Ramsey County Library Website Redesign

Description:

Our project was to design a better website for the Ramsey County Library system. Their current design has many usability problems. Since the library is not looking to change its backend interface for the library catalog we are focusing on the other areas of the site. These include: Maps and library information, Events and event registration, and news and other online resources.

The five tasks we considered:

• The user is new to the area and wants to find directions to the closest Ramsey County Library.
• The user would like to find and register for a beginner computer class at their local library
• The user wants to find online resources about computers through the library's website.
• The user would like to find times to bring his/her children to a storytime reading at their local library.
• The user has a busy schedule and would like to quickly find which libraries are open before noon on Wednesdays.

The intended users of our project are people living in Ramsey County who use the library system.

Benefits and Drawbacks:

Website design has a lot of tools out there for you to work with. For the most part the coding isn't going to be too complicated, and there are ways that non-computer science students can help with it. It also helped that the website we were redesigning started off so poorly. That does have some drawback too as it makes it a little too easy to find problems.

One unexpected drawback was the fact that even though the library was about to embark on it's own redesign effort, the management was not willing to confer with the team. Finding a website that has owner benefit will enable the team to feel like they are able to make a difference.