King Library Booking

A redesign of San Jose State University & King Library's frustrating study room booking portal

Role

UX Designer

Date

Apr - July 2025

Scope

User Research, Usability Testing, Prototyping

Tools

Figma, Google Forms

⭐️ Highlights

01 The Problem

SJSU students often find the King Library Booking Portal difficult to use. Like many government websites, it feels outdated and frustrating.

Challenging Bias

But it doesn't have to be confusing. Government portals like BenefitsCal prove that accessible design can still be modern and user-friendly.

Context

  • The portal is primarily used by SJSU students.

  • Books semi-private rooms for calls, studying, or resting

  • Jointly ran by SJSU and SJPL (San Jose Public Library)

02 Discovery — Heuristic Evaluation

Original landing page

Design Audit

I began by seeking to understand the overall flow and structure of the process by combing through the portal’s pages and interactions. I mapped potential issues against NN/g's 10 Usability Heuristics, the most critical are as follows.

Inability to Manage Bookings

Users must dig through email to cancel. With no in-app option and a 2-hour limit, managing bookings is frustrating.

Confirmation email

Overwhelmed by Options

Three booking types shown at once confuse users. They’re forced to decide before they understand the options.

Time, Space, and Calendar Searches

Messy Wall of Text

On landing, user is hit with a wall of text. Important info is buried under a lack of visual hierarchy and inconsistent styling.

Wall of text!

Inconsistency in Terms

The form dropdown for “Category” and “Zone” contain the same items which can confuse the user, what's the difference?

Category and Zone"form dropdowns pictured above

03 Discovery — Usability Testing

A heuristic evaluation is just the first step. Validating these issues through usability testing with users was necessary to see the real pain points.

Who We Tested

Five SJSU students (ages 19–21) with varying familiarity with the booking portal. This reflects the portal’s core user group.

What We Asked Them To Do

Students were asked to book a group study room for 5 people at 6:00 PM, three days out. The scenario was realistic and covered the full booking flow.


They were guided using the Think-Aloud Protocol. Then came a twist: one group member was now only free after 7:00 PM. Could they reschedule?

Common Pain Points

In phase #1, participants ran into major roadblocks with common pain points along the flow pictured below.

What Happened

But the second task was the real deal-breaker. Every single participant failed to reschedule without external help.

The cancel link only exists in the email confirmation. This was intentionally not mentioned in the prompt to mirror how many students overlook their inboxes.

Real Frustration

lorum ipsum

What Was Measured

After testing, each user completed a System Usability Scale (SUS) to quantify their experience. The result was a 37/100 which is classified as “poor.”

The average score across systems is a 68/100. In this particular flow, the booking process ranks well below average.

04 Redesign

With the results from both the heuristic evaluation and the user testing, I could head into the redesign with a clearer understanding of the issues present.

Improved Landing Page

  • Replaced visually busy banner

  • Removed wall of text, integrated info where needed

  • Search and calendar view side-by-side

  • Clearer text hierarchy

Redesigned landing page

Improved Filter Search

  • One cohesive room search (rather than time vs. space)

  • Date-first flow (more intuitive than space-first)

  • Improved 2-hour limit salience

  • Clarified difference between floor and zone filters

  • Removed unnecessary filters

Added Manage Bookings

  • Ability to change the booking date and time

  • Ability to delete booking

  • Scalable to multiple bookings

  • View previous bookings

Improved Search Results

  • No placeholders — representative room pictures

  • Improved information organization on room cards

The redesign also aimed to produce a working prototype that lets users complete the entire booking flow.

05 Validation

I ran five user tests in the same format as the discovery phase in order to validate and confirm that the redesign did in fact improve on usability, aesthetics, and overall satisfaction.

Full validation booking flow

What Was Measured

The resulting SUS Score was a 87.5/100 which is classified as “excellent," an improvement from the original score of 37/100.

Overall Satisfaction

At the end, users were asked how easy to use, confusing, aesthetically pleasing, and organized the new portal was, and the results were resounding.

05 Reflection

I was really glad that the redesign was both a qualitative and quantitative success!

What I Learned

Going through the full process, from discovery and research to redesign and validation, showed me that effective design isn’t about personal taste. It’s about evidence. User behavior and feedback revealed gaps I wouldn’t have seen otherwise, grounding design decisions in reality rather than assumptions.

What I Enjoyed Most

For me, interviewing participants was my favorite part! These interview sessions allowed me to hear their input, and give me a chance to articulate my thought process and design choices, and it was very rewarding seeing it come to life.

Next Steps

I’d expand the filter system to support multi-selects, like choosing multiple floors or capacities because during my testing, I found that many users just wanted any available room, not a specific one.

I’d also explore the calendar-based booking view. It’s a visual, intuitive approach, but complex to prototype and test, so it wasn’t fully realized in this version.