Uglifying in Public: Website Design for Speed, Accessibility, and Staff Delight

Just one day before the Library Technology Conference, I attended an Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference presentation about mobile apps that showed the University of Minnesota Libraries mobile site as an example. Sheepishly, I must admit that previous to ER&L, I hadn’t tested out the U of MN Libraries site on either my phone or iPad. When I opened it on my iPad, I was surprised—shocked, even—how fast it loaded and how intuitive it was. I discovered how this optimization and usability was achieved at the Library Technology Conference when U of MN Libraries Web Architect and UX Analyst Eric Larson and Acting Director of Web Development Cody Hanson explained how they redesigned the library site for “speed, accessibility, and staff delight.” The presentation struck a perfect balance in presenting context and an overview of the redesign project; explaining rudimentary UX principles; and suggesting practical tips and incremental steps attendees could use for their own websites. Here are a few tips I Tweeted:

• Test your website speed: http://whichloadsfaster.com/
• Optimize your page speed: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
• Benchmark your website speed (against similar libraries): http://umnlibraries.github.io/uglify-ltc2014/#/62
• Don’t forget about accessibility: http://webaim.org/
• If you can decide what the mobile site should look like, it will inform design for tablet, desktop. Design mobile first.
• Make the user experience easier: http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/7/24/your-app-makes-me-fat
• Libraries collect data: use it for UX: http://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/72
• Optimize, minimize, minify. And don’t forget images: https://tinypng.com/

  Slides for the presentation, including a useful section called Tools & Resources, are available online.