How Many Dimensions of Compatibility: Discovering What's Right for Your Users This was the keynote address at University of Houston Library's Discovery Day Camp on June 10, 2011. Some extra screenshots of admin interfaces have been added after the actual presentation.

1. How Many Dimensions of Compatibility? Discovering What's Right for Your Users University of Houston Libraries Discovery Day Camp June 10, 2011 Marliese Thomas Auburn University Libraries

2. x

4. Are you overly narrow or overly broad in your search criteria?

5. Are we shifting away from the idea of “marrying” our product decisions?

9. Flexibility in required staffing

10. Be more reactive to changing technology landscape

12. So, what next? Form a committee? Photo by hlehto. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hlehto/532099446/

15. Identify needed skills, then desired insights

17. Online surveys

20. Photo by Night-thing. http://www.flickr.com/photos/80327698@N00/4998726133/

24. Managing the flow of information

26. Regular communication with the higher ups

28. Unsolicited opinions

29. Ongoing development work

30. Error reports

32. Blogs

33. Email groups

34. Listservs

35. Shared documents (GoogleDocs)

36. Online forms

37. Bugzilla and Mercurial (for the programmers)

39. Tickets are created from emailed comments

40. It can also store committee documents and blog postings

41. Managed by our head programmer – no more bi-weekly roundtable meetings!

42. Note: This was a perfect way for the Auburn University Libraries group to transition the VuFind development project into maintenance mode.

43. Development is done, and you're ready to release the new search box.

45. Argument B: If we pre-narrow the field too much, will students realize their search results are essentially being edited before they are even displayed?

48. Not so great for undergraduate research

49. “Every technology has an interface... a place where you end and the technology begins. And when the technology's job is to show you the world, it ends up sitting between you and reality, like a camera lens.” Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble

50. You have to see where you're going to know if you're facing the right direction.

51. Marliese Thomas Librarian for Special Collections Technology Auburn University Libraries [email_address] 334.844.8171 Twitter @msthomas Slideshare: marliesethomas