Too Many Varied User Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects

Max Kemman - @MaxJ_K(soon: University of Luxembourg)

Martijn Kleppe - @MartijnKleppe

Problem

We want to develop tools that will be used byscholars

• User-centred design

But do users know what they want or need?

• Not according to Jakob Nielsen (2001) orSteve Jobs (Reinhardt, 1998)

• Innovation is technology-driven (Norman, 2010)

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Question

Do humanities scholars know what they want from computational tools?

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Context - Two projects

PoliMedia (CLARIN-NL call 3)

• Automatically creating links betweendebates of the Dutch parliament to mediaitems, made available in a search userinterface in which debates of theDutch parliament can be explored

• www.polimedia.nl

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PoliMedia - Search

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PoliMedia - Debate

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PoliMedia – Link to radio

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PoliMedia – Link to newspaper

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Context - Two projects

Oral History Today (CLARIAH seeddemonstrator)

• A search user interface similar to Googlein which oral history interviews andcollections can be searched andexplored to discover topics across amultitude of collections

• zoeken.verteldverleden.org

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Oral History Today - Search

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Oral History Today – Word cloud

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Oral History Today – Visual facets

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Oral History Today - Interview

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Method

PoliMedia

• User requirements elicitation: interviewswith 5 scholars (F2F)

• Evaluation: eye tracking with 24 scholars

Oral History Today

• User requirements elicitation: interviewswith 15 scholars (Skype)

• Evaluation: walkthrough with 5 scholars perupdate (Skype)

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Method

Processing

• Categorizing statements

• Feasibility discussion with developers

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Results - PoliMedia

39 user requirements

• 21 deemed within-scope

• 18 deemed out-of-scope

• 27 unique user requirements

Most common (3/5):

• Media output from before the debate

• Names of people involved

• Location in the newspaper

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Results - PoliMedia

Out-of-scope

• Processing of media items

– Size of headers, number of columns, …

• Processing of television programmes

– Filming techniques, music, length, …

• Processing of debates

– Sentiment analysis, interruption networks, …

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Results – Oral History Today

75 user requirements

• 33 deemed within-scope

• 42 deemed out-of-scope

• 34 unique user requirements

• Most common (10/15):

– Filter for time period

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Results – Oral History Today

Out-of-scope

• More, more, more metadata

– Interviewee, interviewer, interview, …

• Search technology

– Search operators, synonyms, …

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Discussion

Do our results agree with Nielsen, Jobs and Norman?

• Small overlap between user requirements and project goal

• High awareness of what could be easier with a computer

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(Obligatory Dilbert comic)

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http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-04-14/

Discussion

Out-of-scope requirements show match of project goal with scholarly practices

• Highly individual

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Conclusion

Do humanities scholars know what theywant from computational tools?

• Clear idea for their own research

Question → Method → Requirements

• Too varied!

• Repurposing data and tools

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Conclusion

Talk of Europe

• www.talkofeurope.eu

• Publishing RDF online

• No tool development ourselves, but inviting others

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Conclusion

Creative Camp

• October 2014: NISV, Hilversum

• April/May 2015: At your institution?

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• Extended abstract: http://www.clarin.eu/sites/default/files/cac2014_submission_29_0.pdf

• Dataset: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1170077

• Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/MaxKemman/too-many-varied-user-requirements-for-digital-humanities-projects/

• Nielsen, J. (2001). First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Users. Nielsen Norman Group blog. Retrieved July 01, 2014, from http://www.nngroup.com/articles/first-rule-of-usability-dont-listen-to-users/

• Norman, D. A. (2010). The way I see it: Technology first, needs last. Interactions, 17(2), 38. doi:10.1145/1699775.1699784

• Reinhardt, A. (1998). Steve Jobs on Apple’s Resurgence: “Not A One-Man Show.” Business Week Online. Retrieved October 17, 2014, from http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may1998/nf80512d.htm

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Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects