How can personas improve library service design?

Library service design is a user-centered approach to create or improve library services that meet the needs and expectations of your patrons. Personas are key tools for library service design, as they are fictional profiles of typical or ideal users that represent their goals, behaviors, preferences, and challenges. Using personas can help you design better library services by understanding your users and their contexts, segmenting your users and prioritizing their needs, creating empathy and alignment among your team and stakeholders, testing and validating your service ideas and prototypes, and communicating your service vision and value proposition.

1 Understanding your users and their contexts

Personas help you understand who your users are, what they want, how they use your library services, and what problems they face. By conducting user research, such as interviews, surveys, observations, or focus groups, you can collect data and insights about your users' characteristics, motivations, behaviors, needs, and pain points. You can then analyze and synthesize this data to create personas that reflect the diversity and complexity of your user groups. Personas can help you avoid making assumptions or generalizations about your users and instead focus on their specific contexts and situations.

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Luis Enrique Lescano Borrego

Automating Libraries with Technology 🤖 | Training the Librarians of the Future 🌟 🔍 Follow my content to stay updated
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La realización de un estudio de usuario permite conocer a fondo las necesidades del usuario, lo importante es diseñar un instrumento (encuesta, cuestionario o entrevista) que pueda recoger efectivamente la información. Es importante señal que no existe un cuestionario único pues en cada biblioteca se tiene un contexto social y cultural único, por lo que los bibliotecarios debemos trabajar arduamente para aplicar estas metodologías.

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2 Segmenting your users and prioritizing their needs

Personas help you segment your users into different groups based on their common attributes, goals, and needs. By grouping your users into personas, you can identify the similarities and differences among them and understand how they relate to your library services. You can also use personas to prioritize your users' needs and determine which ones are more important or urgent to address. For example, you can use a matrix to map your personas according to their frequency of use and level of satisfaction with your library services. This can help you identify which personas are more loyal, satisfied, dissatisfied, or at risk of leaving your library and how you can improve their experiences.

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3 Creating empathy and alignment among your team and stakeholders

Personas help you create empathy and alignment among your team and stakeholders by providing a common language and a shared understanding of your users. By giving your personas names, photos, stories, and quotes, you can make them more realistic and relatable and foster a deeper connection with your users. You can also use personas to communicate your user research findings and insights to your team and stakeholders and involve them in the service design process. By presenting your personas as the main focus and reference point of your service design, you can ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same user goals.

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Robert Mourey Jr.

Renegade visionary who in late 2021 predicted the rapid advancement of quantum computing and its potential impact on public blockchains | Founder/CEO Quantum One DAO
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It's great to see the increase in empathy awareness within our field and in other areas as well. In my 20 plus year career, I have several years experience on the front lines so to speak in customer and stakeholder relations, retention, and in-person sales. In resolving literally hundreds of escalated issues involving what many would refer to as very upset or angry individuals, I've realized that a little empathy goes a long way in resolving issues, retaining customers, and developing new relationships. And if engineers can translate empathy into their product development by truly stepping into the shoes of users/stakeholders, the product itself will be more well rounded from the start and, thus, more successful and profitable.

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4 Testing and validating your service ideas and prototypes

Personas help you test and validate your service ideas and prototypes by simulating how your users would interact with them. By using personas as scenarios, you can imagine how your users would use your service, what steps they would take, what emotions they would feel, and what outcomes they would achieve. You can also use personas as testers, by asking them questions, observing their reactions, and collecting their feedback. By testing and validating your service ideas and prototypes with personas, you can identify and resolve any issues or gaps in your service design and ensure that it meets your users' needs and expectations.

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5 Communicating your service vision and value proposition

Personas help you communicate your service vision and value proposition by showing how your service can benefit your users and solve their problems. By using personas as stories, you can illustrate how your service can improve your users' situations, experiences, and outcomes. You can also use personas as advocates, by highlighting their positive testimonials, reviews, or referrals. By communicating your service vision and value proposition with personas, you can demonstrate the value and impact of your service design and persuade your users and stakeholders to adopt or support it.

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6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Samantha Gordano, PHR, SHRM-SCP

Organizational development leader, through knowledge and people | Invisible disability advocate
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Honestly, this is just something that tends to naturally occur in the public library environment. You come to know the population and your regulars and associate those with similarities. It is helpful because you can target them for specific services or programs. It is kind of essential for long-term survival in this career to adapt your own different personalities catering to each common persona that you have utilizing your services. That is the best way to make more allies in the community and have more positive interactions. It helps if they know that you are trying to understand them and you are trying to reach them about what they need. That makes them a little more likely to be empathetic when something doesn't go the way they want.

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How can personas improve library service design?

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1 Understanding your users and their contexts

2 Segmenting your users and prioritizing their needs

3 Creating empathy and alignment among your team and stakeholders

4 Testing and validating your service ideas and prototypes

5 Communicating your service vision and value proposition

6 Here’s what else to consider

Library Services

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How can personas improve library service design?

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 Understanding your users and their contexts

2 Segmenting your users and prioritizing their needs

3 Creating empathy and alignment among your team and stakeholders

4 Testing and validating your service ideas and prototypes

5 Communicating your service vision and value proposition

6 Here’s what else to consider

Library Services

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