Keach Work

Project Management for IT Professionals

2008-01-16T12:49:00.001-05:00

I attended a Skillpath seminar, Project Management for IT Professionals, in December 2007. The two-day workshop provided an overview of standard project management processes, with a special focus on the challenges inherent in technology projects. In addition to reinformcing concepts that I have learned elsewhere, including some that we've implemented in Digital Services, I was particularly interested in the following tidbits:

When faced with many stakeholders (as we often are in the library), don't try to balance all the input yourself. Instead, select or ask users to select a representative for the group.
All projects have 3 constraints which should be identified and balanced: time, budget (costs, staff time), performance. In my opinion, performance tends to be our highest priority (i.e. features), with both time and budget (staff time) as much lower. We tend to spend a lot of time and a lot of resources to get things working the way we want. It is helpful to identify that this is our usual top priority and to consider that it doesn't have to be.
Identify a project sponsor--the person who has the authority for changes to this service or tool. Ask that project sponsor to sign off on a summary document explaining the project scope, priorities of the constraints, and measures of success. Come back to the project sponsor as changes arise, including changes that alter time, budget or performance.
Create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and PERT chart with the team rather than in isolation.
Reliable time estimates for the PERT can be created with a formula using optimistic, pessimistic and most likely time estimates.
Make contingency plans for the unexpected.

I plan to implement some of these standards for projects that I'm managing. If they work for me, then I plan to suggest for Digital Services projects and model for others in the organization.

Fast, Cheap & Somewhat in Control: 10 Lessons from the Design of SlideShare / Rashmi Sinha

2007-05-23T20:08:00.000-05:00

Monday, March 26, 2007; Closing Plenary

Creator of MindCampus (user experience research product) and SlideShare (shared space for slideshows) shared insights on application development and IA.

Observations on current web:

Agile development is part of Web 2.0.
1st generation—sharing without context
2nd generation of social networks—connect over objects (photos, question)
Users drive navigation; Let good content rise to the top

SlideShare

“myspace for over 30-yr olds”
will be adding audio soon
some are using as courseware
Will be releasing API

Approach to developing SlideShare:

Create and get feedback afterwards; get answer to the real thing.
a. Needed to see in use to understand use of the social system.
b. Don’t have the tools to anticipate social system
Don’t need personas when social software users pound you with advice.
a. Customer service as user research; monitor blogs/rss
launch first, refine later
a. don’t over-analyze
b. look at best practices, make a guess
constant connection with users by monitoring activity and other informal ways; whole team responds to issues that arise.
designer-developer role in the team allowed for easier communication—less need for design artifacts; hybrid roles are more common in small teams
under invest in visual design—let users feel ownership of space; users less afraid of messing it up
Focus instead on making the app as fast as possible.

Much of this approach is surprising and was experimental (seeing as she first developed a product to assist in user research). Through this development, she discovered:

you do need to do user research when feedback “becomes a torrent”
Too much input, then you can’t process.
Need to decide who you are building for
New team members need summary info
Need to improve beyond “low hanging fruit”

Possible application to L&ET:

What tools do we provide that could be useful in a "mashup?"
How do we staff support for the apps we’ve built?

Links for More Info:

Slide show (hosted on SlideShare, of course) and podcast

Project Touchstones: How to Bridge Competing Viewpoints and Build Vision, Consensus, and Innovation / Jess McMullin

2007-05-23T20:02:00.000-05:00

Monday, March 26, 2007

A key to working with business is to become a peer--design deliverables together.

Tools:

Affinity diagrams—sticky notes
With any data where trying to ID patterns
Sketching with clients—conversational; use as a prop to articulate priorities (ask them to draw and then why did you draw it that way)
Design the Box—design the elements of packaging (name, tagline, 3 key selling features, imagery/color/type; feature set)--helps to focus on the important
Backcasting—start at ideal; what are assumptions and what has to happen—looking at dependencies/relationships; back to current situation
Mental model/alignment diagram--lines up user activities with features of product--can build on wall with stickies

Principles for transforming from review/approve to working together
1. codesign—get over hesitancy of showing unfinished work
2. simple—should not have to be an expert to participate
3. concrete—sketching, sticky notes
4. flexible—should mean different things to different people; see technical and business implications in deliverables
5. evidence based—informed; secondary research (gender and video games); qualitiative research—looking at users in context
6. surface agendas—look for things that will; some things are easy to hide agenda behind; figure out how people really feel

