Press Pause on the Pandemic: Using Design Thinking to Make Decisions in High Pressure Situations

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic profoundly affected the online presence of every institution as in-person interactions abruptly came to a halt. Libraries had to make both significant adjustments and minor tweaks to their websites to accommodate new remote work and scholarship modalities. In some cases, entire web pages, which would typically require weeks of planning, research, and testing before being launched, were hastily published. In this article, the author explores how web committees can make on-the-fly changes that continue to yield positive results beyond the unique circumstances of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. They argue that by encouraging the use of design thinking principles, administrators and web committees can effectively showcase remote library services to students, faculty, and staff.

Keywords:

• Design thinking
• project management
• web design
• content management
• user experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The web committee at Florida International University (FIU) is known as “RefTech.” Philosophically, FIU Libraries has empowered public service librarians to make web design decisions in consultation with the Information Technology department and administer the Content Management System. The composition of RefTech has varied over the years with personnel changes, but has included the Emerging Tech, Web Services, Digital Technology Development, Virtual Learning & Outreach, Online Learning, and User Engagement Librarians.