Portfolio
UX Work
I have worked on a variety of digital library projects as a user experience specialist
Please contact me if you would like more information about any of these documents
Unless otherwise specified, all of these projects were completed independently, as a UX “Team of One”
User Personas for Agricultural Data Repository
These five user personas were created to support a heuristic review of Ag Data Commons (https://data.nal.usda.gov/), a public, government, scientific research data catalog and repository available to help the agricultural research community share and discover research data funded by the United States Department of Agriculture and meet Federal open access requirements.
The personas were based on a survey of the literature documenting the information needs and behaviors of data repository users, including scientists, librarians, and policy makers.
Isometric Sitemap
This sitemap was created to support a proposal for a major website reorganization for an academic community (ACM SIGGRAPH).
https://emily-marsh.com/documents/IsometricSiteMap.pdf
Illustrated Use Cases
These four illustrated use cases were developed to support the adoption of the Symplectic Elements instance by the National Agricultural Library.
User Experience Training
In July 2020, I delivered a one-hour, all-staff training at the National Agricultural Library on the discipline of user experience (UX) and specific tools and techniques used in the field. The training was performed at the request of my direct supervisor to help raise the awareness of UX within the entire organization. Since members of the organization’s leadership were also scheduled to attend, it presented a good opportunity to illustrate the value of UX work, its intellectual and practical rigor, and that indeed it’s not just “a matter of opinion.”
Customer Journey Maps
As part of a project on Open Access Mandates regarding research assets for USDA-funded projects, a set of three customer journey maps was created for a planned NAL manuscript submission system.
Focus Group Results
This report represents the culmination of multiple efforts to assess the needs of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded researchers to meet the new federal requirements for public access of their research artifacts. Staff of the USDA’s National Agricultural Library (NAL) sought to pinpoint the factors affecting why and how researchers may—or may not—fulfill relevant public access requirements, especially those involving the manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal articles and data assets. These efforts included multiple methods including direct interaction through group interviews, heuristic review of existing information infrastructure, and the creation of a SWOT assessment (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and user personas, a user experience (UX) design tool. The interview sessions were conducted with the assistance of academic librarians specializing in agriculture and researchers who would be affected by the requirements to submit article manuscripts and/or data assets.
SWOT Diagram
This diagram models the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (“SWOT”) of NAL’s internal and external resources and processes to support open access mandates.
Logic Model
This is a logic model for the digital search and discovery system for scholarly agricultural literature, AGRICOLA.
Workflow for Digital Library Submission System
This diagram was created to document and guide the work to support the submissions of manuscripts by scientists and their lab staff to a digital library repository using a Drupal front end.
User Needs Assessment
This report represents the culmination of a project managed jointly by the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies (UMD iSchool) and the National Agricultural Library’s (NAL) Digital Library Branch. Over the course of several semesters multiple Digital Curation Fellows and the author worked on a project addressing the user experience (UX) of the NAL Digital Collections (NALDC). The project was conceived as a way to assess the information needs and behaviors of a likely NALDC audience—food studies scholars—in order gain a better understanding of how this group searches for and uses the types of full-text, digital information objects that the NALDC platform makes available.
Stakeholder Assessment
AGRICOLA—as a bifurcated content store, a search and discovery platform, a product for publishers, and a brand—occupies a challenging position in the current agricultural landscape. Whereas its value and stature were once assumed as givens, it stands now as only one information source within a crowded landscape of information products and services. The best way for AGRICOLA to demonstrate its ongoing value and relevancy within this landscape is to offer something uniquely valuable to its core customer constituencies: agricultural scientists, students, librarians, and practitioners. Several hour-long interviews were conducted with academic agricultural librarians and publishers to create a baseline sense of how AGRICOLA is faring in this landscape with these constituencies. The report includes a summary of these interviews, along with some background research and interaction design recommendations.
Usability Test
This report represents the culmination of usability research of the USDA Food Composition Databases conducted in February, 2018. Using standard techniques of usability testing, the Information Products Division at the National Agricultural Library sought to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of the interface for these databases, with an emphasis on the USDA Branded Food Products Database.
The research sessions were conducted with the assistance of three consumers and one dietitian as they tested the interface by completing typical information retrieval tasks. The goal was to provide feedback for the redesign team that would enable it to more accurately pinpoint and support users’ needs for a new USDA Branded Food Products Database interface.
Heuristic Review
This report represents the culmination of usability research of the Ag Data Commons interface (https://data.nal.usda.gov) conducted in the early months of 2020. Using standard techniques of Heuristic Review and Cognitive Walkthrough, the Knowledge Services Division of the National Agricultural Library sought to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of the interface for this data access system.
The review sessions were conducted with the assistance of five data repository user personas to guide the selection, construction, and completion of the typical information retrieval tasks supported by a data repository. The goal was to provide feedback for the Ag Data Commons’ management and development teams that would enable them to more accurately pinpoint and support users’ needs for information search, retrieval, and discovery of scientific datasets.
Wireframes for Digital Library Interface Redesign
These wireframes were created to support a redesign of the interface for the National Agricultural Library’s Digital Collections (NALDC).
