BookLib, Online Reservation System for Library

Design Prompt

Design an experience for students, professors, and members of the school community to reserve work desks/spaces in the library. Consider the experience of checking availability, reserving the space, and reporting any issues.

Design Summary

Online application that improves user experience reserving, utilizing seats/spaces and reporting issues in libraries by providing synthetic information and interface.

• Personal work
• Duration | 1 week (Mar 1 - Mar 7, 2021)
• Tools | Illustrator, Photoshop, Procreate, Sketch, Figma

Design Process Overview

Research Current System

I started by setting the process of the project. And I began researching the CMU's existing library reservation system for students and professors to gain understandings of the current reservation process.

• Offering timelines of seats is useful to check the availability of them, but distinguishing seats by text is demanding.
• I can hardly observe the surroundings only with a photo of the chair.
• It seems possible to ask someone else to check-in by QR or typing the string emailed to users.

I also visited the Hunt Library in the Carnegie Mellon University to see how the library seats were organized and how they are being managed. On the first floor of Hunt library there were General hard desks on 1st floor and carrel desks were on the 3rd floor of Hunt library. Due to Covid, only two floors of the library were opended. I drew the seats and facilities on both floors.

User Research

The user research was conducted under the assumption that the demand for the library will recover after the pandemic. I took a survey to find out library usage and what people think is important while studying in the library.

• 83% of total 62 people have preferred seats in libraries.
• As a preference factor, there were windows, quietness, population, brightness, isolation, large desk, proximity to the resource, corner seat, accessibility to the entrance, height of the ceiling, food allowance, etc.
• About 52% of the people sat in the library for 1-3 hours at a time. 4-5 hours were the second most frequent time interval people responded (25%).
• When there are problems, people reported them by phone calls or emails. Some people ended up not reporting because of its inconvenience.

User Interview

User interviews with several students and faculties enlightened me about finding out their goals, needs and pain points of using libraries and reserving seats.

• Steve Nash (undergraduate student) It requires users to check-in, but it doesn't make sense because it is able to do online by entering the code that I received through email.
• Jisoo Shon (graduate student) Some people don't come after booking a good spot or come and disappear right away so that other people can't use them either.
• Gloria Henning (periodicals specialist, Hunt Library) Before the pandemic, we didn't have a place to sit even two weeks after the semester began. Students did have to make seat reservations. Wouldn't the library return as it used to when it normalizes?

Synthesize Insights

Many pain points came out after exploring and synthesizing the insights from the research. Among them, I decided to focus on the most critical and overlapping problems.

From the main problems I found, I established design standards to solve problems.

Ideation with Sketches

Bearing the research findings and design standards in mind, I started to ideate. I decided to make mobile version first considering the portability and business trends. I sketched several possibilities and ideas for required functions.

Main Features Ideation

Based on the research insights and my ideas, I came up with 5 main features to address current issues.

User Flow

Based on the research and ideations, I built this userflow for viewing and making reservation of seats, and made it possible to sort and save information of their favorite seats, and allowed user to view the history of usage. And can report issue

Overall Wireframe

On the first page of choosing floors before viewing seats, the population, availability of seats and essential library information are indicated. People can quickly notice the population (crowdedness) of the floor, which are shown by graphs. And when they enter the floor screen, they can view status of seats by both in map and timeline of their reservation.

After choosing their wanted usage hour and seat, users can make reservation. Reservation can not only be made by selecting seats in the map but also can be made by selecting the timeline of the wanted seat. Reserved seats are shown differently in the UI. Therefore, users can easily notice the seat they booked.

There were so many factors that influence users and it was different by the users. Therefore, I labeled each seat with colors and information based on the map of the library. A brief information such as window, chair direction, and availability of power sources are indicated in the map.

Information through the map can only show the availability of seats at that moment or at a designated time. On the other hand, it is challenging to check seats or surrounding information if the user can only see the seats' timeline. The survey confirmed that the demand for both the library's surroundings and seat's timeline information. Therefore, I configured the interface to provide both information. Due to the limitations of the mobile screen, I divided them into different screens. Users can easily switch views of the screen and check the information they want.

Through Favorite menu and registering preferred seats as their favorties, users don't need to navigate the whole system to make reservation. Seats registered as favorites are marked differently in the map and also can be sorted in timeline view.

The survey demonstrated that people have a preference for the library seats. In general, people's preferences overlap, so it is difficult to sit in a favorite seat when there are many people. Although there are several seats that users like, people reported that it is difficult to find each seat when making a reservation because their locations are scattered in the library. To tackle this problem, I created the Favorites function for the library seats. Users can also check the timeline of preferred seats in Favorites menu at once and reserve seats that meet their criteria.

There are many other people who cannot use the seat because some people do not use the seat after making a reservation. Because digital authentication methods have many weak points, I decided to make users to check-in physically at the library. As schools require library visitors to bring their student ID cards, signing in at the library's kiosk with their student ID cards will be effective and valid. I provided various roots to remind and encourage users to do physical check-ins.

If users do not check-in, they will be notified several times, and their reservation will be canceled if they do not check in during the specified time.

Reflecting the opinion that it is cumbersome not to report problems, I provided various channels to express opinions. I defined that the users can communicate through 1) the menu on the main screen, 2) a report by clicking the seat, and 3) the app introduction page. In particular, when users click a seat to send their opinion, they can have the information in the message window with the auto-full function.

Prototype

High Fidelity Screens

In the web view, users can combine screens that are shown separately from their mobile devices. By selecting a seat on the map, users can see the timeline of the selected spot together and reserve it.

User Testing and Future Steps

I tested my design with potential users using the interactive prototype I built. Based on the valuable feedback, I was able to map out the possible areas for future iterations.

• Develop the web version for large screen devices Currently, only one web screen is designed. I need to work on other web screens and interactions. Making more versions for other devices would be also needed.
• Identify more information in the library map Since the information that people want to see on the map is different, it would be useful to have a function that users can selected information (the height of the desk and chair, temperature, humidity, etc.) to see like a filter function.
• Function making a smart reservation Automatic reservation systems can maximize the usability convenience. We need a system that recommends and makes reservations automatically according to users' schedule and seat preferences.