Approach
1. getting people to work together—need to have the important folks at the table (ex: marketing VP); difficult to get them to commit
2. peel back the layers—get to agendas

ask 5 why’s of any type: how is that important, why did you come, what do you hope to learn

3. partner, pilot, publicize—partner with influencers; small pilots; publicize the success; pulls in senior executives; need to have people there to “make sure you are doing the right job”

With sketching—can stay away from literal representations to help to remove from final product if people tend to get too committed to their view as final; stress at front that we will rip all of it up; emphasize that business skills is what is needed—not design

Consultant versus in-house challenges—point to processes already in place; then add the notions of codesign.

Application for L&ET:

We have the perpetual problem of potential candidates for this type of thing with no time to participate. I think that if we went intense and made quick progress, that folks would be motivated to participate.
Projects to try this one:
o search box
o room scheduler
o Staffweb

Links for More Info:

Slide show and podcast

Finding Innovation in the Five Hundred Pound Gorilla / Kevin Cheng, Tom Wailes

2007-05-23T19:57:00.000-05:00

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Two Yahoo! employees shared ways that innovation is encouraged at Yahoo!

Hack Days—24 hour brainstorms
Google 20%--engineering dept spends 20% of time to work on own projects/innovate
Scrum—agile, short cycle (2 week) product releases

Need to overcome fear of:

wasted time,
high cost,
diverted resources,
failure,
missed opportunities,
unknown

To overcome fear, start small.

Design Day—took user reearch; 1 day, several people; storytelling
Local Field Day—45 people, split into 3-person groups, local stakeholders, went to users on same day, made poster boards to ID problem areas
Design Exploration—2 days, 2 designers, work into low time; follow with stakeholder review
Water cooler conversations—don’t freak people out, plant a seed instead; when multiple people planting a seed, it's important to not go on and on (eventually falls on deaf ears); then escalate; allow the other person to have their own thoughts
Consider your sphere of influence--advocate at the level where you do have influence, and then let others influence up the chain for you

Build trust

Transparency and visibility; give people ability to see into the process
Make clear design deliverables for stakeholders
Have a low barrier to entry into the team
Do less design deliverables like wireframes and more cartoon storyboarding, prototyping, product simulations to give feel of experience—communicates with others and works through design process (Wireframes as not communicating the concepts or feel).
Get more people involved in idea/scope; less involved later while trying to crystallize ideas
Brainstorming across functional areas of the organization. Recruit the design team to help the rest of the organization think through the needs.
Keep stakeholders informed. Visualize ideas in a way that stakeholders can understand right away. (ex: Video showing user experience—storytelling how a user uses the site; ex: flash video of personas—short and sweet)
Build track record

Making Believers

User research; field studies
Interviews, diaries, watching users in their environment

Overcome fear by making time
Building trust by involving people
Making believers so it can happen

The Conversation Gets Interesting: Creating the Adaptive Interface / Stephen Anderson

2007-05-23T19:53:00.000-05:00

Saturday, March 24, 2007

The beginning of the abstract for this presentation provides an excellent intro:

"With the proliferation of rich Internet applications and interactions more closely aligned with how people think, we face some interesting challenges:

Do we design for one common audience and common tasks, or tailor applications around specific audiences and their unique activities?
How do we resolve the tension between creating simple applications that ‘do less’ and the demand for new features that some people really do need?
As we move beyond usability to create desirable interfaces, how do we handle a subjective domain like emotions?

"These types of challenges could all be addressed by creating a truly ‘adaptive' interface."

Examples of ways that applications could be/are being tailored for niche audiences (i.e. "the long tail."):

Expanding text box to accommodate use
Using IP address to guess at correct location of user
If the person attaches multiple files, give him the number of fields he typically needs
Assume info based on meeting types—lunch meeting pulls preferred lunch spaces.
Look for iterative actions and reveal features over time to tailor to need
Increase the button size if this user consistently misses it
Color and saturation to indicate age and importance of content—old data fades in color (see: ShaunInman.com)
Prominence of a help link minimizes over time if you never use
To fit smaller/different display sizes, changing layout (liquid versus fixed) and content (disappears to fit in new spacebased on display)
For mapping application, collapse neighborhood driving instructions based on history.
Changing [help] text based on audience? (travel agents versus travelers)
Text changes based on regional differences (Coke, pop, soda)—just like we’d do in a conversation
Removing L-shaped global navigation when applications are displayed
Changing help based on what you know about the person (novice user gets instructions for simpler tasks like drag and drop)

