OU Library Services is constantly trying to improve the services it provides.

As part of this commitment, we have developed new icons for Library Search. These are brighter (in keeping with The OU’s up-to-date website templates), colour-contrast tested for accessibility and include many more format types than before. This has involved creating some icons (and underlying categorisations of material) that did not exist before and updating others.

Here are a few examples:

We have received great student and staff feedback on these changes already and we are seeing their benefit during usability testing. The new icons were designed following an analysis of similar work undertaken in Tennessee and Washington. This was a real team effort – colleagues from across Library Services worked together to make it happen.