Scottish UPA Meeting 20/04/10

USABILITY AND CONTEMPORARY USER EXPERIENCE IN DIGITAL LIBRARIES

Boon Low, Lorraine PatersonNeSC, University of EdinburghScottish Usability Professionals Association20 April 2010

Agenda• Defining Digital library • UX2 Project• Findings from the usability inspection• UX2 digital library development demo of prototype• Evaluation methods

20/04/2010 Usability and Contemporary User Experience in Digital Libraries

Digital Library as Repository

Most basic form of digital library -repository•Contains primary data and manually proofed metadata •Data should be curated, organised and maintained in collections•Facilitate traditional library functions: cataloguing, archiving and resource discovery

Synonymous with electronic bookshelves

Source: Defining a digital library, Michael Seadle & Elke Greifender, Library Hi Tech (2007)

Digital Library - Examples


Digital Library - Examples


• World Digital Library

Digital Library Environment“A resource representing the intellectual substance and services of a traditional library in digital form”

Putting in the human contexts, broader roles•A place for solving complex problem•A place for social interactions•A ‘sharium’, active workspace

Digital Library in Second Life• Digital library also exists in• MMORPG virtual worlds such as• Second Life:• Full immersive, real time,

synchronous user interactions

• Example (in Second Life)• Virtual University of Edinburgh • Community Virtual Library

(http://infoisland.org)


Group Photo at http://vue.ed.ac.uk/

Implications

Implications of current and new developments• New ways providing UI/UX – Web 2.0, virtual environment • What are the usability challenges? • What are the usefulness challenges? • Usefulness is about measuring/evaluating user experience (sum of

interactions)– Usability, Usefulness, Appeal (Usability Week 2009)– Usable, Useful and Desirable (Thoughts on IxD, Jon Kolko 2010)


User Experience Goals • Enjoyable• Satisfying• Engaging• Pleasurable• Exciting• Helpful• Motivating• Emotionally fulfilling• Aesthetically pleasing• Supportive of creativity• Rewarding

• Fun• Provocative• Surprising• Enhancing Sociability• Challenging

• Boring• Frustrating• Annoying• Cutesy• ..

Source: Designing User Interfaces for Interactive Information Retrieval Systems, European Conference on Digital Libraries (2009)

JISC Projects

Usability and Contemporary User Experience in Digital Libraries • Pilot project funded by Joint Information Systems Committee • Duration: April 2009 – March 2011 • Aims to undertake research and development to enhance

user experience of a digital library• Approach: technological development based on usability

testing and digital library evaluation• Technology: an existing digital library (UX2 Digital Library)

based on a variety of open source software.


Objective 1

• To undertake usability inspection & contemporary UX techniques research


Usability Inspection• Perform usability inspection to uncover usability issues with

existing digital libraries• Investigate new interaction design patterns being

implemented in contemporary digital libraries• Blog: http://ux2.nesc.ed.ac.uk • Report: http://bit.ly/ux2inspectionreport


http://ux2.nesc.ed.ac.uk/

http://ux2.nesc.ed.ac.uk/

http://bit.ly/ux2inspectionreport

http://bit.ly/ux2inspectionreport

Heuristic Inspection

• Chose to use 2 sets of heuristics:• International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) heuristics • Jakob Nielsen’s heuristic principles for user interface design• Both highly regarded and used regularly by professionals• Overlapping heuristics which compliment each other• Each provide additional heuristics which give an exhaustive

evaluation.• Digital libraries selection influenced by WorldCat usability

testing report:– identified that academic users favour searching local,

national and worldwide collections together as opposed to public library patrons who are interested in resources which are geographically close.


Digital Libraries Inspected• Selected 5 DLs that fit into specific geographic coverage:

• Worldwide – World Digital Library (WDL)• European – Europeana • Nationwide (UK) – British Library (BL) • Regional (Scotland) – Scran • Local (Edinburgh) – University of Edinburgh

AquaBrowser• Findings were organised by themes including resource

discovery, navigation and enhancing the user experience• Here results are presented by their respective design pattern


Faceted Search/Navigation

• Integrates searching and browsing – users begin with a simple keyword search– frame their choices by reducing the number of possible matches to

their search • 3 of 5 libraries inspected implement faceted search (WDL,

Europeana and UoE Aquabrowser)• Evaluated to understand how effective users can narrow

results (ISO H5), how easy it is to learn to use (ISO H4) by utilising familiar concepts (Nielsen H2)


Faceted Search FindingsEuropeana• Visual feedback provided on selections (pink)• Europeana allows users to de-select labels and

widen search by selecting them again (Nielsen H3)• Although biggest issue was feedback on search

scope• Not clear if results are Boolean AND / OR • This does not effectively guide and support users in

learning to use the system (ISO H4)

Search category 1results

Search category 2results

Faceted Search Findings (2)WDL• Provided more flexibility in narrowing and

widening search• Users can select multiple categories which

appear individually above results (below)• These labels can be removed independently

(unlike typical breadcrumb trails) so users have greater control (Nielsen H3)

• Default order of presenting categories does not always fit the user’s mental model (Nielsen H2)


Faceted Search Findings (3)


AquaBrowser• Addressed the presentation of categories issue

raised by WDL • Sorted dates chronologically by default (Nielsen

H2)• Gives users more control over the ordering of

categories; relevance, alphabetically (Nielsen H3)• Aquabrowser uses other browse systems in

conjunction with the faceted navigation, these include tag clouds and spatial navigation

