Remember that Library Podcasts you Might Find Useful post of mine from a few weeks back? Well … I was just  interviewed on one of them!

The Bibliotech podcast, one of the five podcasts from Dquarium, interviewed me. I chatted with Kayhan B., Erin Anderson, and Doug Mirams, and we had a fun, interesting chat about the social web, new media, and the importance of well-designed library websites and digital branches.

Here’s the embed of the show (or better yet, just go subscribe via iTunes):

Bibliotech 10: Digitized and Virtualized by dquarium

Not familiar with Bibliotech? Here’s what they say about their show: “Libraries have always been the backbone of any information society. Bibliotech is an audio podcast that discusses all things digital technology at our libraries. Hosted by Kayhan B., Erin Anderson and Doug Mirams (with occasional guests).”

So far, they’ve interviewed me, Michael Stephens, Sarah Houghton, Jan Dawson, and have talked about a variety of technology and web-related topics. Check it out!

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SuHui Ho – digital services librarian, UC, San Diego

She gave a solid general overview of Google Analytics

Why web metrics?
- Hit count is misleading

Help decisions on:

Content life cycle management priority
- Which pages should I update first?

Information architecture

Top tasks
- Which pages on homepage

She is saying you can find your most popular content, then make sure that stuff is on your main page. I would change that slightly to say make sure those pages are easily findable – the main page isn’t as important as it used to be

********************

Jeff Wisniewski

Google analytics: goals and funnels

Goal – the page a visitor reaches once they have completed a desired action
Funnel – the (optimized) steps along the way to the goal

You can track where, along the way, people fall out of your funnel – then figure out how to fix that

Jeff gave an example from his library’s website then walked us through the process of setting up a goal and funnel in google analytics

Give your goal a good, intuitive name – this shows up in reports later

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Sarah Houghton – librarianinblack.net

#1 – where to put your websites.

WordPress. Blogger. Drupal – not really where your website goes… Squarespace – not free, but cheap.

#2 – images.

Gimp. Image editing program.
picasa – edit and host images.
Picnik – simple editing that most people need. Connected to Flickr
Flickr – great place to host, find cc-licensed photos
Pictobrowser – great slideshow for images
Openphoto – free images – high quality

#3 – hot topics

Addictomatic – info gathering place Sarah’s library used this for a local city emergency

#4 – make ur codez priteez

Beautify JavaScript – helps make code pretty – also CSS beautify

#5 – surveys and polls

Google forms – simple and easy
Polldaddy – easy polling

#6 – slider

Wow slider – web based image rotator/slider

#7 – translate

Google translate – easy, adequate.

#8 – remote assistance

Log me in (logmein) – remote access to your pc or Mac – there’s a free version. This is a very quick tool. I sends an email asking for permission to access the other persons computer

#9 – wireframing

Balsamiq – gives pre-made parts and pieces

Wow – 40% of Sarah’s library web traffic is mobile

#10 – testing your mobile stuff

W3c mobileOK Checker

#11 – stats

Google analytics

#12 – Skype

Great place to talk to users, to staff, etc

#13 – social management

Tweetdeck
Namechk – searches dozens of sites to find names that you can use

#14 – webcasts
Slideshares zipcast – works great.

#15 – video

Jaycut – browser based editing tool
YouTube – they have online editing too
Animato
Xtranormal

#16 – audio

Audacity
Podbean – great place to host audio

#17 – learning environments

Moodle

#18 – infographics

Visual.ly

#19 – librarything

#20 – the google

Google plus has some potentially cool stuff…

Helios – from the audience
Cheap calendar … ?

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The Creative Group

In my last blog post, I mentioned my library’s Creative Group. What is that, exactly?

My library decided that Public Relations and the web team did a lot of similar things, and needed to work together. PR routinely creates print ads, newsletters, posters, banners, and PR campaigns. The web team does much the same thing, just online. Why not collaborate up-front, so the message online and in-print is the same?

And hey – while we’re at it … both teams are highly creative. What’s not to like about schmushing two creative teams together into the same physical space, to see what happens?

So we stuck both teams into the same work space. We also started holding regular weekly meetings. So every week, our three PR staff, two web developers, me, our Programs Supervisor, our Digital Content Librarian (new position that’s part of Public Services), the Deputy Director, and sometimes our library director meet. Anyone else in the library is invited, too.

What do we do? We talk about projects. Last week, we talked about our Personalized Reading List service – we’re reworking the form and the page the form lives on. The staffer in charge of that service and the Public Services Manager came for that part of the meeting. We also talked about creating some database widgets (did you know database vendors like Gale and EbscoHost have widgets now? Who knew?), guest posts for book reviews, and a new blog we’re creating.

So what do you think? Is it helpful for PR and the Web team to meet regularly? It’s sure been helpful for us!

And – boring pic by me, using my Instagr.am account. Follow me at davidleeking on instagr.am if you’re interested!

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During my library’s last website redesign, we went through quite a few design iterations, and we still weren’t happy. Two people in our Creative Group team (more on that in the next post) … ok, our head of marketing and the deputy director … kept sending us website examples they liked. Sites like shoe stores or clothing shops. Yes, they were beautiful websites, and nicely designed. But they weren’t really all that similar to a library website.

One big difference – these attractive websites did one thing well – they sold shoes or clothes. They didn’t have any catalog to speak of. The websites were full of single pages that pointed to single items.

