Using UX approaches to create LGTBQ + Health LibGuide at the University of Ottawa (UofO)
Victoria Cole, Research Librarian, University of Ottawa
Purpose: To create a LGTBQ+ Health LibGuide for students and researchers at UofO. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, it is important that users’ perspectives and experiences are considered in the creation of this LibGuide. For these reasons, the author applied User Experience (UX) methods and best practices from the library discipline. Methods: To guide the development, the author used a variation of Hasso-Plattner Design Thinking Process (Dam, n.d.) . The steps are described below. Understand and Define the Problem To understand the problem, the author interviewed a Librarian at Dalhousie University on her experiences in creating one of the first LGBTQ+ Health LibGuide in Canada. The author reviewed the Stevens and Fajardo (2021) article, where the objective was to determine how common LGBTQ+ Health LibGuides are in academic and hospital settings . The author conducted a content audit of ten LGBTQ+ Health LibGuides (Dalhousie, UofM, McMaster, McGill, Queen's, University of Saskatchewan, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Harvard, University of Michigan State, Yale). Through this process the author defined the problem: 1. LibGuides contained an abundance of resources, borderline overloading one’s cognitive load 2. No standard information architecture was used in LibGuides on this topic To address the first problem, the author conducted further analysis using data from the content audit. Excel and Open Refine was used to identify common resources across the ten LibGuides. The author verified that these resources were still current (ex. links weren’t dead) and are available in UofO’s collection. This then, generated a preliminary list of common resources on LGBTQ+ health. Ideate and Design At the time of writing this submission, the author will be conducting a UX workshop in the coming months, with students and researchers from the community using semi-structured interview approach. A deliverable of the workshop is a prototype design of the LibGuide. This will be done by: • Participants validating the list of resources from the content audit and can suggest other resources. • Conducting a card sort with participants. The card sort will determine what structure should be used to categorize resources, which will address the second problem listed above. Participants at the UX workshop will also help brainstorm promotion and dissemination methods for the completed LibGuide. Final design will be done after the workshop guided best practices from the library discipline for creating LibGuides. Testing of the final LibGuide will be done with focus group participants through email feedback.
References
Dam, R. F. (n.d.). 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process. The Interaction Design Foundation. Retrieved January 23, 2022, from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process
Stevens, G. A., & Fajardo, F. J. (n.d.). LGBTQ+ health research guides at North American health sciences libraries: A survey and content analysis. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 109(3), 406–413. https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2021.1189
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