Connecting Librarians and Youth with Computational Thinking Skills

Libraries Ready to Code | An Initiative of the American Libraries Association

Client Info

Since its founding in 1876, during the U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the American Library Association (ALA) has been on the forefront of advocacy for equal access to information and opportunity.

Throughout the 1900s, the ALA fought censorship and segregation, with an emphasis on intellectual freedom, social responsibility, and outreach to underserved populations. The ALA’s inclusive and forward-thinking focus has continued into the 21st Century, with a commitment to expanding computer literacy for purposes of empowering youth to succeed in a tech-driven economy.

Recently, the ALA Ready to Code site, which was largely funded by a grant from Google, has taken the ALA's advocacy for tech literacy to the next level.

Libraries Ready to Code grew out of a conviction that helping youth to become comfortable with Computational Thinking is key to the mission of libraries in the digital age.

Industry

Education

Top challenge

Site must introduce Computational Thinking to a wide variety of users, while organizing and presenting resources to them based on their specific experience level.

Needs to organize a vast collection of educational assets within the framework of an inviting and visually appealing learning path.

Site needs to offer multiple points of entry so that each user can have a meaningful user experience.

The site must be accessible to all users and overcome any perceived barriers of rural youth, economically disadvantaged, and others so they can see themselves as candidates for STEM careers.

Top solution

Provided content that can be searched and filtered based on the user's role, experience level, and more.

Created user journeys for librarians that align with varying levels of expertise and comfort while introducing Computational Thinking.

Presented a visually appealing user interface (UI) designed to help users easily locate information, which also maximized user engagement and won multiple design awards.

Enabled users to enter and explore the site without forcing a single path so their experience is customized to their evolving needs at the time of their visit as familiarity with Computational Thinking expands.

We now have the advantage of an Open Source CMS that is aligned with the worldwide Drupal Community. The result is big benefits. Taking all factors into account, we estimate that the annual cost savings will exceed $100,000.

Quazi Hashmi

Program Manager, County of Orange, California

Learn more about how we got there

A Tightly Orchestrated Migration Plan

The aggressive schedule and multiple moving parts associated with the migration of 41 distinct county sites into a cohesive whole called for a finely tuned plan that was closely adhered to throughout every phase of the carefully orchestrated, 18-month migration. The project was divided into 12, six-week waves, each with a different sets of site owners. Every one of the 12 phases began with a discovery session and included weekly meetings, multiple UAT checkpoints, extensive documentation, and training.

No-Code, Drag-And-Drop Content Editing

Provus, which is Promet’s newly launched component-based design system, proved to be a defining factor in the success of the project -- driving a high degree of development efficiency, while empowering site owners and content editors with the ability with access to a robust library of content editing components.With Provus, the keys for managing the site have essentially been turned over to individual site owners and an empowered cadre of 100+ content editorsLeveraging Drupal Layout Builder, along with a carefully curated set of components, Provus provides site owners with layout options based upon sets of component blocks that can be mixed and matched for no-code, drag-and-drop content editing. While each of the sites is utilizing the same code base, every department’s site has a distinct database, with a cohesive design language and brand guidelines.

Open Source Advantage

The Open Source Drupal CMS has sparked a depth and breadth of benefits. No longer locked in with proprietary software and the associated vendor licensing fees, Orange County now owns the code to its site and is positioned to benefit from the upgrades, new releases, and collective brainpower of the million-member-strong Drupal Community.Significant cost savings are resulting from the elimination of proprietary software licensing fees, a favorable hosting fee model with Acquia, and greater efficiencies overall. Current estimated annual cost savings now stands at $100,000.Savings stemming from migration to an Open Source CMS are in alignment with Promet’s conviction that public funds should not be used to pay for private code.

A CMS That Allows for Flexibility

The Result

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Research

Competitive benchmark
User personas
Site map and User Journeys
Wireframes

Branding

Identity extension
Digital brand guidelines
Market research

Digital experience

Creative direction
Website design
Design system

Development

Front-end development
Website migration
Custom Drupal CMS
Quality assurance

Let’s start your project

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