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Kidding Ar und:

Enhancing UX for Young Users with the Children’s Theme Plugin

Barbara Glassford Johnson – Bedford Public Library

Jason Robb – Southeast Kansas Library System

Lucas Gass - ByWater Solutions

2023 koha-US Conference

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

September 20, 2023

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Children’s OPAC Theme Plugin

DEVELOPED BY LUCAS GAS FROM BYWATER SOLUTIONS

WHY?

HOW?

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Children’s OPAC Theme Plugin

Create

Create canned search urls for homepage

Select

Select your images

Add

Add custom JS and CSS to the plugin

Decide

Decide how to limit your collection to just children’s materials

Configure

Configure the plugin

Disable

Disable OPACUserCSS and OPACUserJS

Create

Create a new url

Install

Install the plugin

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Children’s OPAC Theme Plugin

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Children’s OPAC Apache Config

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Children’s OPAC Theme Plugin

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Children’s OPAC Theme Design

Fun images

Bright colors

Large search input box with a big search button

Large,

easy-to-read font

Large navigation buttons

Lots of white space

Big Start Over button

Canned searches for popular subjects and genres

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Kid-Friendly Language

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Images

Microsoft Fluent Emoji - https://fluent-ui.julienc.me/

https://github.com/microsoft/fluentui-emoji

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Fonts & Color

Lexend fonts are intended to reduce visual stress and so improve reading performance. Initially they were designed with dyslexia and struggling readers in mind, but it turns out that these fonts are also great for everyone else. https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lexend
Colorblind-friendly palettes

https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/

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Home page - Model site

https://kids-model.bywatersolutions.com/

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Home page - Bedford

https://bedfordtx.bywatersolutions.com/

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Home page - Bedford

https://kids-bedfordtx.bywatersolutions.com/

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Home page - SEKnFind

https://www.seknfind.org/

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Home page - SEKnFind Kids

https://kids-seklstest.bywatersolutions.com/

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Results Pages

Two-column card-style layout on results pages

01

Large images which denote the format of the item

02

Kid-friendly language

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Series are styled for more visibility

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Simple filtering options

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Series Visibility

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Detail Pages

Expanded list of similar titles

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Pared down display

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Simple navigation

03

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Patron Account

Account login

01

Custom login icon

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Limited account options

03

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Patron Account

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Patron Account

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iPad Views

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User Feedback

“My son and I love it. He can just point at the picture of the dinosaur and I know what he wants.”

“Staff is going to want the regular catalog to look like this.”

“This is sooooo cute!”

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Issues and Additions

Clicking on links for authors and subjects isn’t limiting to the children’s collection
Entering a search in the search box isn’t limiting to the children’s collection
Clicking on Novelist links don’t limit to children’s collection
Back button on search results is broken
Adding a ‘clear search’ icon to the search input box would be nice

https://github.com/bywatersolutions/koha-plugin-opac-theme-childrens/issues

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Thank You!��Questions?

Barbara - barbara.johnson@bedfordtx.gov

Jason - jrobb@sekls.org

Lucas - lucas@bywatersolutions.com