the changing information environment. As the creative, cultural and educational sector faces a period of restricted funding, it is timely to re-examine the use of the digital collections that have been created in the past twenty years, and to consider their value to the institutions that host them and to the communities of users they serve. This book brings together a group of international experts to consider the following key issues: What is the role of digital resources in the research life cycle? Do the arts and humanities face a 'data deluge'? How are digital collections to be sustained over the long term? How is use and impact to be assessed? What is the role of digital collections in the 'digital economy'? How is public engagement with digital cultural heritage materials to be assessed and supported? This book will be of interest to academics, librarians, archivists and the staff of cultural heritage organizations, as well as funders and other key stakeholders with an interest in the development and long term sustainability of digital collections."--Publisher's website.