Challenges:

These kinds of options/features are currently being done primarily with cookies. Could also use rich profiles.
OpenID may provide more options when small bits of info about a user can be put together to paint a bigger picture (which, of course, if also a danger).
Requires a clean separation of content and the application.
First, get the basics right (metaphor of using rough grit sandpaper first; fine detail later)
Disclose what you are doing.
Provide opt-outs (i.e. "Please logout if you are not [Fred]."
Be wary of changing spatial organization (users will look for the same content in same spot)
Ease into this kind of info
Could use Web 2.0 model of testing live on users

Links for more info:

Slide show presentation from SlideShare

Information Architecture in Second Life / Stacy Merrill Surla, Lori Bell, Andrew Hinton, Beth Kanter, Peter Allison, Josh Knauer

2007-05-23T19:47:00.000-05:00

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Introduction

Online gaming can be goal oriented (World of War Craft) or social networking-oriented (Second Life). Second Life can include goals, but they are created by the users.
Examples of using Second Life other than a game include for simulations, commerce, meetings, presentations.
IA of Second Life--visitors find it difficult to wayfind within environment
High learning curve to use, but then also to make environments (CAD, scripting, etc)

Demo of virtual (public) library area:

Promote literature through discussions; exhibits; author visits; programs
Individual libraries can join in
Answering reference questions
Created 10 islands in a year
Can sometimes crash during busy times
Difficult to control the environment—can be interrupted by anyone/anything
Can present immersive information (ex: Walk-in books)

Possible Application to L&ET:

Span spatial divide by working on a project (any project) within Second Life.
Do we have information that can be inserted into Second Life for users to interact with in different ways? Ex: within Second Life, some has combined Google Maps, info feeds and cataclysmic events.

Links for More Info:

Slide show presentation on SlideShare

@toread and Cool: Tagging for Time, Task and Emotion / Margaret E. I. Kipp

2007-05-23T19:30:00.000-05:00

March 25 2007

Analyzed the tags at social bookmarking sites Connotea, and Del.icio.us.

Many of the tags were descriptive and useful for other users.
16% (3049 tags) were time/task (i.e toread, toblog) tags. CiteULike has a feature for marking an item for later retrieval. Users appear to still tag things as "todo" or "toread."
Additional tags were affective (i.e. cool, boring). Appeared to be review-like rather than marking for future use.
some appeared to be for a specific group (i.e. course numbers)

Application for L&ET:

What implications are there if we were to allow tagging within LEO? Do we delete this kind of use, or do we allow it to flourish?

Link for more info:

Abstract and PPT.

The Brave New World: Usability Challenges of Web 2.0 / Jared Spool

2007-05-15T20:05:00.000-05:00

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Jared Spool, of User Interface Engineering, reported on research in progress. His company’s mission is to long term, improve quality of lives by elminiating frustrations of technology.

Describes Web 2.0 as…

designing with total user experience
combining users and content
moves beyond traditional interface
development/design teams shrinking (because teams are able to do more with less staff by adding onto the work of others)

A recent 37Signals survey asked users what Web 2.0 meant to them. The answer: AJAX, interactive, Rails.

Design tends to focus on three stages, or mutations:

Talking horse stage, where people are building stuff with a technology focus.
Adding features stage. Ex: Amazon adding features like blogging.
Designing for experience stage; Web 2.0. Described as a backlash against too many features. Ex: Craigslist, where individual user experience trumps classic views of design

Components of Web 2.0
1. APIs
2. rss feeds
3. folksonomies/tagging
4. social networks

Web 2.0 is not user-created content. That has always been there. Web 2.0 is leveraging that user-created content.

Ex: Flickr

Incidentally, flickr is #5 in popularity for photo sharing. Photobucket is top.
Flickr uses a personalized homepage. Most users never see the generic, non-user home page after signing up.
Flickr has a programming interface to create stuff (i.e. APIs)
The Geotagging and printing tools were adopted after someone else (non-Flickr employee) did the development using the APIs.

