Interns Focus on ALA Website’s Human-Computer Interface

March 9, 2010

Three interns from the University of Michigan recently completed a one-week stint at the American Library Association  where they wowed the staff Web Editorial Board with presentations of their projects related to improving the “human-computer interface” of the ALA website—"in other words, improving its usability and making its riches more accessible," as Karen Muller, ALA Librarian and co-chair of the WEB put it. 

 Maurini Strub presented the results of her project on "High-Level Round Table Content Analysis & Navigation Plan,"  Jane Leibrock talked about her "Best Practices in Content Management at ALA" project, and  Aditya Doshi spoke about  "Revealing the Hidden Gems: Converting PDFs to Web Pages."

The University of Michigan School of Information's Alternative Spring Break internship program ran March 1-5, and in one week the students managed to formulate some surprisingly insightful recommendations for how the ALA website could be more user-friendly and efficient.

Strub focused on the ALA round table subsites, which have been created and maintained by volunteers whose main priority has been their content, and not cross-site usability. She did a high-level analysis of the types of content on the 17 subsites to identify shared topics so that a plan for consistent labeling and left navigation of the sites can be developed, and, if possible, a remote asynchronous card-sorting test can be used to engage round table members in the project. She delivered a left navigation plan to reflect legitimate differences in the round tables' needs.

Leibrock's project addressed ALA's need for a concise guide to best practices for publishing in a Web 2.0, social networking world that documents appropriate workflow and best practices for web content creation and publishing. She collaborated with a staff social networking task force, which will be wrapping up its work soon.

For his project, Doshi chose the Emerging Leaders materials and converted the Office for Human Resource Development and Recruitment's most significant downloadable PDFs into web pages with appropriate markup and metadata. He worked with ALA’s Senior Usability Officer Louise Gruenberg to fit the resources into the information architecture of the site and to make and carry out a navigation plan so that the materials are now more visible on the website.

"Working with these students was a pleasure," said Gruenberg.  "They are so knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and self-directed."

 

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