Washington University in St. Louis Library site
Role: Lead UX Designer
The Challenge
Washington University Libraries, the library system of Washington University in St. Louis, is a network of nine libraries with extensive print and electronic collections. It provides information resources, expertise, and services that advance academic research and learning outcomes for the university.
In contrast to this mission, the library system’s existing website was difficult to use for students and librarians alike. Poor content organization and outdated interface design made finding information difficult, and complicated data structures and editorial tools made maintaining the site equally challenging. Further faced with an out of date codebase and technical debt, Washington University Libraries decided to reimagine the website from the ground up.
Improving Site Navigation
As the Washington University Libraries website manages, connects to, searches, and presents a vast amount of data from several different sources, the content-centric website redesign began with a collaborative and comprehensive content inventory, user experience audit, and strategic information architecture planning.
Interactive Hours widget
To ensure library hours for all nine locations remain current – an ongoing challenge for the legacy platform. Hours are now automatically updated and displayed prominently at the top of each location page. A location select tool helps visitors view the hours of alternate locations without leaving the page.
Block Based Visual Design
These globally-accessible blocks are augmented by over a dozen content curation tools tailored to specific high-interest pages like the homepage and Events Page, offering flexible and visually distinct waypoints. Thanks to all of these editorial tools, the Washington University Libraries content team now has control not only over page content, but how it is presented and curated on the site.
These globally-accessible blocks are augmented by over a dozen content curation tools tailored to specific high-interest pages like the homepage and Events Page, offering flexible and visually distinct waypoints. Thanks to all of these editorial tools, the Washington University Libraries content team now has control not only over page content, but how it is presented and curated on the site.
Designing for Scalability
The website’s navigation structure is organized into a clean, simple, expandable left-rail, vertical menu. A paginated, persistent menu design is used in lieu of more traditional dropdown menus to afford visitors the opportunity to thoroughly explore a vast menu of content.
Custom Block Guide
In addition to styling WordPress’s included (“core”) content blocks, we designed a collection of custom content blocks, each with a variety of display options that empower editors to build content-rich, visually appealing layouts. A block guide was created for users easily create ongoing new content.