Month: December 2023

	Powerhouse Museum	National Library of Australia	New York Public Library
Interaction	The powerhouse museum uses a Facebook page to interact with their users. This is the peak method for user interaction, as the organisation is able to instantly engage with their users through the comments, and users can directly message the organisation, asking questions and seeking clarification.	National Library of Australia uses multiple social media platforms to connect with their audience, with a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and an Email link provided, as well as a phone number. This allows users to approach interaction with their own preference. The site also provides readily available tabs to find information from the navigation bar, allowing users to quickly find relevant information, an improvement over the Powerhouse Museums pages.	The New York Public Library has the Big 4 of social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube), providing the ability to personally connect with their users. The main feature missing is the lack of a readily available online reference service, with the Get Help tab feeling more like an FAQ then an offer of personal assistance.
User Experience	The Powerhouse Museum’s website utilises a more modern approach. An expandable menu reveals all menus and submenus on the screen, allowing users to see the full site map all at once. This can be effective at allowing users to quickly find what they’re looking for without searching through menus. The site appears to have prioritised an aesthetic goal over strict functionality, reflecting it’s role as a cultural entity rather then strictly an information organisation.	The National Library of Australia uses a website layout that follows the usual rules and styles. Each part of the navigation leads to a clear submenu that covers different areas of user engagement. Some parts of the navigation are not immediately obvious, such as Stories, which includes news, upcoming events, podcasts etc. It also has a comprehensive search function.	The New York Public Library feels like a website stuck in time. It lacks the sleek, minimalist feeling of the other two sites, almost an expectation in modern UX. While the site may have felt very natural a decade ago, now it borders on feeling cluttered and hard to scan, with divided sections that stop the eye from quickly gliding across the page. The headings dividing the page are not immediately focused. Instead of a catalogue submenu, it’s called “Books/Music/Movies”, a different approach to most sites of this nature, suggesting a more public facing style of design. The menu’s are more clearly marked in this respect for the average person then the National Library site.
Active Functionality	The Powerhouse Museums Facebook and Website both have shopping functionalities. You can get directions through the Facebook page to the museum, linking in with map apps. The Powerhouse website has an extensive virtual archive, with more then 500,000 objects which can all be viewed online.	The National Library site contains a catalogue search, eResources, and an Ask a Librarian area that provides instructions for Online, Phone, In Person and Mail reference services. It also has embedded videos.	The active functionality of New York Public Library focuses more heavily on links to third party services, rather than having inbuilt collection access online, and much functionality appears to be focused on their app rather than their web presence.

The Powerhouse Museum and National Library of Australia are generally of a high quality and contain all the necessary elements of modern web design. The New York Public Library site lacks many of the common elements of modern web design and is in need of a revision (Garett et al., 2016; Friedman, 2021). Improvements could be achieved by using online tools (Web Accessibility Initiative, 2014) or referring to academic literature to create an internal evaluation system (Vargas et al., 2023).

References

Friedman, V. (2021). 10 Principles of Good Web Design. Smashing Magazine. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/

Garett, R., Chiu, J., Zhang, L., & Young, S. D. (2016). A Literature Review: Website Design and User Engagement. Online journal of communication and media technologies, 6(3), 1-14.

Morales-Vargas, A., Pedraza-Jimenez, R., & Codina, L. (2023). Website quality evaluation: a model for developing comprehensive assessment instruments based on key quality factors. Journal of Documentation, 79(7), 95-114. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-11-2022-0246

National Library of Australia. (2023). Landing Page. https://www.nla.gov.au/

New York Public Library. (2023). Homepage. https://www.nypl.org/

Powerhouse Museum. (2023). Homepage. https://powerhouse.com.au/?fbclid=IwAR3BmVybp2jssxs86zHGDd12tZTI3tnVdt1N0Yw1Cvd8_tuA_aThyy0Q0TY

Web Accessibility Initiative. (2014). Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List. W3C. https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/

One of my careers involved  working as an educator, teaching programming and game design, as part of a company that contracted to the University of Wollongong. I’ve grown up the internet age, with social media always present, so I’m focusing on it’s current applications and continuing development.

Social media (SM) has changed how we communicate, both with clients, the university, and each other. When recruiting students in the past invitations and information was given directly to the schools, relying on them to encourage and direct their students. Now we’re able to pass along a virtual invite which gives parents and students direct access to information for our programs and communicate directly (Peate, 2015).

Public facing SM accounts are used to promote the workshops, and how these accounts portray themselves and interact with internet users can directly impact people’s perceptions of the programs. SM literacy is becoming a requirement for marketing and connecting with potential participants. A poor social media presence, or none at all, can now be seen as unprofessional and turn people away (Si, 2016; Vinerean, 2017).

