Recently we showed parts of Lemontree to a really good friend of ours Brendan Dawes whilst meeting him about something else that’s very exciting, and he asked a fundamental question.   

Here’s iman’s account of that: 

Brendan as well as being a good friend of mine, is someone who doesn’t hold back any punches. He’s a straight talking, no bullshit kind of guy, who makes things and inspires others to do the same. 

…he asked a really important, question.

Whats the benefit to the students?

I have to say, although it didnt stump me much, its the kind of question that if you don’t have the answer to makes you sound rather stupid. The last time someone asked me a question as decisive as this was actually also in relation to the library work I was doing in 2005..That, was none other than Don Norman himself!  

In the midst of the sheer amount of development we’ve been doing, its been a while since I pondered on it, so this prompted me ponder some more on, as a valuable exercise I present it here…  after all Lemontree is first and foremost, a user centric venture, predicated on the fact that libraries are there for their patrons, and we’re trying in our own way to make it more appealing and better for everyone. 

So here’s a summary and edit of what I wanted to say

• Library interfaces are usually unattractive and clunky, its important for first year students to gravitate towards something that looks of the now and is constantly being refined. Aesthetically pleasing designs look easier to use and have a higher probability of being used constantly. 
• There is a social layer that helps students filter the half a million books at the library and learn together. If you know what your fellow course members are studying and looking at, you’re more likely to find out more about the kind of things you could borrow. Same goes with Ratings, allowing recommendations between users and so on.  
  
  
• Profiling desired behaviour. In academia as with any other situation where social proof is a powerful force, there’s a definite sense that signposting and making visible scholarly activity and leaving a trace of it has a desirable effects on the activity general student populace in terms of encouraging them to use the library more and we all know what happens when students use the library more