California Digital Library Interface Design Project Task Analysis and Initial Sketches

Overview | Task Analysis | Suggested Solution | Experiment Outline

Problem and Solution Overview:

Summary:

We intend to redesign the web interface to the California Digital Library. Our scope will include only the interface, not the content and structure of the resources it gives access to. Our two main goals are to design an interface which: (1) adequately communicates the nature of the CDL and the resources which are available, and (2) provides easy access to those resources.

Our proposed solution would provide a site map and improved information about the available resources. It would also enhance context-sensitive help for the users. Finally, it would streamline paths through the site for common user tasks.

The California Digital Library has recently been created as a "Tenth Library for the UC System". It provides a gateway which offers access to a wide variety of resources, including:

• The MELVYL catalog, available on-line or through a command line interface, which includes:
  • CAT - Listings of all the holdings of the UC libraries
  • MAGS - listings of articles in magazines and journals, some with full-text available online
  • NEWS - lists citations of articles from five national newspapers
  • PE - lists titles of periodicals, magazines, newspapers, and other serial publications, along with their holdings in the UC System
  • CC - (Current Contents) lists article citations for a number of scholarly journals
  • access to other databases of other libraries, collections, and listings, including ProceedingsFirst (citations to conference procedings), PapersFirst (citations to conference papers), PsycINFO (citations from psychology journals and publications), MEDLINE (citations and abstracts from medical and health journals), RILM (listings of music-related resources), and listings from the libraries of Stanford, Cornell, the CSU System, SUNY, Boston University, Cambridge, UT Austin, ASU, and other universities
• Links to online, full-text editions of a number of academic journals
• Links to online reference texts, such as almanacs and encyclopedias
• Links to online finding aids for a variety of existing collections of objects affiliated with the UC system.

A number of obstacles make it difficult for people to use all of the resources available through the CDL. The first is ignorance of the CDL's contents. Many of the resources are unfamiliar to the target users; they may be unaware of the available tools to help solve an information need. The existing interface does a poor job of communicating the scope and variety of available tools. Another obstacle to users' understanding of the CDL may be the mental models with which people approach the CDL. The terms "digital" and "library" may lead people to make false assumptions, as may the characterization of the CDL as a "Tenth UC Library" or a "co-library" of the UC system. None of these terms help people understand the curious mixture of catalog information vs. actual digital content, references to physical resources vs. digital ones, links to individual items vs. catalogs of items, and links to internal databases vs. external sites. The browsing interface, in particular, fails to adequately communicate the nature of the CDL and the scope of its resources.

The existing interface also constrains users' ability to perform certain types of searches. In seeking information, different people use a variety of different tactics and strategies. This is especially true given the wide variety of resources provided by the CDL. Because of the CDL's complexity, there are few direct physical world analogs which fully describe the search behaviors needed to access its information. We intend to design an interface which will assist users in meeting their specific information needs and finding their way among the CDL's resources.

Overview | Task Analysis | Suggested Solution | Experiment Outline

Updated: March 1, 1999