Card sorting 

Tree testing

Results from the card sorting and tree testing can be found on: T:\Library Planning and Development\Projects\Old Projects\Projects 2019-20\5.7 Library website Phase 2 (Aug '20)\1 - Project Planning - Card sort exercises

The lessons learned document from this project can be found at T:\Library Planning and Development\Projects\Old Projects\Projects 2019-20\5.7 Library website Phase 2 (Aug '20)\3 - Project Closure

We listened to feedback presented to us by the NUSU Equality Officer regarding the logging off time of the PC's and the time allowed before belongings were removed from desks at busy times. The students wanted to increase the time from 15 to 30 minutes.

• Good to work collaboratively with the SU Welfare Officer and NUIT on the campaign.
• Campaign looked at the issues concerning students during busy exam times in a holistic fashion rather than in silos. Saying that, the behaviours we were advocating could be pushed throughout the year, and this was helped by the images used which were distinct and could stand alone, but included the “StudyWell@NCL” tag line which brought them under the campaign umbrella.
• It would have been good to have more time between the theme being introduced and presenting work to the SU – there was still a lot of content produced after this.

Social media - we showcased images of items from Special Collections over a month to gather comments and feedback about the site.

Marketing plan - consulted the Marketing and Communications group to help identify appropriate ways of promoting the website.

Collected comments and Top Tweets from @ncllibspeccoll Twitter.

Student consultation - Planning discussion with 2 Masters students to incorporate their ideas.

Exhibition talks - talks held for the Friends of the University to showcase the exhibition and gather comments.

Exhibition feedback forms - comments collated and discussed at regular exhibition working group meetings.

Exhibition toolkit - guidelines created as a 'one-stop-shop' for planning, designing and promoting exhibitions to ensure each one is consistent with the library's visual identity whilst staying true to Special Collections.

Dissertation written by one of the MA Museum and Gallery Studies students allowed us to see strengths and weakness of exhibition to learn from and apply to the next exhibition.

Exhibition feedback form comments inputted online onto the exhibitions feedback form and then discussed at Special Collections exhibition working group meetings.

Surveys - face to face: we put together a survey using the Form builder which members of the Student Comms team administered.

Surveys - online: we built and Instagram story/poll.

Observational studies had been carried out previously in some spaces

The survey results can be found at G:\Marketing and Communication\Feedback\Space consultation\Your Library Your Choice results

The student survey measured student preference for space at that point in time, and we realise this could change depending on the time of year. It would be useful to run this survey at different times throughout the year.

It would be useful to view these results against observational data that we have collected or could undertake to see if there is any correlation.

 Using the Instagram Poll facility enabled us to gather feedback online as well as face to face. The Instagram Poll was relatively new at the time and better understanding of the stats offered would have been helpful (reach vs. impressions for example) but as a quick overview, it was still handy.

Exhibition talks - talks held for the Friends of the University to showcase the exhibition and gather comments.

Exhibition feedback forms - comments collated and discussed at regular exhibition working group meetings.

Exhibition toolkit - guidelines created as a 'one-stop-shop' for planning, designing and promoting exhibitions to ensure each one is consistent with the library's visual identity whilst staying true to Special Collections.

Exhibition feedback form comments inputted online onto the exhibitions feedback form and then discussed at Special Collections exhibition working group meetings.

Focus groups - we organised groups of students in the library, and went out to Staff/Student Committee's to find out what they thought of our current policy on loans/renewals/charges, and how they would feel if we changed it.

User interviews - we talked through our change proposals to small groups and individuals to garner their opinions.

Polling function on University App - we asked the question how much would you be willing to pay daily if you brought a book back late that someone else needed, and how much do you think someone should be charged daily for bringing a book back late that you have requested?

The feedback results can be found in the folder:

G:Marketing and Communication/Feedback/Loan policy consultation

Gathering feedback on whether we should introduce automatic renewals from students was always going to be a tricky engagement process. Explaining how a quite complicated system could be made better to an audience who probably weren’t that interested as it meant little to them was hard, so face to face options were the best choice.

We tested the use of the voting app on the University app with a straightforward 3 choice vote on how much they would be willing to pay for an overdue book, and this worked very well.

Observational research - we observed how the students used the current space.

Tell Us What You Think - we analysed the feedback on TUWYT forms which related to space issues.

Staff/Student Committee (SSC) feedback - we went to SSC's to garner opinion on what they would like to see in the newly refurbished space.

The upcoming UX observations were publicized via posters within the Library, but not on the Walton’s social media channels as the social media channel was not being managed on a consistent basis. Furthermore, there were concerns about promoting UX taking place as there was no guarantee as to what the outcome might be and statistical data can easily be taken out of context and misinterpreted.

Students seemed interested in what staff were doing as they performed UX observations and information about the process was communicated informally. If possible in future, it may be helpful to promote upcoming UX campaigns via social media. This would depend on whether the information could be broken down enough to fit Twitter’s character limit or summarized within an Instagram post.

 The results of the UX surveys were not publicized on social media.

 It would be great to publicize the results of UX campaigns in future, as this might increase awareness, participation (perhaps to encourage volunteering for focus groups or individual interviews) and demonstrate to Library users as to what the purpose of the UX is. Something like Instagram polls might work well for this – for example, asking users whether they think Area A or area B is more popular, or what materials (laptops, headphones, etc.) are used in the Library more often.

 It’s hard to say whether this would actually lead to any meaningful engagement, but it’s a fun and easily digestible way of sharing the results of much hard work.

Whiteboard - a whiteboard was set up in the foyer of the Business School so students could write comments on what they liked/what could be improved about the pop up space.

We produced imagery for this but both Walton Library and Business School produced altered versions of it so the consistency of the message was perhaps not as strong as it could have been.

Observational research - to see how the students actually used the space we observed them over a period of time at different times of the day, and recorded this information.

Design your own 'YourSpace' competition - we asked the students to submit designs for how they would like to see the newly created space work.  

Online survey/poll - we asked the students what they liked about the current space and what they would like to see more of in the new space.

Space data powerpoint G:\Marketing and Communication\Feedback\Space consultation\space data

The idea of a “Design your own Your Space” competition was a really good idea, but students didn’t engage. We felt that students engage very well with competitions full stop. We have tried a couple of online ones too and they don’t seem to get much, if any, engagement from students.

Focus Groups - were used to ask students what they thought about the current information provision on academic skills and how it could be improved.

Survey - once the changes had been made, students were asked their opinion on the newly improved information provision.

The results of feedback can be found in the following location on G;

G:\Library Planning and Development\Projects\X Completed Projects\Academic Skills Project\Phase Three Consultation

Voting via touch screen kiosk - to determine the top 5 tasks users did online

Contextual inquiry - to see how they performed each of these 5 key tasks

Whiteboard and online poll - to find out what they loved/hated about the current online library.

A copy of the card sort results can be found on G: G:\Marketing and Communication\Feedback\Student web consultation\