New York Public Library Membership
Service Design
Overview
Propose a new approach to applying and utilizing NYPL cards, aimed at enhancing accessibility to the library's resources and services.
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a free public library system that serves the people of New York City. For this project, a team of designers conducted 3 sprints where they conducted research to understand how the user experience can be enhanced with the digitalization of the NYPL card and additional features with it. The goal was to improve the library's digital services keeping in mind inclusivity, digital integration, sustainability, and community engagement.
My Role: Service Design, Design Research, Rapid prototyping, User Testing
Team Members: 2 UX Designers
Duration: 6 weeks
New York Public Library has over 90 locations, NYPL is one of the largest public library systems in the United States, offering a vast collection of books, digital media, and other resources to its patrons. The NYPL card is the gateway to accessing these resources, and it is available to anyone who lives, works, attends school, or pays property taxes in New York State.
The future of libraries is likely to involve a continued shift towards digitization and the increasing use of technology to enhance access to information and services. As more and more information is being created and consumed digitally, libraries are adapting to provide digital resources and services to their users.
The goal here is for users to efficiently use the resources libraries have to offer and make it more convenient with the help of technology. Features that motivate users to become a member of NYPL as the process becomes frictionless.
Oppurtunity
What is the future of libraries and how digitization will create an impact?
Process
What did we do in the sprints?
Our project was conducted using a sprint approach, which involved a series of three sprints spanning a period of six weeks. Initially, extensive research was conducted to thoroughly analyze the problem space. Following this, a range of different prototypes were created and tested in order to determine the most effective solution. Finally, a blueprint and storyboard of the final concept were developed and tested through an enactment session.
Creating awareness about the benefits and ease of membership to a wider audience.
Helping users understand what resources are available for them and what they would be interested in.
Raising awareness of the physical spaces of libraries and connecting people with them.
Approach
What are the main areas that we are focusing on to improve?
Research
Understanding the overall service
To understand all sides of the service, we went for a site visit to experience it ourselves. We participated in an onsite membership card signup process and an online one, interacted with the librarians, and later on conducted a survey to understand the perspective of the service providers.
Add convenience into a membership model
Our team conducted research on the design of membership systems to analyze the presence of both rational and emotional values in library membership. Through this analysis, we discovered that the only rational value missing from the service was convenience.
Fig1: Alice Kogan & Simon Heather, IDEO, https://www.ideo.com/journal/6-ways-to-design-value-into-your-membership-model
Our Stakeholders
Basically, anyone who wants to use a library and its resources
New York Residents
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Want to access resources?
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May face barriers in gaining a library card.
Students of all ages
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Need to use library resources for academic purposes.
Senior Citizens
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May have difficulty navigating the library’s digital services or getting to a physical library location.
Service Providers
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The people who work for the New York Public Library.
Ideation
Reimagining the service
Brainstorming Ideas
Reimagining how these services can be changed in the future in a way that's more convenient and user-friendly. We began by sketching how the in-person signup experience can be improved in our first sprint. By our last sprint, our focus has shifted more toward digital features that help create awareness and connect people to libraries.
Digital wallets and their benefits
We are transitioning into e-wallets and in the future physical cards won't be a reality. Digital wallets offer a wide range of membership information such as barcodes, statistical data, and e-cards/passes. These features make it convenient for the user in terms of payments and scanning IDs.
Geofencing
Integrating preferences collected during the redesigned signup process through Geofencing. The use of GPS or RFID technology to create a virtual geographic boundary enables software to trigger a response when a mobile device enters or leaves a particular area.
Technology
How does this technology fit in?
Blueprint
A holistic overview
Combined all our research and findings from all three sprints to create a service blueprint that provides a holistic view from both the users' side and the service provider's side.
Storyboarding
Say hello to Mia, who is looking for a space to study with the help of NYPL
We created a storyboard to map how the user would be interacting with the digital wallet and geofencing based mobile application.
Reflection
The agile approach we adopted for the sprints provided us with the flexibility to adjust our focus areas comfortably. We found the research elements to be particularly insightful, leading to considerable variations between our initial and final objectives. The service design process has demonstrated that the aspects that seem simple to investigate may actually be more complex than initially anticipated. Despite this, we found the experience to be rewarding and are excited to continue exploring innovative solutions through this methodology.