Because homeschoolers are a resourceful bunch, libraries–as a bottomless well of resources–have the opportunity to play center-stage to this user-community. But do they? I spoke with a fellow homeschool mom to discuss how she currently uses the libraries in her area and to find out if she ever fantasized about an improved experience.
Based on Richard McManus’ article “5 Signs of a Great User Experience“, if the library were an app, it would be a total fail. The library user experience of a homeschool mom, broken down:
1. Elegant User Interface
My homeschool-mom-friend lives in a city with a county-run library. In fact, all of the cities in the county are run by the county (meaning no city has broken away to govern their own library, though a few have some pretty strong friends groups set up that greatly influence the user experience and tend to march to the beat of their own drum.) These latter libraries are the libraries homeschool mom prefers to use because the 3 closest libraries, including the one walking distance from her house and serving the largest city in the county, are far from “elegant.” They were built in the 50s and 60s and have barely been updated since. According to homeschool mom, they are plain and simply “uninviting.”
2. Addictive
Does the library solve a problem or serve as a pleasurable distraction for homeschool mom? Yes and no. The library obviously provides the content she needs to support her curriculum and therefore solves a problem, but “it’s hardly a pleasurable distraction, more like a necessary evil.” For a single-income family of 5, the free information and programming the library provides trumps the grumbly and grouchy employees she often encounters and the un-family-friendly seating options. In fact, she has sworn to never use the library closest to her home again because she does not feel that her youngest children are free to act like children in the library, even during family-friendly programs like toddler story-time. She claims she has “just never felt comfortable there.”
3. Fast Start
Is homeschool mom able to enter a library and use it “straight out of the box” (as Macmanus puts it)? Hardly. Even within the same county system, every library has a different set-up and set of policies. It’s not always obvious where holds are shelved or where the children’s area is located. Even with a county library card, each branch requires several stages of familiarization. I gave her Macmanus’ example of the Kindle Fire versus the iPad and she nodded along with the description of “time consuming and awkward experience for newbies,” equating the library with the daunting iPad.
4. Seamless
I asked homeschool mom if she ever had “consistent experiences” with the library and her (snarky) reply was that she doesn’t “use the library consistently enough to have a consistent experience.”
5. It Changes You
Has the library revolutionized the way she does things as a homeschool mom? Not really. She admits it adds some conveniences to her life: instead of having to buy books and materials from the store, she can borrow them for free, which has added more variety to her children’s curriculum. The children also get a change of scenery and free hands-on experiences, but doesn’t feel that these couldn’t be replaced with a trip to the park or a nature walk. The experience she values most are the educational guides the library’s website offers–there are a variety of tools broken down by age group all in one general area. Because she is 100% independent (i.e. not enrolled through a public or private school system) she is convinced that she would have never found several websites she uses daily to supplement her children’s studies if it were not for the library (I disagree, as there are a billion-and-one homeschool group websites with similar offerings, although I do appreciate the condensation of the library guide and trust the resources they advertise 100%.) The downside, of course, is that the there are pages and pages and after a few clicks, it is easy to lose the link you were most excited about discovering.
As a library & information science student, library employee, and a homeschool mom, it was disheartening to hear the negativity a colleague associates with her local libraries. But I couldn’t say that I blamed her. After listening to her complaints and hopes for her user experience (more daytime programming geared toward school-aged/homeschooled children, more maker-space & maker-activities, more inviting, cheery and comfortable space, more collaboration with outside programs and agencies that could aide her and her children’s educational journey, pleasant staff that understood that 2 year olds aren’t silent, energyless creatures, etc.) I couldn’t help but fire off Aaron Schmidt’s article “Putting the “You” in UX: The User Experience” to my supervisor (circulation supervisors have rarely taken library classes) to get the conversation going about how all employee and department actions and interactions effect the patrons’ user experiences. I find in my own library, we are often complacent to do things the way they have always been done due to MOUs and seniority, and are therefore serving the needs of the staff, and not realizing the needs of the community.
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