Have a quick read of The Traffic Guru. It describes how removing traffic rules and signs in a small village prompted people to be more social and become better drivers.

“A year after the change, the results of this “extreme makeover” were striking: Not only had congestion decreased in the ­intersection—­buses spent less time waiting to get through, for ­example—­but there were half as many accidents, even though total car traffic was up by a third.”

Could such a strategy work in your library? Would you be willing to try?

Our library app is now officially @ App Store. It’s called iKirjasto. That’s iLibrary in Finnish. Check it out.

Link to App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/fi/app/ikirjasto/id349629673?mt=8&uo=6 [not downloadable in the US]
Our site: http://www.ikirjasto.fi

It’s the very first beta release of the app. So don’t be too harsh on it. It’s just a basic seach app with some special functions limited to Helsinki City Metropolitan Library (you can browse new book titles in cover images & a native client for reserving). It’s only in Finnish, but hopefully it’s clear how it functions. I posted some crude screen captures to our blog: http://labs.kirjastot.fi/?q=blogi/ikirjasto-app-storessa

There are currently 468 different Finnish libraries and 9 different library systems in the app. It covers almost all libraries in Finland. This made it a bit complicated to code, as you might imagine. This also delayed the project quite a while.

I like the fact that this app works for 468 Finnish libraries. We’re actually working on something similar for the next version of the DCPL iPhone app.

In our attempt to create amazing user experiences, we often want to push the envelope, to create something new, to show people a bright new future. But too often we fall into the novelty trap. The novelty trap is when, in an attempt to dazzle our clients and our users, we focus too much on the new and not enough on the now.

To create great user experiences we need to focus on the now. In reality the problems of our users are painfully mundane and often obvious. It is our task to ease this pain, and in doing so we might not invent some amazing new thing, but that’s OK. Success is incremental.

Read the whole article at 52 Weeks of UX

from the NYT

In this month’s I explain what UX is, make the case for librarians as designers, and even talk about Paul Renner.

Every time librarians create a bookmark, decide to house a collection in a new spot, or figure out how a new service might work, they’re making design decisions. This is what I like to call design by neglect or unintentional design. Whether library employees wear name tags is a design decision. The length of loan periods and whether or not you charge fines is a design decision. Anytime you choose how people will interact with your library, you’re making a design decision. All of these decisions add up to create an experience, good or bad, for your patrons.

I was very impressed with the friendly writing and useful content in this well formatted email they recently sent. They make it easy to unsubscribe and do it in a way that makes you not want to.

This is a good model for libraries to follow for their web writing, email communication (and print material, really).

Hi there!

This is Cabel from Panic — you might remember us from our nice Mac OS X software (Transmit, Coda, Unison, etc.) and, for some reason, t-shirts and posters and such.

We love e-mailing our customers and fans with important, interesting Panic news, like updates, new products, or sales. But it’s 2010. Time to clean up our lists and combine them into one.

You signed up for our list via Transmit.

Here’s the deal: we’ll write, at most, a few times a year, and only for big news. Not minor updates. We know your inbox is crowded.

If you don’t want to hear from us again, click the sad button. Otherwise, do nothing, and look forward to breaking Panic news!

[unsubscribe button]

Thanks for being a customer or a fan. We literally couldn’t do it without you.

[signature]

PS: We also have a blog now! It’s the future!