A Return to the Lanes

Almost exactly three years ago I visited Melbourne for the first time. I'm back now to see my six week old nephew but I'm also having a well deserved break. 

I took the time today to revisit Melbourne's famous Lanes where graffiti is legalised and transcends the tags and vandalism seen elsewhere in the world. This is street art covering whole alley ways with layer upon layer of additions overlapping and interconnecting. 

Amidst the large scale work there were some smaller gems to be found, pulling from current affairs and containing their own messages despite the lack of context. As would be expected of street artists the trend was anti establishment and anti cataplism but it's the dark humour that I find most appealing

UX Readings - Libraries and beyond

After a recent plea forrecent articles of library UX I realised I probably had a list of fairly recent ones that would be of interest to others, although with hindsight many are about space and aren't necessarily true UX.

Bear in mind that some of these are pay walled and I accessed them through our University subscriptions, so availability may depend on whether you belong to an institution with access. 

My main focus when searching for these articles was to explore something I've started calling social independent learning - a phenomenon  which we see with our own UX work at  Southampton and which it turns out is recognised elsewhere under different guises.

Planning library spaces and services for Millennials: an evidence-based approach


EunYoung Yoo-Lee, Tae Heon Lee, LaTesha Velez, (2013),"Planning library spaces and services for Millennials: an evidence-based approach", Library Management, Vol. 34 Iss 6/7 pp. 498 - 511
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/LM-08-2012-0049

A Really Nice Spot”: Evaluating Place, Space, and Technology in Academic Libraries

  Michael J. Khoo, Lily Rozaklis, Catherine Hall and Diana Kusunoki, (2016)
 "A Really Nice Spot”: Evaluating Place, Space, and Technology in Academic Libraries" , College & Research Libraries, vol. 77 no. 1 51-70.
http://crl.acrl.org/content/77/1/51.abstract

User experience (UX) in libraries: let’s get physical (and digital)

 Appleton, L., (2016). User experience (UX) in libraries: let’s get physical (and digital). Insights. 29(3), pp.224–227.
 http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.317

 Collecting Space Use Data to Improve the UX of Library Space 

Gullikson. Shelley, Meyer, Kristin, (2016)  "Collecting Space Use Data to Improve the UX of Library Space" Weave: Jopurnal of User Experience, vol 1 Iss 5.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/weave.12535642.0001.502

Those of yopu who are interested  may also like to follow up on the recent Northern Collaboration User UX Exchange - I believe many of the slides will be made available online and it was tweeted under #nclxux Or have a have a look at this blog post from York.
http://libinnovation.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/ux-led-changes-at-york-and-beyond.html
 

True Colours, Silver Linings

This month I've been working to the brief of silver, a colour that has proven more tricky than expected. I thought that  metallics would give me lots of scope with reflection but I've been struggling all month to find inspiration or enthusiasm. 

So little to shout about with this post, although the month has brought a silver lining of a different type in the form of a new nephew.