UX • Microsoft has an internal library for its employees to use -- it's actually pretty cool with a lot of useful content, subscriptions, and run by people who are passionate about helping employees make the most of it. For this assignment, I worked with another UX designer and together we looked at the old version of the library, parsed out some analytics of use, worked out personas and scenarios, built basic wireframes, presented, revised, presented more advanced wireframes (moving from Balsamiq to Powerpoint as the wireframing tool), and revised until we got somewhere that both design and the librarians could be happy about.
Scenarios and personas: who are we designing for? In order to get a good idea who our users are, we developed personas and scenarios for those personas. We worked closely with the librarians for this.
Old library design • The old design presented everything with the same level of importance.
Actual usage • Fortunately for us, the library was built on SharePoint, which tracked clicks. We had to take this information with a grain of salt because we were using data from a design that wasn't really promoting what should be promoted: information about premium services like Lexus Nexus and a thoughtful help chat, actually staffed by the librarians. Still, some of the metrics were worthwhile, such as the search and My Library Items.
Rough wireframes • Once we had an idea of what the user would benefit most from, we started with very high level wireframes and tested them.
More detailed wireframes • Every round of testing brought a clarity to direction as well as allowed us to begin added in more details.
Dailed-in wireframes • Finally, we made more detailed wireframes to present. These became the last step of our design process. The final results would go to another designer to match current standards. The main task is search with the information under it supporting a browse experience. On the right is the a column for help and individual account info.
Search results
Item detail page
Help page