User Activities
What is a user activity?
A user activity is a task that a critical mass of users comes to the library to do in order to meet a goal, which a critical mass of library staff can help with and is proud to do so. It can be connected to events, devices we lend, staff who can help, news, workshops, spaces, and other content types. Examples: 3D Printing, Video, Evaluate Sources.
Informally, they're also called "do" pages because they have /do/ in the URL.
Our list of user activities changes over time. For example, Wearables was renamed Textiles, and Large-Format Printing was retired.
User activities are categorized under service portals. A user activity can belong to multiple service portals (example: 3D Scanning). View the full list of user activities and service portals.
Who can edit user activity pages?
The main content area (body) of the user activity can only be edited by:
- Web Team members
- Staff members whose Drupal accounts have "User Activity editor" role (granted by Web Team)
- Things to edit: "About this activity" field, contact and consultation fields
- Things not to edit: Description, activity group, icon/image, URL alias
What should the main content area of the user activity page contain?
- Explanation of what it is to a newbie with a friendly, welcoming tone
- How they can try out the activity or where to start
- Illustrative photo (e.g., happy students playing video games for Gaming)
Good example: Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality
Don't forget to tailor your writing for the web!
What connects to user activities?
- Staff members
- Events
- Workshops
- Spaces
- Devices
- News
- Library Stories
- Projects
These items are not part of the main content area. They're nodes connected to the user activity. Edit these individual nodes to adjust whether they appear on this page.
Example: if there's a workshop on a user activity page that shouldn't be there, you'll edit the workshop node to disconnect it in the User Activities section of the editing interface.
The screenshot at left highlights what's editable on the user activity page (blue) and what content connects to the user activity (orange).