Library of Congress Case

INLS 357

Context

1995 LoC initiated the NDL

1995 2 year contract with UMD to collaborate on interface development

University team to drive near-term design through prototypes, LoC team to implement within current constraints.

LoC ACCESS Team and Process

1. Design team: analysts, programmers, librarians, and interface designers.

2. Strong perspective based on short courses

occasional users, touch screen, discrete and continuous buttons

3. Regular meetings with brainstorming encouraged

4. Prototype subtasks assigned

5. Preliminary designs critiqued

6. Revision and continued critique

7. User testing

8. Revision

9. Continued extension

LC NDL Project Plan

1. Needs Assessment

Current Users (RR librarians, patrons, online)

Potential Users (scholars, teachers/SLMS, public)

2. Structure Analysis

Current Content & Organization (e.g., collection/item record)

Future Content & Organization

3. Develop feature space (collect, analyze exemplars)

4. Agree on first principles, metaphor, outline guidelines

5. Sketch designs, group critique

6. Prototypes, “discount” user tests (3 iterations planned)

7. Final prototype(s) and extended user tests

8. Reflection and evaluation of process, final guidelines

Needs Assessment

9 Reading Rooms

3 part structured interview (in teams)

Content, users, strategies

Yielded lists of special interface challenges

Day care center questionnaire

Key issues

Novelty (DLs were new)

Diversity in experience (domain, technology)

Diversity in platforms

Volume, diversity, formats, granularities of materials (digital+analog, finding aids+collections+primary, lack of common metadata)

Design Goals

Minimize disorientation by reducing navigation (e.g., minimize scrolling and jumping, flattening hierarchy) and anchoring users in a consistent context;

Provide primary information at the earliest point in the interaction as possible;

Support rapid relevance decisions through overviews and previews.

Technical Decisions

Use dynamic query interactions

To cope with limitations of HTML display and cgi interaction, use Java and JavaScript

To cope with metadata issues, divide into across collection browser and within collection browser (overview and preview distinctions)

Visualizations for Overviews and Previews

Aim for user-manipulable VIEWS rather than alchemy

Overviews are constructed from, and represent COLLECTIONS

Previews are extracted from and are surrogates for OBJECTS

Dynamic query approach with starfield and barfield displays

Visualization widgets are embedded in larger user tasks

Entry Mockup #1

Slide 10

Slide 11

Slide 12

Slide 13

Slide 14

Slide 15

Slide 16

Gathering tool to create personal collections

Video browser with animated display of key frames

Thumbnail Page Browser

Image Browser-Collector

References

http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/ndl/

Marchionini, G., Plaisant, C., Komlodi, A. (May 1996) User needs assessment for the Library of Congress National Digital Library,
CS-TR-3640, CAR-TR-829, CLIS-96-01.

Marchionini, G., Plaisant, C., & Komlodi, A. (1998). Interfaces and tools for the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program. Information Processing & Management, 34(5), 535-555.

Nation, D. Plaisant, C., Marchionini, G., & Komlodi, A. (1997). Visualizing websites using a hierarchical table of contents browser: WebTOC. In Proceedings of Designing for the Web: Practices and Reflections (3rd Conference on Human factors and the Web, Denver, June 12, 1997).

Plaisant, C., Marchionini, G., Bruns, T., Komlodi, A., & Campbell, L. (1997). Bringing treasures to the surface: Iterative design for the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program. ACM CHI ‘97 Conference. (Atlanta, March 22-27, 1997), p. 518-525.

Marchionini, G., Plaisant, C., & Komlodi, A. (forthcoming). The people in digital libraries: Multifaceted approaches to assessing needs and impact. In A. Bishop, B. Buttenfield, & N. VanHouse (Eds.) Digital library use: Social practice in design and evaluation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.


	1995 LoC initiated the NDL
	1995 2 year contract with UMD to collaborate on interface development
	University team to drive near-term design through prototypes, LoC team to implement within current constraints.


	1. Design team: analysts, programmers, librarians, and interface designers.
	2. Strong perspective based on short courses
	occasional users, touch screen, discrete and continuous buttons
	3. Regular meetings with brainstorming encouraged
	4. Prototype subtasks assigned
	5. Preliminary designs critiqued
	6. Revision and continued critique
	7. User testing
	8. Revision
	9. Continued extension


	1. Needs Assessment
	Current Users (RR librarians, patrons, online)
	Potential Users (scholars, teachers/SLMS, public)
	2. Structure Analysis
	Current Content & Organization (e.g., collection/item record)
	Future Content & Organization
	3. Develop feature space (collect, analyze exemplars)
	4. Agree on first principles, metaphor, outline guidelines
	5. Sketch designs, group critique
	6. Prototypes, “discount” user tests (3 iterations planned)
	7. Final prototype(s) and extended user tests
	8. Reflection and evaluation of process, final guidelines


	9 Reading Rooms
	3 part structured interview (in teams)
		Content, users, strategies
		Yielded lists of special interface challenges
	Day care center questionnaire
	Key issues
		Novelty (DLs were new)
		Diversity in experience (domain, technology)
		Diversity in platforms
		Volume, diversity, formats, granularities of materials (digital+analog, finding aids+collections+primary, lack of common metadata)


	Minimize disorientation by reducing navigation (e.g., minimize scrolling and jumping, flattening hierarchy) and anchoring users in a consistent context;
	Provide primary information at the earliest point in the interaction as possible;
	Support rapid relevance decisions through overviews and previews.


	Use dynamic query interactions
	To cope with limitations of HTML display and cgi interaction, use Java and JavaScript
	To cope with metadata issues, divide into across collection browser and within collection browser (overview and preview distinctions)


	Aim for user-manipulable VIEWS rather than alchemy
	Overviews are constructed from, and represent COLLECTIONS
	Previews are extracted from and are surrogates for OBJECTS
	Dynamic query approach with starfield and barfield displays
	Visualization widgets are embedded in larger user tasks


	http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/ndl/
	Marchionini, G., Plaisant, C., Komlodi, A. (May 1996) User needs assessment for the Library of Congress National Digital Library, CS-TR-3640, CAR-TR-829, CLIS-96-01.
	Marchionini, G., Plaisant, C., & Komlodi, A. (1998). Interfaces and tools for the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program. Information Processing & Management, 34(5), 535-555.
	Nation, D. Plaisant, C., Marchionini, G., & Komlodi, A. (1997). Visualizing websites using a hierarchical table of contents browser: WebTOC. In Proceedings of Designing for the Web: Practices and Reflections (3rd Conference on Human factors and the Web, Denver, June 12, 1997).
	Plaisant, C., Marchionini, G., Bruns, T., Komlodi, A., & Campbell, L. (1997). Bringing treasures to the surface: Iterative design for the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program. ACM CHI ‘97 Conference. (Atlanta, March 22-27, 1997), p. 518-525.
	Marchionini, G., Plaisant, C., & Komlodi, A. (forthcoming). The people in digital libraries: Multifaceted approaches to assessing needs and impact. In A. Bishop, B. Buttenfield, & N. VanHouse (Eds.) Digital library use: Social practice in design and evaluation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.