| Caroline Padon | ||
|---|---|---|
| Project Name | Role | Year |
| PCL Wayfinding Kiosk | UX Strategist, Product Owner | 2024–2025 |
Case study
Students were getting lost on every floor. I led the UX research and kiosk redesign that helped PCL finally make sense.
The problem
Research revealed that the existing wayfinding system — static signage, a legacy kiosk, and an outdated floor map — left students disoriented from the moment they walked in. Three themes surfaced across every session.
Students consistently underestimated floor count and couldn't locate stacks, study rooms, or service desks without asking staff.
The numbering system was inconsistent across floors, causing students to abandon self-directed navigation entirely.
Quiet floors and collaborative spaces sat empty while prime real estate on floor 1 was overcrowded — nobody knew about the alternatives.
Research
I facilitated user-led tours using Andy Priestner's methodology, asking participants to navigate to a destination while thinking aloud. I coded findings using Kevin Lynch's framework — edges, nodes, and landmarks — to surface the underlying spatial model students actually held.
Synthesis workshops brought together library staff, IT, and facilities to align on what the kiosk needed to solve before we touched a single wireframe.
Solution
Instead of a static floor map, I designed an interactive touch-screen system surfacing real-time occupancy data from Occuspace alongside room bookings from LibCal. Students see where space is actually available before they climb four flights of stairs.
The kiosk interaction model prioritizes two tasks above everything else: find a place to study and find a collection or service. Everything else is secondary navigation.
Occuspace sensor data is translated into three simple states — quiet, moderate, busy — mapped to color and icon so a glancing student gets the signal immediately. No percentages, no raw numbers.
I served as product owner between the AUX and LIT teams throughout build, writing user stories, defining acceptance criteria, and running sprint reviews. The output wasn't just a kiosk UI — it was a component library and documentation set that let LIT iterate without starting over.
Content is managed through Strapi CMS, decoupled from the front-end so library staff can update room names and service descriptions without developer involvement.
Outcome
The kiosk project was presented at UXLibs 2026 as evidence of Stage 5 organizational maturity at UT Libraries — a shift from ad-hoc research to embedded, systems-level UX practice integrated across teams and infrastructure.
"I've been coming here for three years and I didn't know that floor existed."
— Undergraduate student, wayfinding test session"It actually shows me where there's space before I go up. That's all I wanted."
— Graduate student, prototype feedback