NISO conference talk: From somewhat awful to pretty great for librarians, a new e-commerce tool

We started building an e-commerce tool for librarians to license individual eBooks. The first version was partly good, partly awful. It is getting better, a little at a time.

I'm Björn

Digital design generalist

To me design combines an understanding of people, technology, society, and business. I want to help you create useful, usable and beautiful products and services.

Hire me :)

My origin story

University made me want to understand you. Marsupilami was part of my first collection. And my dad helps people have great experiences.

Some Origins of Me

I am easily motivated (or am I?)

I like making money. But there are much better ways of getting me to do stuff then to pay me.

9 keys to getting great work from me

SVT was great

While at SVT I developed my ability to think strategically, learned to appreciate Scrum and met hundreds of persons to validate interactions.

I helped build some great video services

I influence behaviour

To enable users and service owners to reach their goals I need to influence behaviour of the user, the system and the owner.

My job is to influence behaviour

I do not do experience design

I am not divine. I can not design experiences. But you can expect me to enable experiences.

Experience creationism

Inclusion

A lot of my thinking converges on one concept: Inclusion. Topics are as diverse as poverty, support for assistive technology and browser support.

It’s about inclusion

Broad passions

There is a very broad range of persons, systems and organizations that I must empathize with and cater to when designing.

Those that I am passionate about

Interaction design: The Bolibompa dragon

Part 13 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

All adults know that dragons giggle when they are tickled. But many kids have not found that out yet. So we in the Bolibompa team set out to build a digital dragon who kids relate to and whom they want to tickle! A Ticklish Mission.

Design research: How we 3 to 5 year olds behave

Part 12 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

Sure, we are individuals. But when we are given an iPad many of us behave quite predictably. We always relax ... and are always active.

Design optimization: An A/B test that made me change my mind

Part 11 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

My colleagues wanted to change the look and content of an important part of Barnplay.se. I thought the current one was better and set out to check whether their or my variant resulted in more taps and views. Via an A/B test they proved me wrong (which I love).

Most proud of

Bathroom User Experiences

Faucets, airplane flush buttons and showers can actually teach us a lot about designing digital products.

Faucets for "the disabled" are the best

Content types

How we represent and organize content is a foundation for all information systems. I explore various and some funky ways of organizing info.

Content atoms, visual repr, and more

4 ways I meet "users"

There are many ways of engaging persons in the design process. But not all where created equal.

Usability tests, Interviews, and more

Structures of User Experiences

Interactive systems enable experiences. For those experiences to be positive, the systems need structure. Which structure you chose is vital.

A taxonomy and problematic systems

Understanding the young ones

Sure, we are individuals. But when we are given an iPad many of us behave quite predictably.

How we 3 to 5 year olds behave

Deliverables

When my work is "over" (as if that ever happens) this is what has been created.

Prototypes, workshops, tests and more

The joy of delivery management

Part 10 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

Looking back on the first half of 2019 at EIDU I feel happy. My colleagues are the source.

Company strategy: Eidu

Part 9 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

My colleagues at Eidu wanted to have a big influence on the direction of the company. In collaboration with the CEO, I designed a strategy creation process that (almost) everyone appreciated. A circular process

Editorial processes: SVT Kids Online

Part 8 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

Innovative content concepts can mean that editors need to adjust how they work. At SVT I helped make that kind of change happen. Kids helped me do it

Welcome to my brain

Content strategy: ReAct

Part 7 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

Together with the ReAct team I gave their site a clear focus, founded on ReAct's goals. Peek inside the process

Interaction design: The date range picker

Part 6 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

Unfortunately the standard browser interface for choosing dates is really confusing. To reduce the effort of using some Springer Nature forms, I needed to create a custom date range picker. A British solution

Writing for digital products: Springer Nature

Part 5 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

We should only use the COUNTER words, because librarians are experts. Low effort, difficult words

Information architecture: OrkidéPrat

Part 4 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

By applying two taxonomies to a folksonomy, I help orchid aficionados with their hobby. Creating order

Design research: SVT Kids Online

Part 3 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

Via home visits – "contextual inquiry" as we call it – I learned things I could not have learned any other way. The Ahlstrand family visit

Interaction design: SVT Barn Play

Part 2 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

Re-imagine online video watching to dramatically increase number of minutes viewed. That was the mission Malin, product manager for SVT Kids Online, gave my team in 2012. I worked on the service for a year and led the work on defining how kids interact with the shows. Foundations, patterns, optimization, and results

Experience vision: Springer Nature

Part 1 of 13 in the series Some of my skills.

The Librarian channel, Librarian portal, and Metadata downloader should become a family of efficient application tools and info sources. Diagnoses, interventions, and activities

You can do better than to create a design system

Don’t create a design system. At least not until you have done your design work and actually evaluated the alternatives. But, why?

The 3 roles of research

Creating a foundation, validating ideas and ensuring usability is where research with customers can provide value when we create digital products. But how?