flex your info

The first time I attended ALA (in 2007), I wanted to make sure I checked out as much stuff as I could. Having just started my MLIS the semester before, I was excited to learn about the world of LIS and to meet people in the profession. I haven’t always been a planner, but I am these days, so I combed through the lists of events. I had the event planner in one tab and the program PDF in another, deciding what to add to my schedule.

I don’t recall that the event planner was really any better then than it is today: the interface is clunky, the design takes up too much space, and all the information that could be available isn’t, among other issues. That being said, there are things I like: the icons, the search, and some of the options. Overall, there’s plenty of room for improvement, with about a 2-to-1 ratio of things I don’t like versus things I do.

What I Like:

• the icons. They’re cute and well-done, if a bit large.
• the text-to-speech option for exporting your schedule.  I haven’t tried it, but it sounds neat.
• the search parameters.  There are enough options available, though the “unit” drop down could use some work (see below).
• the message center ability to forward messages to a device (do people use the message center?).
• the password warning (“Your password is still set to the default”), even though I have to scroll to see it.

• the ability to add a personal appointment, so I can add something like “2pm-4pm Exhibits” when I want to walk the exhibit hall.
• the feedback survey. I plan on providing some!

What I Didn’t Like:

• the amount of unnecessary white space. When I load the event planner on my laptop, with my browser maximized, there are scroll bars.  It’s mostly empty space, so it shouldn’t be so large.

• the grayed out language flags.  If the language is not supported, consider not showing it at all.  Only show the flags of the languages which are supported.

• having the initial password listed on front page (also explored at librarian.net). It’s not hard to find an ala.org email addresses and log in.  I did try one (guess which one?), and got in.  Maybe it’s not that big of a deal, but I could send messages from someone’s account and it would look like it was from them. Possibly an opportunity for phishing.
• the lack of a “forgot your password” link.
• the downloading and printing options aren’t inline. Rather than these options being a separate page of the website (or perhaps in addition to), provide a link on the daily/weekly/whatever views that allows you to download or print, with a drop down menu that lists the various options.
• the unit drop down menu on the search page. Perhaps the affiliates could be listed there, or as subunits of the “AFL” unit. Technically they aren’t units, but it’d be great if we could search for the affiliates in that way. For example, I searched for “AILA” keyword and there were no results.  I did find events when I searched for “American Indian Library Association”, and the unit for those events is “AFL”.  It’d also be nice if the affiliates drop-down explained what the acronyms stand for, or if there was a page somewhere that did. (What’s the difference between “AFL” and “AFL/ALA” anyway?)
• having to scroll back to where I was in the search results after adding an event.  It reloads the page (with the added event now no longer a link), and then I have to scroll back to where I was in the search results. Also, a little more feedback would be nice. It’s good to know my itinerary item was added, but it could tell me which one so I know that I clicked the correct one.

• the information being in one big chunk. Use alternating background colors so it’s easier to read.  Reduce the white space and make the information more compact, so that more of it fits on one screen at a time.

• the lack of descriptions in the event listings.  The descriptions are available in the preliminary program, but not on the event planner.  There are some items which have “more info” links, but apparently “more info” doesn’t include all the information needed–for example, when an event requires a ticket, such as the Many Voices, One Nation event.
• the exhibitor link confusion.  I thought that clicking on it would show me a list of all the exhibitors, but later I figured out that it’s just the ones I’ve added to my personal list.  There doesn’t seem to be a way to find a list of all the available exhibitors in the event planner.  I was able to search for exhibitors (for example, “Demco” – quick plug for them, because they are sponsoring a travel grant through AILA for the conference, thanks!). When I click on an entry for an exhibitor, maybe it could show me a map of the booths and highlight the exhibitor’s.  Better yet, if I add multiple exhibitors to my list, maybe it could produce a map that highlights all of the booths I want to visit, making it easier to find the booths.
• the weekly view.  It’s not that useful, other than to show blocks of time.  When I hover over a block, it could show what program is in that time slot.  It could color code the blocks based on the type of program, to break the information up a bit.  Consider making the blocks a different color than the dividing lines. The daily view’s not much better, but at least it provides the name of the program.

• the help. The only help seems to be for the messaging functionality, with nothing about finding exhibitors, searching the schedule, adding things to your schedule, or adding personal appointment (functionality which I kind of stumbled on).

When looking around to see if anyone else had raised any of these issues, I found out that there have been complaints to ALA. According to the 2009 Midwinter Website Advisory Commitee (WAC) Report, there’s a group devoted to revamping the event planner.  The survey link on the event planner site is intended to help create a better event planner.  Here’s hoping for some improvement! I’ll be completing the survey soon.