Lessons for Working with Professional Designers

Dartmouth College 5th Annual October Conference for New England Librarians

October 25, 2001

Holly Grossetta Nardini, Service Quality Support DirectorKaren Reardon, Manager of Workstation Support

Yale University Library

That Was Then…

....

Why Work with Graphic Designers?

• More polished look• Cost effective• Can help avoid political pitfalls• But . . . there are some challenges and we

learned some lessons . . .

Determine Division of Labor

• Decide what work the designers will do and what work the library will do.

• Library Committee organized feedback from library staff.

• Library Committee examined dozens of web sites.

Establish Design Principles

• User-oriented vs. staff-oriented

• Easy to use• Minimal library jargon• Information provided

from a variety of paths• Limited “clicks”

between home page and content

• Hierarchy provides structure

• Elegant and distinctive • Images do not convey

meaning • No visual metaphor

Communicate Frequently with Designers

• Early meetings focus on thoughts and ideas.• Later meetings focus on reviewing drafts.• Give concrete feedback.

Insist on User Testing

• Focus on function over form.• Test user response to graphics, wording and

functionality.• Front Door Redesign Task Force

Look at the Big Picture

• Yale University• Research Workstation• Yale University Library

This is Now….

Establish Technical Requirements

• Avoid technologies that load slowly or require plug-ins. No Frames!

• Pages must work on a variety of browsers.• Pages should display well at 800x600

resolution.• Pages must be W3C compliant.

Understand the Programming Process• Understand who will be coding the pages.• Remind the programmer often of your web

server environment and technical requirements:– Web Server Software– Operating System– Programming languages supported

Test the Code Early

• And test it often….• Switch from reviewing static design to

testing actual code early.• Remind designers often of technical

requirements.• Outline specific technical do’s and don’t’s

(such as… easy on the funky Javascript).

Use Easily Available Fonts

• Conform to university standards for fonts where possible.

• Remind designers of your workstation environment.

• Make sure the fonts can be obtained from usual sources.

Get Involved in Specific Design Decisions

Make sure graphic choices are appropriate for their location. Flaming women falling from a tower or images of beheadings can be deemed inappropriate!

Make Your Site Easy to Maintain

• Provide templates for a variety of sub-pages.

• Hide complicated code (for example, Server Side Includes).

• Build in a mechanism for universal page updates.

Questions?

• Holly Grossetta Nardiniholly.nardini@yale.edu(203) 432-9449

• Karen Reardonkaren.reardon@yale.edu(203) 432-4099

• http://www.library.yale.edu