Roles

Data analyst, visual designer, animator

Client

The Library of Congress

Tools Used

Illustrator, Adobe Animate

Blog Post

I was asked to write a blog post about this design process and the importance of UX for the Library’s blog, The Signal.

Too Much Data

The Library of Congress collects, standardizes, preserves and serves over 20 petabytes of data. While many people utilize this data as a research resource, they often do not know about how the Library obtained the data, the scale, or the processes for the data. I wanted to explore the ways that the Library could spread word of the interesting and significant work that they do behind the scenes. As a newcomer to the Library, I encountered a couple of issues that would form the basis of my visualization:

1. Helping the majority of people (who have never seen the backend of the Library) visualize its structure and how it is run

2. Explaining a lot of technical jargon and Library specific software

3. Keeping users engaged in a topic that might at times become dry and complex

The Solution

My goal for the internship was to research the data flow of the Library, and create a visualization that could illustrate the process to the general public in an engaging way. I eventually settled on creating an interactive animation that could illustrate the processes of the Library with explanatory text, and simplified images.

Interviews

I conducted 14 semi-structured interviews with staff members from the Library, whose roles ranged widely from Project managers to conservationists. From them, I learned about the processes of the Library, and how they thought the visualization could be useful. Most of them mentioned how difficult it was to onboard new employees, and explain the the structure of the Library to them.

Mental Model

As I interviewed, I began developing a mental model of how the Library generally functioned. The diagrams below are the complete data flows of the Library as I understood it. My job was to simplify it down to something accurate yet digestible to users without a technical background or knowledge of the Library.

Personas

I developed four personas who represented the main users of the visualization. The general public was always my primary audience, however, during my interviews, I asked staff how else they envisioned the visualization being used. From their answers, I developed three other groups who would benefit from a visualization of Library data flows.

Considerations for a general audience

1. Animated map

The map allowed me to show the Library as a physical space, and shows that data will sometimes leave the Library campus to outside locations. Animations guide the user through each step, emphasizing the important parts of the text, and engages the user.

2. End screen

After each data flow, the animation freezes on an end screen recapping all the steps in chronological order. The user recount all the steps in their own time.

3. Hoverable dictionary

There are multiple technical terms which appear multiple times in each flow. Instead of re-explaining the term each time, the user can hover over the term or department to get the definition.

Display Day

Display Day was a day for all the Junior Fellows at the Library of Congress to show the projects they had been working on. I had the privilege of showing my visualization to over 800 staff and visitors, including the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden.

User Testing

Before Display Day, I had shown my work various staff and members of the UX team at LOC. They helped me to tweak the data flows and design elements. I also took Display day as an opportunity to conduct some informal user testing on other visitors. Most of the people who came by on Display Day had never seen the project before, making it a good opportunity to see how strangers would respond to it. After feedback, some of the major changes I made included:

• adding outlines to the discoverable dictionary terms to make them more discoverable

• shortening the time between the introduction coming down and the flow starting

• adding numbered steps to the final screen