Introduction

In 2020, Weave published my research article, “Structuring and Supporting UX Work in Academic Libraries” (https://doi.org/10.3998/weave.12535642.0003.202). In it, I examined various ways that academic libraries structure and support user experience (UX) work, and I identified some structures and supports that seemed to have a positive impact on both users and UX workers. Two years after applying those findings to restructure my own position, I did not feel I was having a positive impact. I wondered if I had misunderstood or misrepresented my research participants. I decided to check in with some of them to see where I might have gone wrong.

The Original Research

In the original project, I interviewed thirty UX workers in five countries who worked in a wide range of academic libraries (serving 800 to 50,000 students and 6 to 460 library staff) and who had a range of UX experience (6 months to 18 years). Interviews were about an hour long, and participants also filled out a short questionnaire about their libraries and experience with UX work—see the article’s appendices for questions.

I described how UX work is structured in academic libraries using a variety of facets that combine in different ways. I looked at particular facets in more depth where there were striking patterns in the data, including where participants spoke about either formal or informal supports for their UX work within their libraries. I discussed how the types of UX work, supports for UX work, and impact of the work differed across facets, and concluded that a few structures and supports seemed to “make a positive difference to UX work and the people who do it.” Those structures and supports were:

• UX groups, such as formal UX departments, committees or working groups.

• Helpers—informal groups of colleagues who do UX work together.

• Many colleagues involved in UX work.

• Authority to implement changes or ensure that others do.

• Moving beyond web UX.

• Concrete management support.

UX work can definitely happen without those things; informal UX work carried out by enthusiastic library workers can lead to many positive changes, and this can be a great way to start UX work in a library. However, formal structures and supports are necessary to create the conditions for impactful work and worker well-being over the long term.

The Research Findings

Part of my motivation for doing this research was to learn how best to restructure my own position, so I could be effective in my UX work. At the time, my job was limited to web-related UX work, and I very much identified with the research participants in similar roles who felt isolated, frustrated, and a bit sad. For more details, see the transcript of my conference presentation “Web Librarians Who Do UX” (https://shelleygullikson.wordpress.com/2020/10/19/web-librarians-who-do-ux-access-presentation/).

I worked with managers in my library to revamp my job description to include UX work beyond the library website. The library created a new UX Committee to support this work and ensure that many colleagues would be involved with UX work. This certainly felt like concrete management support. But two years in, I didn’t feel like the UX Committee was effective, and I didn’t feel like I was effective. Had I implemented my findings wrong, or had I got the findings themselves wrong?

Reflections with Research Participants

Re-interviewing thirty people was too large an undertaking, but I thought I’d contact about half, assuming that some would not be interested or available. I contacted sixteen of my original participants, and all of them agreed to a half-hour informal interview to reflect on the article, specifically the structures and supports that I’d concluded were “what works well.”

I conducted the interviews over Zoom and Microsoft Teams in the winter of 2022–23. These were not formal research interviews; I engaged in the conversation rather than just asking questions and recording the answers. I also asked specifically for their thoughts on collaboration and UX work, as I was preparing a talk for the 2023 UXLibs conference whose theme was collaboration.

All of the participants said that the findings still resonated for them. No one seemed to think—or was willing to tell me—that I’d gotten it wrong. They agreed that working with colleagues and having management support was important, and that UX work cannot be done in isolation. One participant expressed surprise that people who focus on web UX “felt more sad and isolated,” as they had personally found it easy to do web UX work and implement changes. Another said, “It may not just be UX work. It may be difficult to be the only specialist in anything. If you’re the only one doing the work, it’s not surprising that you would feel a bit sad and isolated.”

One common reaction was that participants were relieved to read that they were not alone in their struggles to do impactful UX work. One said, “It was really affirming and helpful to read through those findings and to understand that there are perhaps some external factors that were impacting my ability to be effective; it wasn’t necessarily just me.” Another said, “To hear that you’re not alone—it isn’t good, but it’s reassuring.” A third said, “In a way that makes me feel, well, I shouldn’t say better, but it makes me feel less alone. But it’s also a bit depressing. I wish things were better elsewhere.” I ended up calling my 2023 UXLibs talk “It’s Not Just You” because of these reactions. Much more detail about what I heard from the sixteen people I spoke with can be found in the transcript of that talk (https://shelleygullikson.wordpress.com/2023/06/19/more-than-just-working-together-reflections-on-ux-work-and-collaboration-or-its-not-just-you-uxlibs-plenary-talk-june-2023/) and in my entry in User Experience in Libraries Yearbook 2024.

Discussion

Upon reflection, I think that the broad findings of the article stand up. UX work requires collaboration, so it’s important to do the work in concert with colleagues. There has to be some ability to make changes based on user research, or else there is no point in doing the work in the first place. Focusing on web UX is not going to improve the overall UX of the library, and this constrained focus is likely to frustrate many UX workers. And finally, concrete management support is necessary to be able to involve colleagues and make changes to improve library UX.

However, I do think I over-emphasized the importance of UX groups, specifically UX committees and working groups. While people who are in UX departments do seem to have the positives mentioned in the article, the research was skewed by a few people who had UX committees and working groups that had been in place for less than a year. In their follow-up reflections, they indicated that the initial enthusiasm for these groups had waned, and early positive impacts had not continued. Despite the formal structure, these groups had stopped doing much work at all.

In the research article I noted that although the literature had a lot to say about the negative aspects of committees, my participants tended to experience those negatives whether they worked with committees or not. It was not that committees are intrinsically ineffective, but rather that having a committee would not help unless other supports were in place.

If I were to re-write the “what works well” section today, I would remove the first two themes (UX group, and Helpers if no UX group) and rewrite “Many colleagues involved” as “Many colleagues do UX work.” I would specify that the ideal is to have UX work as part of more than one person’s job description, but, at the very least, have many people in the library participating actively in UX work. How that is structured is much less important than having many people actively engaged. One person cannot be responsible for the UX of an entire academic library, regardless of their title or job description.

In my talk at the 2023 UXLibs conference (https://shelleygullikson.wordpress.com/2023/06/19/more-than-just-working-together-reflections-on-ux-work-and-collaboration-or-its-not-just-you-uxlibs-plenary-talk-june-2023/), I posited that perhaps the entire premise of my original research article was flawed because:

There is no structure or set of supports that will set us all up for success. We all work in different contexts. We all work with different people. What works for someone else might not work for you. What works for you this year might not work for you next year. Context changes. People change.