by David Lee King on January 4, 2010
A couple months ago, I stayed at a hotel in Wisconsin with this sign … seems pretty useful, huh?
Except if you’re in room 429, like I was. I actually had to hunt a bit to find the room (it wasn’t obvious).
The point? Make sure to check your digital “signage” once in awhile. Make sure your labels and headings still make sense. Did you change the name of a room or a service? Make sure to change that name everywhere on your website, too.
Has your budget shrunk and you needed to drop a few databases? Make sure you removed those links on your database page (and any other page that mentions them, too).
Have you checked the driving directions to your library lately? At a previous job, I checked them out after starting, and discovered they were WRONG. So I actually hopped in my car, and drove around for awhile, taking notes of different ways to get to the library – and updated those directions.
Website maintenance never stops, huh?
Oh – and Happy New Year, too! I am looking forward to a fun, challenging 2010 – how about you?
Tagged as:
signage,
signs,
Web Management,
website,
website maintenance,
websites
by David Lee King on October 28, 2009
by David Lee King on September 22, 2009
I had a conversation with my supervisor (Rob Banks, Deputy Director of Operations at the library) a couple days ago, and thought it was worth sharing with y’all.
We were talking about our impending website redesign (yes, we’re at it again). I had sent him a rough draft of my redesign plan, and we were talking through it. He had been reading my book on digital experiences, and that had fired off some really cool thoughts about the concept of 3rd place for him… here’s what he said that made us start thinking:
“It’s not 3rd place – it’s The Place:”
- Typically, Rob has maybe 6 windows open on his computer while at work – email, a couple of work documents he’s working on, TweetDeck (ok – does YOUR deputy director have TweetDeck open constantly? Just sayin), and a couple of websites – usually including Facebook.
- He’s doing several things at the same time … but Facebook is always on, and he’s always connected to his Facebook friends.
- When he’s not at work, Rob has a Blackberry with a Facebook app – so Facebook is always on there, too. He can connect to Facebook whenever he wants to, no matter where he is.
- Rob can still be in his physical “3rd place” and (important point) STILL BE CONNECTED to Facebook and his friends.
- And that’s the idea that needs to be translated over to our library’s digital branch.
Our library websites/digital branches will probably never be a real 3rd place to people – and that’s ok. Instead of working towards that, let’s work harder to make this now-old phrase, “be where the patrons are,” a bit more seamless.
Rob can be in his 3rd place – but he is also constantly connected to friends/colleagues/family in Facebook at the same time. Facebook, in a way, has transcended the 3rd place to be “The Place.” It’s always on, always available to him, when he wants to be there.
Our library websites/digital branches can be like this, too! So… still developing, but this is definitely going in the redesign plan.
Thoughts? How are you “always there, always on” when patrons want to reach you?
Photo by javaturtle
Tagged as:
3rd place,
customer experience,
digital branch,
digital experience,
Experience Economy,
Third Place,
website,
websites
Some web designers, especially those with a marketing or graphic design background, say they want to build an experience – but their designed experience, no matter who the website is for, tends to be designed like a movie or a rockstar’s website – heavy on the Flash, on the intro page (complete with low-pitched ominous music), and it makes cute noises when you click on a link.
