Friday, May 18, 2007
Web 2.0 hype
This week's AL Direct has a link to a great article in BBC News written by Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen (you can also check out his Web usability site, useit.com). In the article, Nielsen describes Web 2.0 as "the latest fashion" and warns that pimping your web site with too many bells and whistles and personalization tools can end up making sites "glossy and useless." Nielsen warns that before we add these Web 2.0 hoo-has to our web sites, we should make sure our sites meet the basic principles of Web usability and design that have been established over the last decade.
This rings a bell for me not only in terms of our web site, but also in terms of our library automation vendor. Is it worthwhile for me me to provide RSS feeds to patrons when they can't even figure out how to search the catalog and get results successfully? (And no, it's not their fault! It's the fault of our crappy OPAC and the overly-technical language we use to describe the process of search -- language that makes sense to no one but librarians.) Does it make me feel good knowing that when I can't find something, I go to Amazon to find it first because I know Amazon is much quicker and more forgiving than my own library catalog? (No! I would much rather use our library catalog, if it was capable of doing the things that Amazon does, with the style that Amazon has.)
I'm not saying that I don't think there are lots of wonderful ways we can use technology to pimp our libraries and our library catalogs, but let's think about fixing the basics first. Our OPAC sucks. Fix that, make that easier for our users to navigate, and maybe then I'll think about adding an RSS feed or whatever other cool tool is coming down the pike. Vendors, hear us! (Check out Jessamyn West's OPAC manifesto.)
¶ posted by Mary Martin @ 9:24 PM
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I couldn't agree more and bravo! As you know, I love all the 'bells and whistles' but there really isn't much point when we can't do the basics first.
AND, let me remind you of your call to everyone to STOP SAYING DATABASES! I think that is another very important CHANGE that must be made, like yesterday!
Rock on!
AND, let me remind you of your call to everyone to STOP SAYING DATABASES! I think that is another very important CHANGE that must be made, like yesterday!
Rock on!
It depends on what Web 2.0 means to you. To me, Web 2.0 is harnessing the thinking and decisions made by millions of web users to create a more intelligent and useful product. google was the first, with their algorithm that was primarily based on the linking decisions of millions of web page authors. The tagging sites (del.icio.us, flickr, etc.) are another example. Wikipedia is a third.
This isn't "bells and whistles" and flash rather than substance. These are sites that leverage the enormous activity on the web to deliver products of value.
It is precisely because it is a Web 2.0 product, in this sense, that Amazon can provide better results than your OPAC. It can draw on the activities of the millions of people using its site to generate intelligent search results that drive the more relevant to the tp of the list.
Or so it seems to me. YMMV.
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This isn't "bells and whistles" and flash rather than substance. These are sites that leverage the enormous activity on the web to deliver products of value.
It is precisely because it is a Web 2.0 product, in this sense, that Amazon can provide better results than your OPAC. It can draw on the activities of the millions of people using its site to generate intelligent search results that drive the more relevant to the tp of the list.
Or so it seems to me. YMMV.
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