Category: design thinking

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Prototyping 101

I created a mini guest lecture for this semester’s Innovation for Justice course, so thought I’d share it here. I cover:

  • Definition of a prototype: a visual representation of an idea
  • Value of prototyping: getting feedback, getting a team on the same page
  • Characteristics of a prototype: visual, imperfect, iterative
  • Examples of prototypes: paper, 3D representations, digital mockups
  • Considerations: audience, level of fidelity, goals

See also the slide deck with transcript.

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Advancing Student Success: A Design Thinking Workshop

I was honored to be invited to the University of San Diego in January to facilitate the annual retreat for the staff of the Copley Library. Dean Theresa Byrd was interested in something hands-on focused on user experience and design thinking that addressed one of their strategic priorities: student success.

Sharing the slides here.


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A Human-Centered Strategy for Advancing Library Value

I had the privilege of delivering the keynote presentation at this year’s Michigan Academic Library Association (MiALA) Annual Conference. I had been preparing this talk for a few months. I knew I would talk about library value (the theme for the conference) and how user experience practices could help libraries build upon and expand their impact.

I thought I’d share a couple images from my process in putting this together. I began by generating ideas around value we provide to different target audiences: learners, instructors, researchers, community, and campus.

whiteboard mindmap of ideas around "value" and audiences
Initial idea generation and mind mapping

I started working through my slidedeck, then paused to outline what I was trying to do. This was helpful in organizing my ideas and noticing gaps.

whiteboard outline of the talk: design thinking, audiences
Visual outline of the presentation

Here’s my final slidedeck.


Some of my key messages:

  • The mission of academic libraries is tremendous, so we are challenged to focus on what matters most.
  • We should focus where our organizational goals and our user needs overlap.
  • We can use design thinking as a guiding framework: understand, create, validate.
  • We can better understand our users and make user-centered decisions if continually build our capacity for cognitive empathy.
  • While building understanding, we should practice cultural humility and realize we will never be experts of another’s experience, only our own.
  • There are many emerging ways to advance student success by supporting inquiry and learning in a rapidly changing world. We can focus in on some of the things that matter most to students, such as:
    • belonging
    • health
    • financial stability
    • job preparation
  • There are also ways to excel researcher productivity by supporting creative endeavour, scholarly communication, and the global academic community. We can focus on what matters most to scholars, such as:
    • expertise
    • research data
    • publishing
  • For members of our community, we can support social, cultural, and economic impact. We can focus on things like:
    • lifelong learning
    • preparing youth
    • local economy
    • local partnerships

Overall, I really enjoyed this project and hope people enjoyed the talk.

If I were to do it again, I would find a way to incorporate empathy and understanding towards ourselves, both personally and as organizations. It can be overwhelming to think of all the possibilities of what academic libraries could be doing, and we need to be mindful of our own barriers and challenges as well as those of our end users.

Also, MiALA was a blast. Great conference. I learned a lot.

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Design Thinking & Strategic Mapping

3 library staff interviewing a student

Last fall, I was asked to help lead an ambitious, library-wide project. It aimed to reimagine our strategic planning process through an inclusive, human-centered, design thinking approach.  Having just moved into our library administration (from our technology team), it was a perfect opportunity to foster and support UX thinking across the organization.

With outside consultant Elatia Abate to guide us, over 117 library staff worked in teams to gather information, empathize with our end users, and iterate on solutions to grand “How might we…?” challenges. Library staff got to practice conducting user interviews, synthesizing findings, creating personas, and prototyping ideas. They also worked together with staff from other departments, building trust and long-lasting relationships.

I presented our work through a hands-on workshop at this year’s Designing for Digital back in March. Then in May, the University of Arizona Libraries unveiled one of the outcomes from this project: our new strategic map.

Slides from the March presentation, titled “Design Thinking for the Masses: Creating a Culture of Empathy Across a Library Organization”:


Or download the PDF.