Library Discovery
Making a more accessible and usable digital and physical library service for all visitors
Project
User Research /
Wellcome Collection
Responsibilities
Research programme and plan, workshop facilitation, research synthesis, user profile and journey map development, knowledge sharing
―
The Wellcome Collection is a museum and library attracting over 700,000 visitors per year. Driven by Wellcome’s vision to get everyone involved with science and health research; our product team was asked to create an engaging, accessible and usable museum and library digital services experience.
Previous research had shown that the service experience was optimised for experienced researchers, thus many students and the general public were struggling to access the library materials needed for their projects.
I proposed and led a generative research project with another researcher to understand the needs of novice library visitors and types of guidance they seek during the research cycle.
“I feel like you have to be a proper researcher to use your library”
– library visitor
Process
Designed a research programme based on research objectives and defined the scope of the project.
Organized and facilitated workshops with librarians and research specialists to understand current customer enquiries and support workflow.
Observed library visitors and their engagement with customer services.
Collaborated on contextual interviews to understand library users’ research workflow and their needs.
Engaged the broader product team to listen to, review or transcribe the interviews.
Synthesized the research data, shared key insights, and developed design tools to support the product team.
Research Methods
Observation of visitors and their service journey
Interviews with library users from multiple sets of user groups; university lecturers, artists, writers, and retirees
User Journey Map for Motivated Newbie
Outcome
Identified key user profiles documenting their service journey with key pain points and opportunities.
Validated users’ emotional barriers to physical and online services. Recommended collaboration across different departments to improve the end-to-end customer service.
Provided actionable recommendations for the product roadmap
Delivered valuable design tools; user profiles and journey maps used for product planning