But a library website has at least two basic needs – a site that talks about the library, and shares useful stuff. And we have a library catalog. So it didn’t really make much sense to me to base our library website design around a site that only does half of what we do.

So I started poking around, looking for websites that focus on two things:

1. stuff, like a storefront.
2. a “catalog” of some sort.

Amazon and Zappos? Pretty much all catalog. News sites? Pretty much large multi-blog sites – focusing on stuff. Then it dawned on me – library websites are like Apple. Apple essentially has two separate websites – the main site that focuses on their stuff, and their “catalog” – their online store.

We based our redesign around Apple, in these ways:

• Top horizontal navigation with drop down menus. We also found some “nav bar inspiration” at NPR’s website.
• Focusing on a single large ad, then a couple of smaller ones, then more detailed content below that – based on many of Apple’s pages. This directs customers to a few things that you REALLY WANT THEM TO DO, while still having easy access to everything else.
• A prominent link to the store. That’s where you’d click “Find Stuff” to get to our three catalogs (catalog, digital downloads catalog, and DVD dispenser catalog).

So far, it’s working out great – few complaints, lots of compliments. Our public trainers have told us they cut down training on how to use our website from an hour to 10-15 minutes. Fingers crossed that it stays that way for a while!

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Last week, I focused on three questions every webpage should answer. The questions were:

1. What can I do here?
2. What should I do next?
3. Why should I care?

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One more question every webpage should answer – #3: “Why should I care?”

This one comes from my library’s Executive Director, Gina Millsap. Another way to ask this question is “Why would I want to do that?” or “What’s in it for me?”

This is where your PR, marketing and promotion skills come into play. Why? Because you need to sell your content to your customers.

Selling? I hate selling – I’m a librarian, for peet’s sake!

Yep – I get that. But just putting information about something up on a website doesn’t mean people will attend that event, read that blog post, or check out that book. Sometimes we need to go a bit further, and work on convincing our customers to take those next actions I talked about in my last post.

The goal on a website is to move people from point A to point B – from reading a book review to actually checking out the book, for example. This isn’t selling as in “smarmy used-car salesman” selling … but it IS a form of selling, and a good organization learns to do this – on posters, in person, and even on our websites.

Answering “why” can be as simple as a brief explanation on why something is useful. For example – why should I apply for a library card? Because you get to read all your favorite books, and check out movies … for free! And you have already paid for it anyway (via taxes).

Look around your website, and see if you are answering the “why should I care” question. If not – rework your content so this question is answered up-front and often.

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A couple days ago, we looked at the 1st question every webpage should answer: What can I do here? Today, let’s look at the 2nd question I think every webpage needs to answer: What do I do next?

This question is #2 for a reason. Question #1, What can I do here?, is pretty important – that’s the main focus of the page, after all. But once your webpage visitor has done that thing – read that article or filled in that form – they need to know what they can do next? Good webpages direct those next actions.

Here are some examples:

• When you have finished reading this blog post, you’ll get a list of related blog posts at the end of the article. Those suggestions (created via a WordPress widget) are next actions.
• In my library’s catalog (catalog.tscpl.org), if you do a search and don’t find anything, you get an Ask a Librarian chat button (assuming we’re open). “Need help? Click the Ask Us button to chat” is a next action.
• Amazon is the King of Next Actions – each page is full of the “main event” – buying the book. But there are other, alternative next actions there, too – like adding more books to your order.

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Ever visited a webpage, then looked around, wondering “what can I do here?”

If you have … that web designer failed!

I think every webpage should answer the question “what can I do here?” either visually, or by spelling it out:

• Visually: design in such a way that the stuff you can do on a page, like clicking a button, filling in a text box, or even just reading or watching content, is extremely noticeable. Amazon does this by using complimentary colors that “pop” out on the page. They often use blue as a header or sidebar color, but the buttons they really want you to see (ie, the “buy now” button) are orange – a complimentary color.
• Spelling it out: Use words, colors, graphics, etc to “spell it out” for people – tell or show website visitors what to do on the page. For example, we try to do this at my library’s website. The main page directs people to “Get a Library Card,” “Donate Now,” “Find Stuff,” “Ask a Librarian,” or Subscribe to our blog posts. People know what to do on our site, because we direct them.

On your library’s website, do people know “What can I do here” when they visit the main page? How about the catalog page, the “you didn’t find anything” page, or on your blog? At the comment box? On your Facebook Page even?

Think about it … and make sure to answer the question “What can I do here?”

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Today’s web is the “modern web” – css, HTML5 coming soon, websites designed with grids, lots of functionality. Yes-sirree, this is the modern web.

Just like this was a modern car:

This “modern car” could’t move fast enough for today’s modern highways (top speeds of 40-45 mph), wasn’t automatic, and didn’t have a/c, radio, or an iPod hookup. Or windows, for that matter. But I’m guessing that to the buyer back then, it was a pretty modern car, and a major change for them. They had to figure out the details of the change – i.e., what should we do with Bessie the horse? Where do we park it? Where do we get gas? How do we maintain it?

My point? That’s where the web is today – roughly 20 years after the first web page went online, we have today’s “modern” web. It certainly looks pretty modern to us, much like those cars from 1927 probably looked to the buyer.

Guess what? Much like that Model T … I don’t think we’re done yet. With websites or with libraries.

Car photo from Wikipedia

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