Tag Cloud• AquaBrowser unique tag cloud combining the

use of animation and colour without the typical tag size effect (right)

• Contentious navigation system from UX perspective:– Nielsen Norman Usability Week 2009 urged sites to

use them with caution• However other research has suggested the

potential for serendipitous discovery even for domain experts using it in DLs (Olson, 2007)

Tag Cloud (2)• Europeana presented a tag cloud in a timeline:• A search field, carousel and pagination are also

used to navigate results in addition to the tag cloud• Issues identified with the timeline system:

– Intended to be used in conjunction with search form on left (ISO H2, Nielsen H6, H7)

– Hierarchy of results is confusing (ISO H2, Nielsen H1)

– Not clear when links are active or visited links (Nielsen H4)

WDL Carousel

WDL Carousel• Two different carousel implementations mean different

issues• Horizontal scrolling carousels:

– Small targets make navigation difficult (images and controls) (Nielsen H3)

– Provides information at a glance or potential information overload?• Cover flow style carousels

– Links do not necessarily behave as expected, navigating to different places with no explanation why (ISO H3, Nielsen H4)

JISC Projects

AquaBrowser User Experience • Sister project of UX2.0 funded by JISC• Duration: 19 April 2010 – 15 October 2010• Bring in two consultants to work with UX2 team• Aims to produce a user study• Technology: AquaBrowser at the University of Edinburgh

AquaBrowser UX• Qualitative study: user research + AquaBrowser

– Interviews, survey and field studies (ethnographic, kiosk)– Produces library personas, usefulness data– Plan to validate personas (further quantitative survey)

• Traditional and guerrilla techniques – intercept users• Usability Testing on AquaBrowser UI• Related to usability/usefulness testing work of UX2


Objective 2

• To enhance a digital library (UX2 Digital Library) with the state-of-the-art technologies


UX2 Digital Library• UX2.0 Library, http://library.nesc.ed.ac.uk• The digital library currently has a small collection of

educational content from projects (EGEE, ICEAGE)• Content type: article, assessment, audio, book, course, code

exemplar, exercise, images, presentation, tutorial, video


UX2 Digital Library• Discovery: simple, advanced,

fulltext, faceted• Metadata (ISO Dublin Core),

content management (wiki)• Notable characteristics:

– Faceted Search– Dynamic (AJAX) Forms – Autosuggest: standard, and related

subjects / authors facets (via metadata)

UX2 Digital Library• A mixture of open source technologies

– Repository: Fedora Commons (Java), service-oriented– Search Engine: Apache enterprise server - Solr (Java)– UI: Blacklight faceted discovery (Ruby on Rails), Orbeon Forms (Java),

JQuery (Javascript)


UX2 Digital Library• Assimilating social networking infrastructure

– Social network features: friends (follow model), comment, groups for sharing objects

– Post comment locally and simultaneously to external networks such as Twitter (e.g. book reviews)

• Based on an open source social platform – TOG (Ruby on Rails): http://www.toghq.com– Various ‘Gems’ (Ruby plugins) including oauth-plugin,

open-id-authentication for federated login


UX2 Digital Library

Quick Online Demo: • Federated login and diffusing comments to Twitter

UI prototypes walkthrough: • Balsamiq Mockups


Objective 3

• To evaluate user experience in specific contexts involving real user communities


Evaluation• First requirement was to review different theoretical

frameworks as possible frameworks for the UX2 project• Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)• Used extensively in academic research• Belief that a person’s intention to adopt an information system

is affected by two beliefs: perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness

• But, not clear how well TAM predicts usage when evaluating prototypes instead of fully functioning systems

• Also, TAM can only identify that a system is not likely to be accepted by users but not offer feedback on how it can be improved (Dillon & Morris, 1999)


Evaluation, TAM

“Unless users perceive an IS as being useful at first, its ease of use has no effect

in the formation of intention”

~ Szajna 1996

“Unless users perceive an IS as being useful at first, its ease of use has no effect

in the formation of intention”

~ Szajna 1996


• Bernadette Szajna used TAM to measure user acceptance of email system over 15 weeks

• Research revealed that self-reported usage differed from actual usage

• Reported usage may not be a suitable surrogate measure• Highlights importance of measuring actual usage over time

Evaluation, ITF• Interactive Triptych Framework (ITF)• Based on TAM among other theoretical

frameworks• Interaction between 3 components -

provides 3 evaluation approaches• Interaction is affected equally by content

and system characteristics• Examines usefulness separately • Ability of ITF to thoroughly evaluate

success of DLs in a holistic manner• UX2.0 believe that ITF can be adapted to

evaluate Web 2.0 design developments

Next 6 months..• User studies for AquaBrowser, UX2 DL

– User research, usefulness evaluation– Usability Testing

• Implement new prototypes: UX2 DL– Search UI, personalisation & customisation– Social networking integration with DL: blog, review,

comment, share digital library objects


Thank you

Web/blogs: http://ux2.nesc.ed.ac.uk Project wikis: http://bit.ly/ux2wiki Twitter: @ux2Tel: 0131 650 9822

Lorraine Paterson: [email protected], @lorraine_pBoon Low: [email protected], @boonious


Scottish UPA Meeting 20/04/10

Education

Transcript of Scottish UPA Meeting 20/04/10