Tweeting and compiling guidelines

I am back home in Melbourne after being in Brisbane last week for ALIA Access 2010 (see my photos on Flickr). I didn’t really hear anything about LibGuides (or subject guides in general) while I was at ALIA (possibly due to the streams that I attended: the New Grads stream and Library Camp), but I did learn a little about Twitter. People tweeted their questions and thoughts throughout the conference (using the hash tag #aliaaccess), and the organisers of library camp displayed Tweet Deck during the break-out discussions. I also had lunch with a few librarians who mentioned that they use Twitter as a personal learning network. So I plan to try tweeting about my experiences for the rest of the Information Project (as kjlindsay) in the hope that it will keep me motivated and that I might get some feedback and advice from other librarians! (I have also added my Twitter stream to the banner on the side of this blog).

I feel a little worried about having lost a week while I was in Brisbane, but have been working hard today and started writing up my literature review. I have taken my supervisor's advice and approached it by writing a series of questions as headings, and the one I was working on today was: ‘How should a subject guide be designed so that it is user-friendly?’. After sifting through my notes and combining the guidelines from several articles and websites some of the main points that I’ve gathered are:

• Less is more:
• Avoid overwhelming the user by minimising and breaking-up the content. Scrolling is bad. Bulleted lists, sub-headings, boxes and columns are good. Link to websites that have more comprehensive information if necessary.
• Be consistent:
• Consistency in structure and appearance, both within a guide and between guides from the same institution is important. Templates can help with this.
• Use images & icons:
• Photographs, screenshots, book covers, database logos and icons can break up the text, make the guide more appealing and help trigger students’ memories.
• Give important resources prime real-estate:
• Students often choose the most prominently placed resources, so don’t order resources alphabetically, order by importance or usefulness.
• Try not to use library jargon:
• Provide a glossary for common library/research terms.

From:

• Interdisciplinary collaboration: A faculty learning community creates a comprehensive LibGuide
• Reaching Out with LibGuides: Establishing a Working Set of Best Practices
• Usability in the Library: LibGuides Reports, from the University of Michigan
• Research Guides (LibGuides) Usability Results, from MIT Libraries
• LibGuides: 9 Steps to Better Usability & Design at Boston College 
• Making Research Guides More Useful and More Well Used 
• 21st Century Readers' Aids: Past History and Future Directions
• From paper to electronic, the evolution of pathfinders: a review of the literature
• Cognitive Load Theory and library research guides