Usefulness of Project Outputs (Studies, UCD)

We have been undertaking two JISC projects: UX2 and AquaBrowserUX. Both of these projects are addressing user-centric issues surrounding the development and provision of digital library systems. In general, digital libraries (DLs) have become increasingly complex in terms of scope and nature, from a variety of repositories to virtual environments (see a previous post). New ways of providing user interface and user experience have emerged, for example the use of AJAX, novel interaction patterns (e.g. mspace) and a multitude of user-centric 'rehash' of traditional library practices (e.g. tagging, folksonomy).

These developments present challenges to institutions and wider communities involving in digital library developments. Usability is one of the challenges. There have been significant investments in new technology developments in the JISC Community. If these developments especially those in the guise of 'rapid innovation', are to achieve full impacts, they must be usable and widely taken up by the intended users. Usefulness is another key aspect. A well implemented and usable system may be irrelevant if it is not required or useful to the users in real-use and beyond proof-of-concept scenarios.

The projects attempt to tackle these issues and involve deliverables ranging from technology development to usability and evaluation studies (see the plans of UX2 and AquaBrowserUX). This post considers the wider implications and benefits of the project outputs with respect to the institution associated with the project - the University of Edinburgh, and wider communities.

Project Studies

The user studies of the projects involve the following activities:

1. User research: ethnographic field study, qualitative research for library personas (AquaBrowserUX)
2. Usability (heuristics) inspection of existing DLs, literature review of evaluation frameworks (UX2)
3. Skills developments (training and conference attendance) (UX2, AquaBrowserUX)
4. Usability testing of existing systems: AquaBrowser, enhanced UX2 Digital Library
5. Evaluation (usefulness) of existing systems (above) and prototypes (UX2 - see below, AquaBrowserUX My Discoveries)

The activities fulfil two general requirements 1) to bolster capability through research and practice, and 2) to delineate and evaluate current usability and usefulness issues of existing digital library systems and products. These requirements are both essential and pressing for institutions such as the University of Edinburgh. Technology-led pilot developments inevitably result in demands for assessments of how users are taking to new library services and products. The studies of the UX2 and AquaBrowserUX projects are timely given the general lack of resources and capability to undertake user studies at the university.

Library users will have valuable opportunities (activities 1,4,5) to inform and participate in the development of key library services such as AquaBrowser. The user research would provide additional know-how (e.g. library personas) to aid future development and help advancing the understanding of library users viz. their behaviours, workflows and use contexts (from ethnographic study), all of which form the crux of enhanced service provision, ultimately useful to the institution and users alike.

Synthesised outcomes from the user studies such as blogs, reports and publications can be useful as resources and case studies for the wider community, coinciding with the call for better understanding of user needs and workflows (JISC/SCONUL LMS study). If derived correctly, these outputs are relevant to other institutions interested in usability studies and implementing new resource discovery interfaces such as AquaBrowser. For example, the library personas to be produced from the user research can be used or adopted as 'persona hypotheses' in UI prototyping by institutions without the means to undertake full-fledge user research. The research method and design for the personas development may also be informative in general. Some of the outputs such as the heuristics inspection (report and related publication) and literature review are general enough to be exploited by others in the DL and usability communities.

Dissemination activities are crucial to ensure the wider impact of the user studies and the key findings are representative and generalised. The projects aim to communicate effectively with users and decision makers (University Library, AquaBrowser) by systematically addressing them through management activities and the intended outcomes of the user studies. The project team will continue disseminating results where feasible, blog regularly and document work-in-progress on a wiki. We also hope to run a summative workshop to share findings and knowledge gained from the projects.

Technology Development and User Centred Development (UX2)

The UX2 project aims to enhance the UX2 digital library through the user centred design (UCD) approach. The enhancement focuses on implementing diffusion-concentration user experience at multiple technology stacks, spanning digital library UI and infrastructure which are based on a mixture of open source software: Blacklight resource discovery UI, Orbeon Forms for metadata and content management UI, Solr faceted search infrastructure and Fedora repository. Recent development involves implementing a social network platform (tog). In addition to the typical social network features such as friendship and group management, tog provides a platform enabling library resources to be shared and used in Web 2.0 ways: 'annotate' (review/rate/tag) and 'organise' (list) use scenarios.

Technology is only part of the UCD approach. Regular evaluation of prototypes with users is essential. Due to organisational changes and the ending of a flagship project (EGEE) for which the UX2 DL is serving, the project is repositioning itself and the DL for other users and broader evaluation scenarios (e.g. library catalogue) at the University of Edinburgh. For example, the team is exploring collaboration with the School of Education to develop specific and real use scenarios for MSc courses, as well as looking at open bibliographic data for creating low-fi/content-rich UI prototypes.

This approach can be beneficial to the university as it enables a pilot application of UCD for library system development, a need recently expressed at the institution. Qualitative data arising from the UCD may also be directly useful for enhancing library services. More often than not, usability studies and library system developments are not intertwined due to a 'build it first' system development culture in which usability and usefulness are more likely to be addressed ad hoc, post-hoc or as a priori assumptions. In addition, library service provision at the university is often product-driven. This leads to multiple systems and disparate UIs which results in fragmentation of library experience. It is perhaps useful to examine library user experience with a view of how existing products can satisfy user needs and expectations holistically and consistently, instead of expecting users to orient themselves and fit their workflow around individual systems.

For the wider community, the UCD approach may highlight the possible benefits for engaging users during system development and thereby exemplifying a case for UCD. The project is also making technological development outcomes (source code), along with implementation details (via this blog) available to the wider community.

So far the technology development and UCD are in the inception stage. Let's hope next time we will have something more concrete to share.

Thanks!