This is part of a series of Session Notes from grantees who have received Professional Development grants from the Office of Commonwealth Libraries. Each grantee will share their professional development experience and include tips and other resources from the workshop or class. Grantees had their choice of an article for the Compendium, a webinar or a podcast. This project was made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Zoe Chao

by Zoe Chao

The Designing for Digital (D4D) 2017 took place in Austin, Texas from April 3^rd to April 5^th with approximately 100 attendees. This is the third year of D4D conference. It is coordinated by the same team as the Electronic Resources and Libraries (ER&L) conference in response to the growing interest in user experience (UX) in the library. I have been fortunate to be part of the conversations of UX in D4D for all three years.

As usual, D4D brought in stellar keynotes. During the opening keynote, Cyd Harrell talked about her work in the US government as a UX designer. In her example, she showed how something as basic as a mortgage form redesign can help applicants have a better experience in the process. It was also fascinating listening to Manuel Clement’s closing keynote in which he talked about his previous work on Self-Driving Car and current Virtual Reality UX design at Google. The concurrent sessions and workshops cover the topics of service & space design, UX in practice, organizational strategies, and the future of UX. I was inspired by the work of other libraries and came back with a number of amazing ideas I cannot wait to try.

The main takeaways from the con-current sessions I attended can be summarized as following:

• UX is everywhere. UX design is not just for the website. From the moment that our patrons step into the library, attend an instruction session, or open a library account online, the UX begins.
• Institutions need to integrate UX into the organization planning to provide users an inclusive, consistent and uncomplicated experience with libraries.
• UX studies come in many flavors. It can be analyzing data from surveys or having conversations with users. It can be large-scale and comprehensive, or agile and flexible. The goal is to create opportunities for us to get to know our users in their context.

I had two presentations accepted this year—one about the UX Café which I spearheaded at the Penn State University Libraries (PSUL), the other about the studies the Assessment Department at PSUL has done for the upcoming space renovation. I was really fortunate to present my UX Café during the first day’s morning session. Because of that, I was approached by many attendees to discuss more about the idea and the implementation of UX Café throughout the conference. It was an exciting experience for me to talk to so many like-minded UX librarians. I can see myself continue sharing ideas and collaborating with many of them in the future.