Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

I think that most rational people would agree that all companies, organizations, and services are at the beginning of a new trend in service: making sure the user’s experience is noteworthy every single time they interact with your, well, your "whatever it is that you do or produce."

To that end, Steven Bell has written two pieces:

• The Age of the User Experience, Part 1
• The Age of the User Experience, Part 2

I think he sums up the difficulties libraries are having with this concept in Part 2:

The challenge we’ll be taking on is how to move from commodity to experience….

We are used to giving people "things" — books, CDs, etc.  We aren’t so good at giving them experiences (with the exception of programming, which is still treated as a third-rate priority in a lot of libraries). 

And he writes in Part 1:

Is it even possible for libraries to offer a user experience? Can we
make using the library a memorable experience? Can we do for finding
information and conducting research what Starbucks does for coffee?
While we can’t have fireworks exploding every time someone borrows a
book  – that would certainly make for a memorable experience – there
may be ways that we can do more to create a better user experience for
a library user.

What in your library (or in its web presence) does not contribute to a good user experience?  Can you fix it?  If not, can you at least warn them about it?  Kind of like a warning sign posted on a hiking trail about "falling rocks ahead."  What are your falling rocks?