Enhancing User Interactions in Digital Libraries

Agile User Interface Development

I came away from a DevCSI workshop: paper-based agile design techniques beaming with ideas. The workshop provided a useful introduction to agile methodologies and card-based techniques. Agile techniques are relevant to UX2's development of library systems and user interfaces, which are mainly working prototypes for evaluation purposes. Adopting an agile method seems logical. In a previous post, I described the work on an open source library user interface. The prototype has since been evaluated through a usability test involving a group of users from the University of Edinburgh. This post discusses the agile method introduced at the DevCSI workshop as a plausible development framework for UX2's UI development following the usability test.

Implementing Faceted Search User Interface

A digital library can be underpinned by a search platform such as Apache Solr, which facilitates faceted search services. In my previous posts, I have described the development of a Solr-based search engine infrastructure, involving metadata and rich binary documents indexing of multi-sourced data, viz., the CERN Library book data, content from a digital repository (Fedora). The search engine only provides underpinning services. It does not provide a user interface.

This post outlines the work involved in prototyping a digital library user interface - UX2 Library. It describes the UX design, development made with respect to an associated open source technology. We have recently tested the prototype with a group of users from the University of Edinburgh and published the results: summary and report. In my next post, I shall propose an agile technique based on 'user stories', to address the usability issues arising from this user study.

For a general introduction to both faceted search and Apache Solr, see "Developing Faceted Search Using Apache Solr, Part 1".

Going "in the wild"

User research has been a key activity of the AquaBrowserUX and UX2 projects lately. In a previous post, I outlined a scope of user research involving library persona development, usability testing and contextual inquiry. The activities fulfil two general aims, 1) to bolster usability research capability and practice, 2) to evaluate specific usability issues of existing library services. The research involves various qualitative and quantitative methods such that richer case studies can be attained without relying on a single approach. We have just completed the development of library personas (approach and outcomes - two posts to come). Usability testing of AquaBrowser is currently underway.

One of our evaluation goals is to gain insight into how library services are being used in real scenarios involving authentic tasks. This post describes a pilot contextual inquiry, a field study of real users and AquaBrowser usage. The aim is to evaluate the usefulness of the system in a specific use context at the University of Edinburgh.

Tech Note: Developing Faceted Search Using Apache Solr, Part 1

Searching and sifting through large amount of information is a challenging task and a norm confronting web users today. There is a need for resource discovery services capable of dealing with large search resultsets effectively. Previous research indicates a tendency for users to prefer interfaces that incorporate some form of categorisation and grouping of results. These types of UIs tend to enhance the efficiency of information seeking and provide greater user satisfaction. This post describes the development of faceted search, a resource discovery approach based on a type of category system which has become prevalent in digital libraries. A remit of the UX2.0 project involves enhancing an existing digital library featuring faceted search through user-centred design (UCD). We are also evaluating AquaBrowser a leading library product facilitating faceted search.

This post relates to my recent work on two systems. It describes the development and setting up of a faceted search infrastructure - Apache Solr for Blacklight, a Ruby-on-Rails and open source resource discovery UI. To provide concentration user experience, the infrastructure provides data aggregated from multiple and heterogeneous sources.

Part 1 of this account (this post) describes the general setup of Solr for multi-sourced data and the experience of importing the CERN book dataset, using the Data Import Hanlder (DIH) of Solr. UX2 is incorporating the book data in combinant with digital library objects, for low-fi content-rich UI prototypes testing.

A forthcoming post (Part 2) describes programmatic development of Solr, to enable indexing of Dublin Core metadata and binary documents in multiple formats (PDF, PowerPoints etc) held in an existing Fedora Commons digital repository.

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.

User Study of AquaBrowser and UX2.0

Resource discovery services for digital library have evolved significantly. There is an increasing use of dynamic user interface. New ways of user interactions are also emerging. Faceted searching for example provides a “navigational metaphor” for boolean search operations. It also results in greater user satisfaction (Olson 2007). AquaBrowser is a leading library product which provides faceted searching and new resource discovery features based on emerging interaction design patterns ('fresh, modern interface' according SerialsSolutions). These features appear to support better ways of searching: fast drill-down of results, enhanced search context.

An interaction design pattern we explored earlier this year, through a UX2.0 study (heuristic inspection) is the "Word Cloud" feature which according to SerialsSolution provides context-sensitive exploration. The unique UI is essentially a composite design pattern based on word (tag) cloud and spatial navigation - a term coined by the Nielsen Norman Group. AquaBrowser's tag cloud is unique as it does not utilise the typical size effect and rely on colours showing different types of word association. It also uses spatial navigation in combinant - tags move or reorganising during user interactions. Despite its popularity, the use of tag cloud even in its most basic form, remains contentious and nascent at least from usability perspectives. A recent statement from the Nielsen Norman Usability Week has urged sites to use tag cloud with caution and certainly not to use it for mainstream purposes. Furthermore this technique may either become a standard design or expire in a few years. On the contrary, recent studies on AquaBrowser have confounded the usual dismissive views of word cloud, suggesting potential for serendipitous discovery even for domain experts (Olson 2007). Moreover, word cloud has been an active subject in digital library research and development, e.g. as a visualisation device to gauge content relevance 'as a glance' (Gottron 2009).

Deconstructing Digital Library

Digital library is becoming an all-encompassing term. Google Book Search for example, has been referred as a digital library containing 30 million books. This coincides with a generic definition: a repository of resources accessible via the internet. The resources can be "born digital" and in Google's case, digitised version of printed documents hosted on a singular repository - a gigantic 'one-stop' electronic bookshelf.

The precise nature of digital library is not important to end users who care more about the usefulness of a particular service presented to them regardless of its origin, whether it is a facet of a larger system or not. However, the opposite is true for the researchers, developers, managers and providers. The definition above is too ambiguous for the research and development in projects such as UX2.0 where studies of specific and discrete user interactions are norm. For UX2.0, I need to define a finite scope of work. This required an exploration of existing forms of digital libraries. The following outlines the scope of review.