Interaction Design in Digital Libraries :
Some critical issues
Constantine Stephanidis
Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH)
Institute of Computer Science (ICS)
Science and Technology Park of Crete
Heraklion, Crete
GREECE
(From slide presentation)
HCI and Digital Libraries
critical technological fields in the emerging Information Society
identification of synergies towards a common, international R&D agenda
Main issues
how can they be designed, implemented and evaluated
- what functional & non-functional quality attributes need to be addressed
- how can diversity be accounted for
- what software components are needed
- what architectural models need to be followed
- etc.
Characteristics of DLs
Distributed (across the Internet)
Large volumes of data
Multimedia content
New virtualities
®
new range of computer-mediated human activities
HCI challenges in the context of DLs
Diverse user groups
orientation
navigation
information overload, etc.
- Technological proliferation
- terminals (portables, network attachable equipment)
- novel input/output devises (e.g., wearables)
- new interaction platforms (e.g., Java)
- etc.
Variety in the context of use
- desktop versus nomadic use
- user tasks in the DL domain
- physical and social environment
Meeting the challenges
Designing for the broadest possible end-user population
studying the dimensions of diversity
- users with different abilities, requirements and preferences
- context of use
- terminals, novel platforms and network-attachable devices
- context and intend
- alternative styles for instantiating user tasks
- conveying context through assigning interaction objects to dialogue states
- Shifting the focus of implementation
- specification-based framework versus programming
- tools for developing interactive software
Recent contributions from ICS-FORTH (AT&HCI Lab)
Unified user interface development method
Comprehensive methodology for integrating universal accessibility and interaction quality as part of the user interface development life-cycle
Unified user interface development platform
USE-IT: Design environments
PIM: Platform Integration module
G-DISPEC: 4G Specification language
I-GET: Integrated Development Environment
HCI International ’97 Tutorial
http://www.ics.forth.gr/proj/at-hci/html/tutorials.html
Common themes (from the ECDL ’98 Proceedings)
- User interface adaptation
- User interface agents
- User modelling components
- Metaphors, including visualisations
- Virtual reality
- Multilinguality
- Information retrieval
- Multimodality
- Evaluation
A perspective
Phases:
- design
- implementation
- evaluation
Phases (1/3)
Design processes & techniques
- Human-centred design (ISO 13407) fosters
- usability focus
- iterative evaluation-feedback loops
- techniques to attain the above
- Is "usability" (as approached today) enough ?
- What about quality (functional & non-functional attributes) ?
- Do existing UCD techniques cope with design pluralism ?
- Do existing UCD techniques offer process-oriented support ?
- e.g. unfolding, capturing and maintaining design rationale
Phases (2/3)
Implementation
- Approaches
- programming
- specifications
- Tool requirements
- support for collaboration
- inter-operability
- sharing knowledge and experiences, etc.
- What is the role of software architectures ?
Phases (3/3)
Evaluation
- Does evaluation ever lead to innovative designs, or does it simply help identify design defects ?
- How can one evaluate some of the non-functional quality attributes which are critical to DLs ?
- inter-operability
- modifiability
- reusability
- portability
- scalability
Our focus
Bridging across the two communities
Awareness raising
Exchange of experience and establishment of common ground
Developing a common vocabulary
Focusing on a common research agenda
- EC 5th Framework Programme
- ERCIM WGs
- Joint session of the ERCIM Delos Workshop and ERCIM WG UI4ALL (Stockholm, 21 October 1998)
- White Paper - "HCI in DLs: An International R&D Agenda"
Possible questions
1. Is "usability" (as approached today) enough ?
2. What about quality (functional & non-functional attributes) ?
3. Do existing UCD techniques cope with design pluralism ?
4. Do existing UCD techniques offer process-oriented support ?
e.g. unfolding, capturing and maintaining design rationale
5. What is the role of software architectures ?
6. Does evaluation ever lead to innovative designs or does it simply help identify design defects ?
7. How can one evaluate some of the non-functional quality attributes which are critical to DLs ?