Internally we use the SM platform Discord to coordinate for the workshops, plan, and share resources to be used during the classes. My co-workers are in different cities, and SM is necessary for effective planning and collaboration between us (Ohara, 2023).

For the future, we’re aiming to develop a social platform for students that have participated in our programs and workshops, to share further course content, follow up on questions from their personal learning after the workshop and connect students, particularly from regional areas, to collaborative learning, in line with current trends (Sivakumar, 2023).

SM has also changed how education professionals engage with their profession. The skills being taught in classrooms are much more focused around internet use and connectivity. Students are turning to Google and SM like Reddit to answer questions. How will social media be integrated into education in the future? There’s already educational SM used at schools to promote collaborative learning, and students are becoming comfortable with these sites as part of their education. Educators will need to include social media skills into their curriculums and classes, and utilise these new technologies to aid their classroom learning (Ansari & Khan, 2020; Arshavskiy, 2021).

Professional connections are being built more often through SM apps. These workshops often provide a chance for professional presenters and educators to connect with each other and arrange for opportunities to work together in the past. These connections often require the use of social media, as it becomes a primary point of contact, supported by data from Iqbal (2024) and research by Donelan (2015).

References

Ansari, J. A. N., Nawab, & Khan, A. (2020). Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning. Smart Learning Environments, 7. https://slejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40561-020-00118-7

Arshavskiy, M. (2021). Social media For eLearning. eLearning Industry. https://elearningindustry.com/social-media-for-elearning

Donelan, H. (2015). Social media for professional development and networking opportunities in academia. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 706-729. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2015.1014321

Iqbal, M. (2024). LinkedIn usage and revenue statistics. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/linkedin-statistics/

Ohara, M. R. (2023). The role of social media in educational communication management. Journal of Contemporary Administration and Management, 1(2), 70-76. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.61100/adman.v1i2.25

Peate, I. (2015). The professional use of social media. British Journal of Healthcare Assistants, 9(7). https://web-p-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=ab8df956-1bf9-4100-a8e6-1102c0549069%40redis

Si, S. (2016). Social media and its role in marketing. Business and Economics Journal, 7(1). http://41.89.240.73/bitstream/handle/123456789/810/social-media-and-its-role-in-marketing.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Sivakumar, A. (2023). Social media influence on students’ knowledge sharing and learning: An Empirical Study. Education Sciences, 13(7). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13070745

Vinerean, S. (2017). Importance of strategic social media marketing. Expert journal of marketing, 5(1), 28-35. https://www.zbw.eu/econis-archiv/bitstream/11159/1381/1/1009506463.pdf

I’ve decided to compare Instagram, Facebook, and Wikipedia. I’m going to be focusing on their mobile User Experience (UX), particularly as it applies to functionality and how it creates social interaction. UX has a strong connection to overall user satisfaction, more then quality of content on the site (Nakamura et al., 2022).

Instagram uses a streamlined interface. You have access to 5 basic options: Your home feed, your explore feed, the posting interface, a selection of reels, and your profile. On the top of the screen in the corner is the option for your notifications and your messages, both hidden in small, integrated icons. Instagram is a great UX design, with sleek icons, that don’t clutter your view, and actions are placed in other pages, so you’re not given access to options before you need them. There’s also profile bubbles at the top of the page showing users icons, letting you know they’ve posted to their story.

Facebook provides a greater selection of options. You have your feed, friend requests, messenger, videos, notifications and the marketplace. In the top corner you have a search option and an expandable list of more options. There’s also the option to make a post, and another button to add an image post, and go to your profile. Worst of all, none of it comes with you when you scroll. If you want to access any of it later, you need to either refresh the page or go back to the top of the page, both of which lose your spot. This is clunky and bad UX. Having the basics scroll with the user lets them quickly navigate to the pages they want. Finally, Facebook also has user profiles at the top of the page for their stories. But unlike Instagram, Facebook displays a preview of the story, meaning their story UI takes up much more space, displays less stories, and once again it does not scroll. Facebook provides strong access to social tools, but this is undermined by the clutter. It can be easy for users to feel overwhelmed and lost. Instagram doesn’t provide the variety of services that Facebook does, but it’s focus is a strength, ensuring only social interactions are provided by it’s UX, unlike Facebook which tries to be a marketplace, a social network, a chat service and more all at once, with little distinction.

