User Experience in Libraries V (UXLIBSV) Conference in London

Kabelo Kgarosi and Brenda Nsanzya attended the User Experience in Libraries V (UXLIBSV) in London, England from 17 -19 June 2019. The Conference took place at the Royal Holloway, University of London. The theme was “From Research to Design:  putting UX data into action in the form of prototypes and pilots for testing”. It highlighted the importance of libraries who perform user experience research, to not stop when the research is complete and the findings are reported, but to also embed the UX design process.

The conference started on the 17^th of June with a half day pre-conference workshop, facilitated by Andy Priestner (the UXLIBS Conference founder) and his team, Helen Murphy and Bryony Ramsden. The official conference started on the 18^th where Andy welcomed all 180 delegates from 18 countries to the conference with his presentation “Barriers to UX design”, followed by the first keynote speaker, Anneli Fryberg who spoke on the importance of leadership.  The first day of the Conference ended with a beautiful gala dinner. Brenda and I had planned to wear traditional African dresses but somehow both our dresses didn’t make it into our bags.

The second day of the conference was equally eventful and informative. The second keynote speaker, Suzanne Chapman, presented on “Working in difficult environments”.

Each presentation at this conference was insightful and eye-opening.  One of the most beautiful things about this conference was that in between the speakers we had workshops, where one had an opportunity to put into practice what one had learnt.

Some of the most memorable presentations were about toilet management in libraries, reinventing a physical library for an online community and embedding with empathy.

Brenda and Kabelo also had an opportunity to visit three university libraries (Aston University https://www2.aston.ac.uk/library Birmingham University https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/as/libraryservices/library/index.aspx and University of London Royal Holloway https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/about-us/the-library/ ) where they gained insight into international library trends and developments. Some of the lessons learnt were the importance of user involvement  in designing products and services that users engage with on a day to day basis, design of library spaces, the revolution of library processes, products and services, self-service products and new roles librarians play in the 21^st century library.

Presentations for the 5^th User Experience in Libraries Conference can be accessed here http://uxlib.org/uxlibs5/

Visit Andy’s blog to see UXLibsV in 50 photos https://libreaction.wordpress.com/2019/07/07/uxlibsv-in-50-photos/