Redesigning Back office librarian tools
Goal
Redesign the Inspire-HEP librarian back-office tools, improving efficiency and usability for librarians managing the platform's extensive high-energy physics data
Impact
Reduced costs by 60% by redesigning the UI and introducing automation.
The new user-friendly redesigned back office tools attracted 3 new partner institutions that signed collaboration agreements with CERN.
Role
Product designer
Product Manager
Process
Goals
INSPIRE is managed by librarians in the INSPIRE collaboration: CERN (Switzerland), DESY (Germany), Fermilab (USA), IHEP (China), IN2P3 (France), and SLAC (USA) and it has been serving the scientific community for almost 50 years. Librarians used it was used every day and were very efficient and familiar
Enhance Librarian Efficiency: Streamline workflows to reduce the time and effort required for common tasks like record management, metadata editing and data curation.
Improve Data Quality: Facilitate accurate and consistent metadata creation and enrichment, leading to higher quality data within INSPIRE.
Increase User Satisfaction: Create a user-friendly and intuitive interface that meets the specific needs of librarians and enhances their overall experience with INSPIRE.
Understanding the users
In order to understand the current landscape, I conducted the following:
Analysed existing user data (quantitative user research).
Conducted heuristic evaluation.
Interviewed users from partner laboratories in USA, China, Germany, France and Switzerland and observed walkthroughs to understand how librarians work day-to-day (qualitative user research).
Heuristic Evaluation of INSPIRE librarian tools
Heuristics Used: Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics
Areas Evaluated: Record management, Metadata editing, Data curation, Collaboration features, User interface
Findings:
Match between system and the real world (Heuristic #2):
Issue: Metadata editing interface uses jargon and technical terms unfamiliar to some librarians.
Recommendation: Use clear and concise language in the interface, avoiding technical jargon where possible. Provide tooltips or explanations for specialized terms.
Consistency and standards (Heuristic #4):
Issue: Inconsistent terminology and visual cues across different sections of the librarian tools.
Recommendation: Establish a consistent design language and terminology throughout the interface to improve learnability and reduce confusion.
Recognition rather than recall (Heuristic #6):
Issue: Librarians need to remember complex codes or IDs when linking related records.
Recommendation: Provide visual cues or search functionality to help librarians easily identify and link related records.
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors (Heuristic #9):
Issue: Error messages are vague and unhelpful, providing little guidance on how to resolve the issue.
Recommendation: Provide clear and informative error messages that explain the problem and suggest potential solutions.
Prototype
Prototype, Test and Reiterate
Addressed pain points raised by the user research:
Reduced number of clicks by 20%
Introduced new UI that allowed users to have clear labels per field, prioritized the view of the most common fields and added pdf preview that allowed users not to go back and forth between systems.
Introduced user friendly form that both librarians and authors could use to submit their papers.
Introduced error panel that guides users to potential solutions.
Design based on existing invenio UI framework.
Final design
Back office editing tool (before redesign):
Activities
User research
Heuristic evaluation
UI Design
Prototyping
Tools
Figma
Back office editing tool (after redesign):
Team
While redesigning a back-office product, I learnt to:
Address change aversion: Introducing a completely new interface for INSPIRE’s librarian tools initially met with some resistance. To address this, I co-designed with librarians: they participated in workshops, provided feedback on prototypes and tested iterations throughout the design process. This collaborative approach fostered a sense of ownership and helped identify potential concerns early on. Furthermore, I actively cultivated relationships with influential librarians who became advocates for the new system within their community, easing the transition and encouraging wider acceptance. We also implemented a phased rollout, allowing librarians to gradually transition to the new system while providing ongoing support.
Don’t just visually modernize the interface: Deeply understanding the librarians' mental models, workflows and pain points was crucial. Simply replicating existing functionality in a new design wouldn't suffice.