I wanted to compare these two giants of social media with the mobile UX of Wikipedia. It’s not a traditional social platform, but it does contain forums. It’s homepage gives you a search bar, the option to go to articles in different languages, and a clickable list of Wikimedia resources at the bottom of the page. This is a very slim and simple design. It doesn’t try and feed you any unnecessary information. Mobile phones have less screen space then a computer, so giving the user the power to navigate ensures they’re not overwhelmed. It’s a great contrast for Facebook and Instagram, because it succeeds in both of the others strengths. It’s simple, like Instagram, yet has a wide variety of services like Facebook. The difference is that Wikipedia doesn’t try and direct your attention with a complex interface. It simply provides the options. Wikipedia does fail at making it easy to find it’s other areas. More of it’s services could be moved onto the sidebar, allowing users to directly move to them, rather then having to scroll through the homepage. It shows a lack of in-depth mobile optimisation, despite having achieved the basics well.

In all cases, the mobile content lacked major issues such as dead links or unusable interfaces. Overall, I found Instagram to have the strongest UX that focuses on connecting users directly to the content they’re most interested in, with minimal distraction or clutter (Bufe, 2023; Interaction Design Foundation, n.d.).

References

Bufe, A. (2023). Mobile UX Design: The Ultimate Guide 2024. UXcam. https://uxcam.com/blog/mobile-ux/

Interaction Design Foundation. (n.d.). Mobile user experience (UX) design. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/mobile-ux-design

Nakamura, W. T., Oliveira, E. C. D., Oliveira, E. H. T. d., Redmiles, D., & Conte, T. (2022). What factors affect the UX in mobile apps? A systematic mapping study on the analysis of app store reviews. Journal of Systems and Software, 193. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2022.111462

 

The world is struggling with the constant increase of technology over the last two or so decades. Moore’s Law, the idea that the number of transistors in computer chips doubles every 2 or so years, provides the basis for an exponential expansion of computing power. Every year, our computers can filter, compile and analyse more and more data. With more computing power, new programs like AI Machine Learning Algorithms have become commonplace. Alongside this, infrastructure is improving, and the Australian Human Rights Commission has declared internet access a human right (Australian Human Rights Commission, n.d.). The internet has become a permanent part of our everyday lives. It is simply impossible to exist in regular society without engaging with the internet, and the information profession is not exempt from this. Information Organisations are in the business of providing information access to people. To perform well as an information organisation, you need to maximise your users, and those users access to your information. Digital 2023 says people now spend over 2 and a half hours on social media everyday. Advertising used to be performed through newspaper adverts, then through having a visible website on search engines. Now, to connect with your actual and potential audiences, you need to have a modern social media presence, especially since more then half of the planet is now active on social media (We are social & Meltwater, 2023).

The Digital 2023 report clearly shows that technological is growing rapidly year on year in how it impacts our lives (We are social & Meltwater, 2023). And the main question that seems to come up again and again is “How do we stop technology from being unethical?”. It’s a question that often evokes a harsh reaction from both sides. AI is often seen as either a great force of good, expanding humanities horizons, or the enemy of the people, here to take our jobs. It seems inevitable that it’s here to stay, so organisations need to be forward thinking in their approach (Zhai et al., 2020). Education organisations are grappling with the ethics of AI created responses, while others are debating the ethics of using AI data to create profiles of their users (Kulkov, 2021; Schiff, 2021).

There’s almost an expectation that everything is available online. Education, health services, online shopping, entertainment. Social media is increasingly becoming a place not only for visibility, but to actually deliver content to users.

Information organisations need to understand that they are in some ways being superseded by technology. Resources are readily available online in many cases, either for free or at discount prices, and AI is able to provide basic reference services. Community events are being organised through social media. Cultural heritage is accessible without visiting a museum, art can be viewed in high definition online. The role of the information organisation needs to evolve with this new digital era. Already, libraries are maintaining relevance by providing internet access to those who may otherwise go without. But more will need to be done to ensure information institutes remain cultural cornerstones into the future.

References

Australian Human Rights Commission. (n.d.). 8 A right to access the internet. https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/8-right-access-internet

Kulkov, I. (2021). The role of artificial intelligence in business transformation: A case of pharmaceutical companies. Technology in Society, 66. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101629

Schiff, D. (2021). Education for AI, not AI for education: The role of education and ethics in national AI policy strategies. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 32, 527-563. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40593-021-00270-2

We are social, & Meltwater. (2023). Digital 2023 october global statshot report. Data Reportal. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-october-global-statshot

Zhai, Y., Yan, J., Zhang, H., & Lu, W. (2020). Tracing the evolution of AI: conceptualization of artificial intelligence in mass media discourse. Information Discovery and Delivery, 48(3). https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-01-2020-0007