THE UHLE COLLECTIONS @ BERKELEY

The user interface we implemented uses an "L-shaped" layout where the title is along the top and the navigation items are located on the left side of the screen. The center portion of the screen displays the search results. The navigation section provides three options of searching through the collection: keyword search, map-based browsing and category searching. With the exception of the keyword search, these search options provide information beyond a hyperlink. The map describes a spatial relationship among a quantity of artifacts. The category search allows a way to choose artifacts based on the metadata of those artifacts. It is also a textual peek at what is offered in the collection.
The display area shows search results as either thumbnails, text representation or as a detail.

 

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2. Differences from low-fi

The basic layout of our prototype remained the same from the low-fi prototype to the interactive prototype. However, based on user testing of the scenarios using the
low-fi prototype we chose to change the following items:

Title Links - Our low-fi prototype provided links to general collection on the home page. These links provide information about Featured Artifact, Uhle Biography, History of the Collection, About the Project. We decided to move under the title so that they are always available regardless of the user's position in a search.

 

Text Only View - One of our low-fi prototype testers suggested offering a text only view of artifact search results in addition to the thumbnail view. This view is similar to an excel spreadsheet of the artifacts and allows a user to easily compare the metadata between artifacts.

 

Remaining Artifacts Indicators - In the low-fi prototype we provided a number next to each facet in the category menus. Inspired by Flamenco, these numbers represented the number of items remaining in the collection with respect to that facet. The users we tested were confused by the number of numbers so we chose to simplify this as one single number at the top of the category menus. We also included a "Go" button so the user has more control of the timing of displayed results.

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3. Scenarios

Welcome to Uhle Collections @ Berkeley. Please follow our task scenarios closely as not all of the functionality suggested by the UI is available. For instance, map based or keyword browsing is only available with pre-scripted html pages for the current prototype. Start each scenario from the index page and navigate through the interface while completing each task.

Scenarios #1 - Find jars with sooting on them. (Storyboard #1)

You are an archaeologist with a focus on pottery. As part of your research, you are interested in examining South American jars which have been burnt (in archaeological terms, the artifacts display "sooting"). Look up jars with sooting in the Uhle database. 1. Type "sooting" in the keyword search, and click "Go." (Do not press enter-this will not work in the prototype, although it will in the final version.) 2. Click on the image of the jar.

Scenarios #2 - Find out how many artifacts there are in Chincha Site E, grave 13. (Storyboard #2)

There are two ways to accomplish this scenario. Method A 1. From the artifact detail page that you reached in the first scenario, click on the facet "Grave 13" under the artifact's metadata to the right of the photograph. 2. All items from Grave 13 are returned-the number of items returned is the number of items from Grave 13. Method B 1. From the index page, go to the Location facet, and under Chincha Valley, Site E, select Grave 13. 2. The number after Total Matches is the number of artifacts in Grave 13. (You may also click the Go button at this point to search for all items from Grave 13.)

Scenarios #3 - Print a list of ceramic vessels without thumbnail view. (Storyboard #3)

You are an undergraduate student from the Anthropology department. This semester, you are taking Archeology 152, Introduction to South America, and you have to write a research paper comparing different types of ceramic vessels that have been found in Chincha Valley, Peru. Professor Susan Marks kindly tells you to visit the Uhle Collections @ Berkeley for your research. 1. Under the Artifact Class facet, click Vessels. 2. Under the Material Types facet, click Ceramics. 3. Click the Go button after the Total Matches number to perform the search. 4. Since, you want to see general information from the search results in relation to one another, click "Text Only" under the Views. 5. Print this page using the browser's Print command to save it for further research

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4. Storyboard

Storyboard for Scenario #1

Storyboard for Scenario #2

Storyboard for Scenario #3

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5. Prototype Overview

Prototype Tools

This prototype was built in HTML and JavaScript, using Dreamweaver, TextPad, and TextWrangler (a text editor for the Mac). A pre-made script from http://www.dynamicdrive.com was used for the menus, albeit modified extensively for our use. In later iterations, we expect to be using Perl layers to talk to the backend database, but this functionality is not yet available. We also plan to use CSS for the graphic design of the site-we have implemented the most bare-bones design for the current prototype, as it will be supplanted by the CSS in the next version.

HTML and JavaScript were chosen because they would most realistically show how the system is meant to work, and because the team already had a fair amount of experience using these tools. Furthermore, since the final version of the site will most likely use a combination of HTML, JavaScript, and other scripting languages, we hope to reduce future coding by building on the base we have already written.

Wizard-of-Oz Effects

The backend database for this collection is currently undergoing extensive reworking. For this reason, any places where the user interface would call the database are necessarily mock-ups. Where a similar effect is repeated multiple times (such as with the checkboxes in the expandable menus), we only implemented some instances to avoid having to recode every section to interact with the database when it is available.

Buttons are actually static links to pages with example search results, and only one artifact detail page is provided. The map function received less attention than the browsing facets because we are planning to implement the map using a pre-existing map tool.

Furthermore, the "Total Matches" number is not reflective of the actual content of the collections. Again, we included the feature so that our evaluators may get a sense of how it is meant to work, but coding a more realistic mock-up was not feasible given our timeframe and the fact that all this code will be scrapped in further iterations anyway.

What we chose to leave out

Our interactive prototype includes a user log in option. This is a feature that will be implemented at some point in the life of the project but not during this stage of user interface development.

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