Researching Usability

Europeana Background

The second DL to be evaluated is Europeana.

Europeana is a repository which links media from a number of European organisations. You can search for images, video, sound clips and text across museums, galleries, libraries and digital collections. The current version is a prototype which was launched at the end of 2008 and version 1.0 will be available in 2010. It is important to note that Europeana is separate from The Europeana Library.

Findings

Search

Although a search form is provided, it is not persistent throughout the entire site. If a user navigates to any of the universal links across the top of the site e.g. communities, time-line etc, then the search form disappears. To find the search form again the user must navigate back to the homepage. Currently the only link to the homepage is within the logo which is not immediately obvious. Consequently this does not meet Heuristic 4 or the ISO heuristic which request systems are consistent and follow platform conventions.

Unlike WDL, Europeana does provide an advanced search. A link to the advanced search form is prominently displayed below the search field. The extra fields in the advanced search are toggled to allow users to expand the search form without having to leave the page. This retains consistency, simplifies the navigation and reduces possible disorientation. Providing an advanced search  meets Heuristic 7 which (accelerators for experienced users) and ISO heuristic which promotes dialogue suitable to user’s task and skill level.

As mentioned in the evaluation of WDL, Europeana is also guilty of not providing constructive help to users when no search results are returned which conflicts with Heuristic 9: Help users recognise, diagnose and recover from errors and ISO heuristic: Is the dialogue forgiving?

Browse

Similarly to WDL, Europeana have introduced a time-line which is currently in beta testing. Europeana present the time-line as a tag cloud of years and the size of font is directly related to the number of items available. When a user selects a year, a carousel of images appears which the user can select or scroll horizontally through. The time-line is not currently the default search method and as a result is not featured on the homepage. However, a carousel of images is presented on the homepage below the search form. The time-line was evaluated to investigate how intuitive the navigation system is to operate and how effective this system is at assisting browsed searching.

• The implementation of the time-line in Europeana makes browsing less efficient than other systems available. When a user selects a year from the word cloud to browse the time-line, a search form is provided to the left of the time-line. it is not immediately noticeable and its distance from the time-line and the use of boxes to section off the interactive element, users could consider the search form to be separate. Additionally, searching through results without using the search form will take longer to navigate. As results are paginated, users must navigate through each page individually in addition to using the carousel which could be time consuming. There is currently no other way of narrowing results. Consequently users have limited control over the presentation and navigation of results using the time-line system meaning that it does not meet Heuristic 3: User control and freedom and the ISO heuristics: Controllability and Suitability for learning.

• Word clouds don’t behave consistently and consequently results lose their usefulness. Although the word cloud presents results relative to the size of text, this does not always help to inform users effectively. For example, if a search is conducted using the search form, the word cloud changes (see image).  Now all the years are uniform in size. No information is provided to inform users of the number of results for each year meaning that it does not meet Heuristic 1: Visibility of system status or ISO Heuristic: Self-descriptiveness.

User driven navigation

• This is something which has largely been popularised through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. User driven navigation aggregates users behaviour and actions on a site. It gives users insight into what other users are doing. Europeana has introduced a section on the homepage similar to this which provides details of topics users have searched for. ‘People are currently thinking about’ (image below) is an alternative way to browse the DL and one which is entirely dependent on the user. It is not clear if the information reflects the most recent searches or the most popular searches but is a good example of a DL adopting an idea from social networking sites and adapting it to provide an additional service to users. This satisfies the ISO Heuristic which requests that users can control the pace and sequence of interaction.

Faceted navigation

Faceted navigation is used to help users frame their choices by allowing them to reduce the number of possible matches to their search. Europeana is one of three DLs evaluated which provided this type of navigation.  The faceted navigation was evaluated to understand how useful this system is and identify any potential usability issues such as labelling, disorientation and user control.

• Labels and categories used should be understandable to users and relevant to the DL. Europeana have a section where users can narrow their results by language. However, each label is abbreviated to two letters making them difficult to distinguish. Abbreviated words and unfamiliar terms should be avoided to conform with Heuristic 2: Match between the system and the real world.

• Clear visual feedback within the faceted navigation helps orientate users. When using the faceted navigation, the users selections do not reset the search unexpectedly instead allowing users to select more than one category and de-select categories to widen a search if desired. This provides users with a high level of control as recommended in Heuristic 3: User control and freedom.

• Use of pagination in addition to faceted navigation. Providing both allows users to reduce the number of results from an initial search, reducing time spend navigating pages of results in order to find what they are looking for (Heuristic 3).

Personalisation and customisation

Europeana provide a section called ‘My Europeana’ where registered users can save searches, items and add tags to items so that they can be grouped together by keywords. User must first register. Registration is streamlined and only requests the users email address. Often long registration forms requesting unnecessary personal information can be off-putting to users so this form encourages users to join.

However ‘Tagging’ items is a relatively unfamiliar term not used extensively in DLs and as a result it is likely to confuse some users. Additionally, once a user creates and submits their tag, there is no feedback instructing the user on how to find the tag. Although the user is informed that their action has been successful, a link to their tags would help users find them more easily. In this situation the status of the action is provided but its visibility within the site is less straightforward which conflicts with the ISO standard relating to self-descriptiveness.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with the findings? All feedback is welcome.