Blandford, A.

Buchanan, G.

Jones, M.

English

UCL Discovery

Preprint: final version available asBLANDFORD, A., BUCHANAN, G. & JONES, M. (2004) Usability of Digital Libraries(Editorial). Journal of Digital Libraries. 4.2. 69-70.Usability of Digital Libraries: EditorialAnn Blandford1, George Buchanan2 & Matt Jones21 UCL Interaction Centre, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, LondonWC1H 0AP, U.K.2 Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105,Hamilton, New Zealande-mail: a.blandford@ucl.ac.uk; g.buchanan@cs.waikato.ac.nz; always@acm.orgKey words: user-centred design,usability evaluation,  digital libraries,use-in-context1.  IntroductionThe issue of usability has concerned theDigital  Libraries  community,  at  leastperipherally, over many years. There is,after  all,  little  point  in  deliveringsophisticated libraries with novel featuresif those systems are then ignored by theintended  users  because  they  are  toodifficult to use or do not offer the keyfeatures that users require. However, thechallenge  of  how  to  deliver  DigitalLibraries that are truly useful and usableremains elusive, often given second placeto solving novel technical challenges.This  was  the  thinking  behind  ourorganisation of a workshop on the topic ofusability which was held at JCDL’02 [1].This collection of papers derives indirectlyfrom that workshop. At the workshop, tenpapers  on  different  aspects  of  usabilitywere  presented,  interspersed  withextensive discussion on key issues arisingfrom those papers. Papers covered bothpractical issues, including empirical andanalytical evaluations of existing systems,and  theoretical  issues  –  for  example,developing  taxonomies  of  aspects  ofdigital  library  use.  Following  thissuccessful workshop, we put together thecall for papers for this special issue ofJDL, soliciting papers from both attendeesat  the  workshop  and  others  in  thecommunity. At this point, we brought inMatt Jones as a third editor, so that paperson  which  any  of  the  editors  were  co-authors could be dealt with by two editorswith  no  involvement  of  the  authoringeditor.The  circumstances  in  which  DigitalLibraries are being developed vary widely–  from  those  for  the  internal  use  ofcommercial  organisations,  to  academicinstitutions and public bodies and servicesof all forms.  Users may be predominantlyexpert in electronic information seeking,or  novices,  or  a  diverse  mix;  domainexperts  seeking  detailed  specialistknowledge, students approaching new andunfamiliar  subjects,  or  casual  browserswith a passing interest. The papers in thisspecial  issue  highlight  the  diversity  ofcontext and user goals that researchers anddevelopers  need  to  understand  andaccommodate. So, for example, there’s astudy  of  commercial  image  libraries(Parker) alongside others on medical userneeds (Adams & Blandford) and systemsfor  academics  (Hartson  et  al;Stelmaszewska & Blandford).The Web user-experience has a significantimpact upon Digital Library design anduse. For example, there are trends towards“Google-isation” of search (a modern dayanalogue, perhaps, to the “qwerty-isation”of keyboards):  users seem to be unable tocomprehend  traditional,  fielded,bibliographic querying, preferring simplekeyword input and ranked list outputs. It ispleasing, then, to include a paper (Chen etal) that involves an analysis of the Google,Altavista  and Lycos directories, which arewidely-used  Web  information  accessstructures.Over  the  past  forty  years,  the  HumanComputer  Interaction  discipline  hasdeveloped  a  wide  range  of  tools,techniques, models and methods aimed atensuring  interactive systems are designedin an user-centred way [2]. This collectionof  papers  illustrates  how  the  insightselicited,  skills  required  and  time  andresource costs can vary depending on theapproaches  employed.  For  instance,Adams  &  Blandford  conducted  98  in-depth interviews with users to explore thesocial and organisational issues of medicaland academic DLs; in contrast, Hartson etal  used  a  small  number  of  expertevaluators to critique the NCSTRL system,uncovering  interface  problems  in  theprocess.While many of the approaches – think-aloud,  observation,  interviews,  focus-groups,  usability  inspections,  artefactanalysis etc – presented in the papers arequalitative in nature, Chen et al, highlightthe role quantitative, empirical methodscan play. They present a laboratory-based,controlled experiment to investigate therelationship between a user’s approach toinformation  seeking  and  the  design  ofinformation access structures.Taken as a whole, this collection gives aflavour of the challenges digital libraryresearchers and designers face when tryingto meet human needs, while at the sametime,  presenting  sound  and  variedapproaches for user-centred progress. It isour hope that the DL community will beencouraged to further research and employusability methods. If this happens, userswill  be  saved  from  the  frustrations,confusion  and  disappointment  thatcharacterises many of their technologicalexperiences today.2.  AcknowledgementsOrganisation of the workshop from whichthis Special Issue is derived was partlysupported by EPSRC Grant GR/M81748and funding from Middlesex University.We are grateful to everyone who helpedwith refereeing this Special Issue: WilmaAlexander; Davide Bolchini; Katy Börner;Sally-Jo  Cunningham;  Gary  Marsden;Stefano Mizzaro; David Nichols; AndreasRauber; Rudi Schmeide; Tamara Sumner;Yin Leng Theng.3.  References1.  Blandford, A. & Buchanan, G. (2002)Report on usability workshop atJCDL’02. Available fromhttp://www.uclic.ucl.ac.uk/annb/DLUsability/JCDL02.html2.  Shneiderman, B. (1998) Designing theUser Interface, 3rd Ed. AddisonWesley.

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