Week 10 Interaction and Evaluation

1. Arms chapter 8. http://www.cs.cornell.edu/wya/DigLib/new/Chapter8.html. This is useful if you want to learn really basic of interaction.

This chapter deals primarily with the issue of user interface.  Over the past decade interface with systems has had to change to due to the broad range of people who currently have access.  Originally such systems only required the ability to deal with academics and IT people who had knowledge of abstract access interfaces.  They have now become more user friendly, even to the extent of imitating page turning, such as the case of JSTOR and American Memory.

 Usability as a property of the whole system, not just the user interface of a client.

            Conceptual Model:

·        Interface design

·        Functional design

·        Data and metadata

·        Computer systems and networks

 Browsers added a  new layer of access to systems and networks, starting in 19993 with Mosaic. "Mobile code gives the designer of a web site the ability to create web pages that incorporate computer programs. Java is a general purpose programming language that was explicitly designed for creating distributed systems, especially user interfaces, in a networked environment. A Java applet is a short computer program. It is compiled into a file of Java byte code and can be delivered across the network to a browser, usually by executing an HTTP command. The browser recognizes the file as an applet and invokes the Java interpreter to execute it." 

 

New conceptual models: DLITE and Pad++.

 

Proper user support is more than a aesthetic handicap. well-designed, suitable functionality, and reactive systems make a quantifiable distinction to the value of DL's. When a system is diificult to use, users may fail to find important results, may misconstrue the data found, or may give up believing that the system is void of the proper data.

           

2. Rob Kling and Margaret Elliott "Digital Library Design for Usability" http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/DL94/paper/kling.html

 

During the last decade, software designers have made progress in developing usable systems for products such as word processors. Less attention given to usability in DL design.  2 forms of DL usability discussed - interface and organizational. While the Human-Computer-Interaction research community has helped pioneer design principles to improve interface usability, organizational usability is less well understood. "Design for usability" is a new term that refers to the design of computer systems so that the organizational usability is addressed. DL developers need to consider "design for usability" issues during DL system design.

Systems Usability :refers to how well people can exploit a computer system's intended functionality.

discuss two key forms of DL usability - interface usability and organizational usability.

Design for usability : that refers to the design of computer systems so that they can be effectively integrated into the work practices of specific organizations

organizational usability : characterizes the effective "fit" between computer systems (and DL's) with the social organization of computing in specific organizations. Learn primary characteristics of  client organizations

 

Examined 5 models of computer-system design which are known in information systems and computer science research and professional communities. Each is a cultural model only in the specific organization and is hard to alter. Characterized one design model which we believe is the dominant cultural design model in the DL research community. Each of the five have strengths and weaknesses. Therefore propose a new organizationally-sensitive model which has the strongest chance of producing DL systems which most people will find usable in their workplaces.

 

This is a good time for the DL research community analysis of respective user systems and DL frameworks, we can start developing systematic understanding of the actual working conditions under which user find these models highly usable.

 

TefkoSaracevic,“Evaluation of digital libraries: An overview” http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~tefko/DL_evaluation_Delos.pdf.

 

An extensive overview of DLs. States that DLs have a short history: discussion of them began in the 60's but no applicable systems developed 'til the mid 1990's.  Writers evaluated over 80 studies on DLs in order to assemble a history that outlines the criteria around which D-libraries are observed and explored.  Writer concludes that theorists and practitioners of evaluating DL systems do not seem to be agreeing or complying with each others observations and work.

 Diagnosis of lack of evaluation:

"Complexity: Digital libraries are highly complex, they are much more than technological systems alone; evaluation of complex systems is very hard; we are just learning how to do this job and have a lot more to learn. In other words, we as yet do not know how to evaluate and we are experimenting with doing it in many different ways. 

Premature: Even though they are exploding and are widespread, it may be too early in the evolution of digital libraries for evaluation. 

Interest: There is no interest in evaluation. Those that do or research digital libraries are interested in doing, building, implementing, breaking new paths, operating … evaluation is of little or no interest, plus there is no time to do it. 

Funding: There are inadequate or no funds for evaluation. Evaluation is time consuming, expensive and requires commitment – all these are in short supply. Grants have minimal or no funds allocated for evaluation. Granting agencies, while professing evaluation, are not allocating programs and budgets for evaluation. If there were funds there would be evaluation. With no funds there is no evaluation.

Culture: evaluation is not a part of the culture in research and operations of digital libraries. It is below the cultural radar. A stepchild. Plus many communities with very different cultures are involved in digital libraries. This particularly pertains to differences between technical and humanists cultures: language and frames of reference, priorities and understandings are different; communication is hard and at times impossible. Under these circumstances evaluation means very different things to different constituencies.

 Cynical: who wants to know or demonstrate actual performance? Are there any emperor clothes around? Evaluation may be subconsciously or consciously suppressed. The ultimate evaluation of digital libraries will revolve around assessing transformation of their context – determining possible enhancing changes in institutions, learning, scholarly publishing, disciplines, small worlds and ultimately society due to digital libraries(10)."

 Ben Sheiderman, Catherine Plaisant, "Designing the user interfaces" 4ed. chapter 1. A good introduction about usability and its application in human computer interaction   (available in CourseWeb)

 

I cannot find this article on Course Web.