1. APIs have their challenges. They make everyone a designer.
They can also create seamless experience with code from multiple sources.

Overheard in New York

Example of mashup between Twitter and Google maps
Took Twitter streams and mapped it with Google maps
The result is randome overheard conversations from the streets of New York. Here's an example from today (4/26/07):

Old lady: This is a full sandwich. I said half sandwich.
Waiter: What's the big deal? I won't charge you for the whole thing -- just eat half.
Old lady: No, no, you don't understand -- I am claustrophobic.

Yahoo pipes

Yahoo providing the tools to create mashups with RSS feeds.
Then, users offer those mashups to the public.
Ex: UST Campus/Library/Community Flickr Associations, which finds Flickr images based on a University of St. Thomas news source, the same university's news blog, and a local news blog.

2. RSS feeds
Challenges include

explaining them to users. When do things come and go? Is it refreshing for corrections? How do users subscribe?
How do users deal with the number of feeds they track? (Google reader caps at 100 posts before it starts deleting)

3. Folksonomies
Challenges include

How tagging is being used. For instance, are tags for “me” and “hi_you_what’s_up?" useful to anyone else?
Difficulty in figuring out logic behind someone else’s tag
Are you tagging for yourself or for others?
Do we monitor? Who? How?

4. Social networking
Ex: Netflix

Ratings from friends are separate from everyone else
Compare your ratings with your friends
Games based on ratings

Challenges arise when more than one person is involved:

How do we prevent systems from being “gamed” (scoring/ranking people)
How do we encourage behavior; allowing for good behavior to propagate; not anti-social behavior

Challenge of the "long tail" of the Zipf curve

only a handful of CDs become really popular;
some that become sort of;
many that only a few folks like
get more sales from those unique—long tail—titles (only sell a couple of copies but there are many of them)
98% of the Microsoft.com users are using 2% of the content; what do you do for the rest of the content?

New IA Challenges with Web 2.0

Most of IA has been dealing with known authors and static content.
New problem: dynamic content (same known authors)
Even newer problem: dynamic content; unknown authors

Ex: LinkedIn.com
tracks contacts
can input resume content and output new resume but users don't tend ot put content in correctly.

Possible Application for L&ET:

What applications in L&ET would lend themselves to APIs?

Best Practices for Form Design / Luke Wroblewski

2007-05-15T19:27:00.000-05:00

Saturday March 24 2007

Forms are used online for

shopping
access (i.e. registration)
data input (same as physical)

And they are how users talk to companies online.

No one likes filling in forms, so let's minimize the pain.

Smart defaults, in line validation, clear path to completion can all help.
The context matters, including how frequently the person completes the form and how familiar the data is to the user.
Consistency can be used with a single voice; errors, help, success.

Ways to analyze performance include:

Usability testing; track errors
Customer support
Site tracking

Layout Best Practices

Top aligned labels (i.e. label is directly above the box that the user fills in)

good for familiar data
minimize time needed to complete
user sees label and form at same time
allows for flexible designing (space to accommodate different languages, for instance)
need more vertical space
contrast is important

Right aligned labels (i.e. label is to the left of the box, aligned to a right margin)

close association between label and box
harder to scan, which makes it good for unfamiliar forms
still faster completion times than top-aligned
fit more in vertical space

Left aligned (i.e label is to the left of the box, aligned to the left margin; boxes are left-aligned, too)

best for unfamiliar data (left aligned labels—fields left aligned too)
easier to scan
takes longer to fill out
user has no problem associating labels and fields
forces user to pause/analyze

Required form fields

Asterisk if the convention for required fields
Some forms label required fields even if all are required; this doesn't make sense
Consider getting rid of optional fields (increases completion rates)
For forms that are mostly requited, could flag optional instead of required
Make it easy to see required fields at a glance
Associate indicators (i.e. required) with labels

Field lengths

Expresses expectation—make smaller if only a few characters
Random sizes increases visual noise; keep consistent if no expectation of length

Content Grouping Best Practices

Important for longer forms (i.e. tax forms)
User should be able to scan info at a high level
Boundaries (white borders) introduces new visual elements
Use minimal amount of visual information

Actions Best Practices

Avoid secondary actions
Minimize reset button if not important—visual representation of the actions should match importance
Consider the use of buttons versus links, and the visual weight of the icon

Help/Tips Best Practices

Used for:

unfamiliar data
to justify reason requesting

Can overwhelm a form if overused—dynamic solutions could help

Inline exposure (pops up info when you click on field) (ex: Intuit snap tax)
User-activated inline exposure (i.e small ? next to field)—shows up below or nearby
Help visible and adjacent to data request

Interaction Best Practices

Make the path to completion clear
Remove unneeded fields
Allow for flexible data input (i.e. allow different ways to insert dates)
Use smart defaults
Direct line path to completion (literally, can be graphically illustrated)
Offer chance to save for longer forms
Use proper html (tabindex attribute) to allow users to tab through a form.

