Internship @ Berea College: Day 56-57 (Entry 56-57)

I finished the abstracts for the virtual tour section of my professional readings. Here is the tread for these readings:

User-centered design and purpose are the two main points and important factors in making virtual tours.

Making a virtual tour in a user-centered design fashion keeps the users in mind. All questions about the look, the navigation, the technology, and how to map the virtual tour to fit the concepts of "map" and "tour" come back to the user. The purpose also comes back to the user. In addition, questions about what to include for content and what directions to take for the design come back to the purpose.

Both work together to help create the design of a virtual tour. For example, one tour was made for international students (Downing, Arthur, and Leo Robert Klein. (2001). A multilingual virtual tour for international student: The web-based library at Baruch College opens doors. College & Research Libraries News, 62(5), 500-502.). The purpose was to make a tour that would help orient international students with the library, as well as attract future international students.

Once the user and purpose are clear, the design process can begin. We had to make decisions and come back to our users many times in the process of designing the virtual tour. Making sure that we knew who the users were and what the purpose was made it easier to focus on what needed to happen with the design.

The purpose of the tour is to act as a navigation tool, as well as an instructional tool for the library. Students are the primary users. Deciding to include a pop up link for the stacks section of the map fit well with our purpose. We wanted to make sure the students could navigate to the book they wanted or would be able to learn/browse call number sections. Therefore, several decisions were made: (1) include the Dewey breakdown in the description and a link the the Dewey pdf, (2) separate each stack into the general sections (like 200s for religion), (3) include a pop up for each section that will allow people to keep their place on the stacks page, as well as get a closer view of that section with the call numbers for each row in the section so the person would know which row their book was in or what rows a specific call number was needed for browsing.

The purpose and user-centered design are the foundation for the design. Both can be edited throughout the process after more discussion. However, it is a part of the design process that take a while and needs to be done right or it will hurt the design in the long run. They are the two pieces of information that inform the design. You cannot start coding without knowing what the design is suppose to do and look like. Everyone needs to be on the same page in order for the design to work together, and these two points will make sure everyone is talking and thinking mostly the same thing when it comes to the design.