Challenging children to choose a book in the library

Abstract

To become the most modern library of the world, DOK is developing new concepts to adapt to the needs of their visitors. The public library branch is going through a renewal to withstand the decrease of library use. Less people, including children, are visiting the library since the nineties. Needs and expectations of customers have been changing and the library services should adapt to these changes. DOK wants to stimulate children, especially boys, to read. By making the searching process more appealing, DOK wants to make it nice and easy for children to find a book. The assignment for this master thesis was: Investigate the needs of the target group and based on that; design a product, service or combination that enables children aged between 9-12 to: Find a book they like, when they don’t know exactly what to read and enjoy the searching process. During the analysis, the information gathered through literature and experts raised questions. These research questions were answered in the user research phase through contextmapping sessions, video reports and class visits. The insights gathered in the user research phase functioned as input for the design phase in the form of design insights. The product, developed in the design phase, is finally evaluated and recommendations for DOK to further implement the design were made. The final design is a new system for children to return books. When children return a book they record a short video message with their opinion about the book. After taping the video the child places the book in one of the categories in the delivery box. On the children’s department a video closet is placed with the same categories as on the delivery box. In the video closet the librarian places the delivered books. On screens in the back of the closet the movies accompanying the books are played. The video closet and the delivery point are tested with prototypes in DOK. The insights from these tests were incorporated in the design. Overall the reactions of the children were very enthusiastic.