Consider progressive disclosure for complex forms

Hide advanced options behind a link (display content below the more common needs)
Gradual engagement by offering subchoices
Dialog to progress through steps—gradually engage (give them a vested interest)
Give them a reason to be excited—show why the user should want first, then give the form (or move them through)
Use metrics for what users include in a form (i.e. less than 20% adoption of field, then it goes to an advanced option panel)
Progressive disclosure is most effective when user-initiated
Maintain clear relationship between selection and result

Feedback Best Practices

Inline validation (error messages appear as the user fills out the form instead of after submit)

Ex: password strength indicator
Show right away if username is available

Give options as user starts to type
Length limitations (show how many of available characters)

Indicating errors

Clear indicator
Gives way to resolve—top level message
Duplicate language at error spot—secondary indicator

Indicate progress

Disable submit button (after user clicks) and replace with animation to indicate progress
"Doing something…" messages

Indicate success

Top level message—shows in context of form or…
Popup success message (in context)
Animation (highlight item) to indicate that it’s done

Don’t change inputs (don’t clear after submit)
Warn of likely unknown/difficult information needs before the user even gets to the form.

Possible Application for L&ET:

We should review our forms against these recommendations.

Mentions two online form-builders:

Data Driven Design: Using Web Analytics to Improve Information Architecture / Andrea Wiggins

2007-04-26T19:42:00.000-05:00

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Web analytics= think WebTrends although there are other tools out there.

Web analytics can be used to:

quantify user experience audits
identify key performance indicators
compare over time with annual audits

Limitations:
Most tools are not designed to capture Rich Internet Applications (RIA); user may stay on one "page" while interacting with content.

Spiders ruin user data

block out with robots.txt—prevent from looking at logs
can also identify spiders by looking at speed of visits from single user

Types of Data:

Ratio of new to returning visitors

think about context
track over time and track with cross-channel marketing
consider the effect of timeouts

Median visit length

is closer to reality than an average visit length
can indicate depth and breadth of visit—are they digging deep or are they hopping around?

Clicktru rates for clickable graphics--requires additional programming (we've done this for our Featured Connections).

Response time--be sure to check at peak load time

Server errors

Monitor 500 server errors, which is where our server has the problem
Try to identify how the user got to the 404 server errors
Combined, hits to server errors should be < .5%

Action items:

Look at those dang 404 errors that show up in WebTrends more closely. Can we track where they are coming from?
Look at Crazy Egg analytics tool
Look at “leakage points”—where did users bail out of the website. Do they make sense?

Links for More Info:

Slide show presentation from SlideShare

Using Search Analytics to Diagnose What’s Ailing Your IA / Rich Wiggins and Louis Rosenfeld

2007-04-15T19:38:00.000-05:00

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Wiggins’ emphasis was best bets within search results. Rosenfeld spoke more generally about identifying problems from search logs.

Practicalities:

Zipf curve (long tail/short head) applies to search log—many users have unique needs
Look at top searches, and then dip down into the unique ones. Don’t treat all the searches as equal. Could look at top 50% of all searches, for instance.
Consider seasonality (by season, day, even hour). Some needs are higher by season. Could promote that content accordingly.
Capture search logs to SQL database to then process. Can dump relevant fields into Excel and then evaluate.
Use IP with time stamp to surmise single user.

