The New York Public Library recently unveiled their new website design, and I must say that I’m very impressed by the amount of user research and testing that went into seeing this project through. The site is lively, colourful, and eye-catching, and the information architecture, labeling, and information flow all seem to have been designed with simplicity, ease of use, and findability in mind. Of particular interest is the “Getting Oriented” sections of the site that are tailored to new library users. They even made a video tour of the new site available to the public:
In looking at this video I was struck by one thing: the language used to describe some of the features is pretty technical and sophisticated, which leads me to think that either NYPL users are smarter than the average patron, or that this video is really meant to introduce the site to other librarians and library workers. For example, the narrator talks about how the site was developed to assist with “serendipitous discovery” and extols the site’s “digital galleries” and “archival materials”. The video even mentions that the site was built using the Drupal open source content management system. While these are fascinating details to me (because I work in web services and knowing about these things is part of my job), I wonder just how relevant those bits of information are to the average NYPL user.
It could be that the NYPL serves an audience that has a great deal more technical knowledge than most public library users, and if that’s the case they’re fortunate.