Library websites are notoriously hard to use. Librarians and library staff spend much of their time training our patrons to use our online tools, instead of helping to develop deeper skills. While our tools are often complex, they seem to have been designed for the computers they run on rather than the people who use them. This issue has rightfully come to the forefront of the library world in recent years.
The usual debate is between making our tools so simple that anyone can use them, or training our patrons to use the complex tools. But there is middle ground here. We can make our tools easier without losing the power that much of their complexity brings. But we need to shift the burden of teaching how to use the tools from our staff to the tools themselves.
In this presentation, I'll talk about what we can learn from fields like evolutionary psychology and video game design that will help us build helpful and powerful websites that people can actually use.
Solid! I think it sounds great. I saw an article recently about "the best interface is no interface", might be germane. I'll see if I can't find it.