Ways to Use Search Logs:

Look at most common unique queries; are there patterns?
Test common queries to see what results look like.
Look for null results.
Look for too large results.
Can grow content to satisfy searches (ex: Netflix did this in response to “yoga” searches)
Look at improving search entry, results, and/or algorithm
Combine with field study (ex: L.L.Bean saw users starting with catalog, then taking SKU to web—answered why users were searching for SKU)
Fixing a trend seen in long tail could help many.
Look for time variations; respond by positioning Best Bets or guides seasonally.
Add tools for results page (i.e. options for broadening/narrowing)—this moves advanced search options from search page to results page
Best bets as not the final answer; still should monkey with relevance ranking. (ex: rank company names higher if that’s what users search)
Consider a best bets index rather than/in addition to a site index. See MSU A-Z index as example of using common queries as a best bets index. Site index uis difficult to build. Do you make it comprehensive? Selective?
Look for the page the user is searching from to identify failure points.
Look at top pages found through search; how can these be easier to find in navigation?
When cleaning up site, start with what people want—rather than complete evaluation of content.
Look at “tone” in search (technical or popular; specificity; acronyms; plural) to help create labels.
Cluster queries to see parent/childs; look for possible metadata fields and contents for those.
Sample the long tail (tends to be more research oriented)
Compare spikes (proper names, companies) and compare with editorial content; identify future stories. (ex: Financial Times has done this)

Links for More Info:

Slideshow presentation and podcast

The Lost Art of Productively Losing Control / Joshua Prince-Ramus

2007-04-11T19:01:00.001-05:00

Saturday, March 24, 2007

This was the opening keynote.

Architect Prince-Ramus, spoke about a handful of projects on which he worked and, despite fairly radical end results, were designed for use rather than purely aesthetic. The expectation of the talk was that information architects would find parallels between information architecture and building architecture.

Project 1: Seattle Public LibraryResponded to challenge to create a space which would fulfill the varied expectations for a modern public library. Among the recognized conflicts is the growth of new technologies, on top of the existing, long-lived book technology. In parallel are increased expectations for an urban public library as community space. Both of these progressions are illustrated with the following graphs. In response, the architect attempted to designate a percentage to the “stable spaces” (book stacks, staff spaces, etc) and not allow the social spaces areas to encroach. In other words, both (or all) roles of the library…and all formats deserve a space.

One of the highlights of this building is that the book stacks are in one continuous spiral—much like a parking garage—within the building. This design provides a logical arrangement while also creating serendipity (users flow from one section to the next).

There is no down escalator, in fact, to encourage the user to browse down the stacks.
Call numbers are embedded in the floor at the end of each range.
Elevator buttons which normally indicate floor are instead labeled with call numbers.

Possible Application to L&ET:

Can make the same argument about stable versus unstable spaces in our environment? Our spaces seem to be in flux and our “stable” spaces (staffing, in particular) have encroached on social spaces, rather than the other way around.
How do we label our elevator buttons in the stacks? In public areas?
Embedded call numbers they way they did it don’t make sense for us (it looked somewhat permanent for them). I wonder about carpet squares with exchangable call numbers or an electronic display. Would the gain in navigation be worth the cost?

Project 2: CalTech Pasadena Information Sciences building
One of the early steps in this project was to chart out the different functions of the building spaces with colors—first, on a floor map and then stacked up into a bar graph. The end result looked much like a disk defrag graphic, and the conclusions may be somewhat similar.

In this building, as across the entire campus, the spaces were heavily intertwined. His point was that with everything all mixed up, users are less likely to visit that building because they can’t figure it out. Instead, they stay in a building that they’ve already learned, even though that building may be just as fragmented.

To clean it all up, the architect worked with the client to create clusters (research, factory, undergrads centers, Olympus were his labels). Like things were treated in like ways. For instance, staff office spaces ended up in a ring around the facility.

Possible Application to L&ET:

He promoted fishbowl conference rooms which spark conversation, even from outside a team, and promote innovation. The poster sessions offered a similar idea from AOL—not fishbowl, though.
The idea of defragging a space makes sense to me. Put like functions together and it seems like you’d get more efficiency.
I think we’ve been thinking too inside the box about staff work spaces. Should we start looking at vertical space like we did with the double-decker carrels?
An interesting observation from the architect…many architects (and the information architects I asked, too) work in large spaces where collaboration is easier. In fact, conversations from co-workers are seen less as distraction and more as a staying involved. He found that academics viewed collaborative space more as private offices with doors that could be opened.
Are too committed to the traditional work day. Do we have staff that would prefer to work different schedules and share spaces?

Links for more info:

Building a New Central Library from the Seattle Public Library
Seattle Central Library from the architecture firm