Users and Metasearch Applications: New Challenges for Usability Assessment William E. Moen, Ph.D. <[email protected]> Texas Center for Digital Knowledge University of North Texas Denton, Texas Presented at Access 2003: Extending Our Abilities October 3, 2003 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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Users and Metasearch Applications: New Challenges for Usability Assessment
Users and Metasearch Applications: New Challenges for Usability Assessment. William E. Moen, Ph.D. Texas Center for Digital Knowledge University of North Texas Denton, Texas. Presented at Access 2003: Extending Our Abilities - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Users and Metasearch Applications:New Challenges for Usability Assessment
Presented at Access 2003: Extending Our AbilitiesOctober 3, 2003 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Moen Access 2003 -- October 3, 2003 -- Vancouver, British Columbia 2
Access personal journey
• 1999: The Z Texas Profile: Improving Z39.50 Interoperability with a Focus on User Requirements
• 2000: Z39.50 Update: Profiles and Semantic Interoperability
• 2001: Bath Profile Update: An International Z39.50 Specification for Library Applications and Resource Discovery
• 2001: Z-Interop: The Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed
• 2002: Z39.50 for Finding It All• 2003: Users and Metasearch Applications
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Standards in service of applications• Preparing technical infrastructure for
broadcast searching / metasearch
• Profiles specifying Z39.50 implementation
• Defining searches
• Solving interoperability problems
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Where are we now?
• Some support among library technology vendors for Z39.50 profiles
• Many candidate search targets don’t support Z39.50 profiles or Z39.50 at all
• Commercial metasearch products and applications emerging in the past several years
• NISO Metasearch Initiative• Assessing what we’ve got and how to
improve
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Metasearch
• Applications with:– Single search interface – Broadcast searches to multiple targets– Search targets may be
• Relatively homogeneous (e.g., library catalogs)• Very diverse (e.g., format, topical coverage, etc,)
• Applications are faced with search targets– That are accessible via standard protocols (e.g., Z39.50)
or proprietary APIs or screen-scraping– That support few or many common access points– That support various record formats for exchange
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The challengeIf our users make it to the library's web site at all, chances are they are confronted with library terminology they don't understand and a long list of databases they have to decipher and choose among. The result? Libraries are losing potential users. Librarians license valuable and costly full-text databases that we know contain the information researchers are seeking. But in a three-click world, each vendor's database remains a separate silo of information that our users don't find. Even if patrons are familiar with searching the OPAC, that won't help them retrieve articles. Library services that require training or require the user to come to the library undermine the advantages of licensing electronic content.
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Service-centric virtual library
Virtual Library Services
UserGroup
UserGroup
UserGroup
UserGroup
LibraryResources
LibraryTechnology
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Virtual library services
Standard Information Interchange Among Services
Financial
Authorization
ResourceSharing
PatronAccount
LibraryInformation
EducationResourceDiscovery
Reference Personalization
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Resource discovery: Supporting user tasks
Browse
SelectCollection
Evaluate
Search
Common User Interface
Personalize
Save
Acquire
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Resource discovery:Operational view
Content
Content
Content
Content
Content
OAIRepository
Standards-basedSearch & RetrievalProtocols
Proprietary or Non-standard
Search & Retrieval Protocols
Content
Content
Content
CommonSearch
Interface
UserInterface
Texas Library Directory Database
Relational Database To Power the RDS Application
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LOT RDS:Summary of key requirements
• Customizable interface– For local library presence– For personalization
• Common interface for search and retrieval – Simple and advanced searching– Single database searching– Broadcast searching across similar/dissimilar databases
• Tools to help users select search targets• Common display for results• Indications of availability and “how to get”
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• RDS functionality driven by TLDD– Association of user with home library– Access/authentication mechanisms– Preliminary set of search targets
• Geographic proximity• Strength of collection
– Interlibrary loan request initiation
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TLDD overview• General Organization Details• Person Details• Address Details• Collection Details
– Collection – describes Collections of resource items or resource item descriptions
– Collection Strength – describes the strength of a Collection
• Service Details– Service – contains information about the Services delivered by an
Organization– Access Policy – describes Access Policies for a given Service– Z Protocol Information - records information about the level of support of a
given Z39.50 Service delivery process
• Common Use– Alias – Supports the recording of names, abbreviations, acronyms, standard
numbers, and symbols used to identify an entity
Moen Access 2003 -- October 3, 2003 -- Vancouver, British Columbia 17
Optimizing the RDS
• Assumptions– Multiple user groups – Diversity of information needs, behaviors, and
expectations– Users may not understand distributed search
applications– User interface presents complex functionality
• Strategy to optimize– Usability assessment– Helping users develop new mental model
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Informing the RDS product
• Heuristic evaluation by usability expert
• Acceptance testing by ZLOT staff– Use of original technical specifications– Identified usability issues
• User testing
• Ongoing testing by developers, ZLOT and TSLAC staff
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Usability considerations
• Users– Categorization of users based on demographics,
skills, needs, behaviors– Current library users vs. new users
• Interface is really about functionality– Presents application and its components– Components support various user tasks
• Usability criteria, measures, and procedures
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Usability criteria
• Jakob Nielsen – Learnability– Efficiency– Memorability– Errors– Satisfaction
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5 Es of usability revisited
ResourceDiscovery
Service
Effective
Efficient
Easy to Learn
Engaging
Error Tolerant
Adapted from Quesenbery, W. (2002). Getting Started: Using the 5Es to understand users.
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Next steps
• Prepare a formal usability assessment • Develop measures based on 5 Es to assess RDS
components• Develop scenarios for users to exercise all
functionality• Conduct user testing• Inform enhancements to the product
• Generalize usability assessment methodology other for metasearch applications, resource discovery services, and virtual libraries
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RDS example
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RDS example
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RDS example
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RDS example
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RDS example
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RDS example
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RDS example
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RDS example
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RDS example
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RDS example
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DC proceedings/Seamark
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DC proceedings/Seamark
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Metasearch usability
• Selecting appropriate search targets– Default set of targets– User selection from target list– Getting contextual info from users for search– Intermediate search against representations of targets
• Making sense of search results– Linear lists of results– Using metadata to categorize results and show
relationships– Hierarchical faceted metadata
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References
• NISO Metasearch Initiative<http://www.niso.org/committees/MetaSearch-info.html>
• Library of Texas Initiative<http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/lot/><http://www.unt.edu/zlot>
• Hierarchical Faceted Metadata and Search– The Flamenco Search Interface Project<http://bailando.sims.berkeley.edu/flamenco.html>
– Faceted Metadata Search and Browse<http://www.searchtools.com/info/faceted-metadata.html>
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