River Campus Libraries

CUIPIDCatalog User-Interface Platform for Iterative Development

David LindahlDirector of Digital Library InitiativesRiver Campus LibrariesUniversity of Rochester

What is CUIPID?

Project of the Digital Initiatives Unit at the University of Rochester Libraries

CUIPID is a technology platform that enables iterative, user-centered design of new catalog user interfaces

Catalog User Interface Platform for Iterative Development

CUIPID is not a replacement for our current catalog

It will help us relate metadata and user needs.

CUIPID Roadmap

Usability Issuesand Opportunities

FRBR Model

UB Alternative Catalog

Stanford XOBIS

Influences

Users must select a search type.

Example: Choose “title” if you know exact title, or

the beginning of the title Choose “title keyword” if you know

some words in title Users must select the correct type for

optimal or acceptable results

Usability Issue

Usability Issue

Users should not enter initial articles.

Initial articles are “a” “an” and “the” Certain search types are left-anchored and

user must leave off initial articles when these are used

Usability Issue

Users must undestand what a left-anchored title search is and when it is called for.

Some search types are, some aren’t Patron is looking for the “Journal of Cell

Biology” Patron selects Journal Title for search type

and enters: “Cell Biology” – fails “Journal of Cell Biology” - success “Journal of Cell” - success

Usability Issue

Many people don’t know how to construct a boolean search

Users must use “set limits” to navigate large result sets.

User needs to resubmit search Too many choices for language, location, etc Date limits confusing

Usability Issue

Provide automatic spelling suggestions

Voyager Catalog Google RCL Site Search CUIPID

Opportunity

Collecting multiple records to print, save, or email is confusing.

Too many buttons and choices Layout confusing Doesn’t remember choices between

different results pages

Usability Issue

Opportunity

Provide context-sensitive services based on circulation status

Examples: If item is available, provide a stack map If item is checked-out, provide a recall form If item is lost, provide an interlibrary loan

request form

Opportunity

Support number searching whether spelled out or numerical

Opportunity

Provide more useful information with record displays.

Display suggestions of other titles instead of just subject headings

Book cover images, sample pages Reviews Recommendations Donor information

Uability Issue

Users don’t understand the invisible boundaries of our information islands.

Users search for journal articles in the catalog

Users search for books in site search (our webpage search engine)

Opportunity

Libraries should hide the technology.

Systems Online Catalog Website Databases Interlibrary Loan

Features Search Engines Authentication Mechanisms Requests

Opportunity

Automatically recognize journal title abbreviations

Interpreting citations with journal title abbreviations is difficult without extensive knowledge or a reference book

This can be accomplished with a web-service that can translate abbreviation to full-title

Opportunity

Incorporate other content indicies

Course pages Web pages (subject guides) Institutional Repositories Digital content repositories

CUIPID Roadmap

Usability Issuesand Opportunities

FRBR Model

UB Alternative Catalog

Stanford XOBIS

Influences

FRBR Model

Find out if I will have a whiteboard?

FRBR

CUIPID Roadmap

Usability Issuesand Opportunities

FRBR Model

UB Alternative Catalog

Stanford XOBIS

Influences

Videos / DVDs

Audio / CDs

eJournals

Project Timeline

SARA

Site Search

CUIPID 2

CUIPID 1

Usability group Design group

Three Groups

Content group

Usability group Design group

Skills and Experience

Content group• Library science• Content• Content providers• User interfaces• Users

• User interface design• Visual design• Web standards• Technology

• Usability testing methods

Usability group Design group

Roles & Responsibilities

Content group• Define key tasks• Raise issues• Manage project

• Create design iterations and prototypes• Respond to issues and test results• Manage issue-response process

• Select appropriate tests to perform• Perform tests• Report results• Manage key-task process

FRBR slides

Voyager

SQL database

Architecture - Voyager

MARCMetadata

Index

User Interface

INDEX

Examples:- Title index- Author index- Journal index

Examples:- Bibliographic Record- Holding Record- Item Record (MARC?)

WebVoyage

ColdFusion

Architecture - Videos

Metadata

Index

User Interface

Voyager

SQL database

MARC

INDEX

WebVoyage

SQL database

Videos

Cached Queries

Find Videos/DVDs

ColdFusion

Architecture - SARA

Metadata

Index

User Interface

Voyager

SQL database

MARC

INDEX

WebVoyage SARA

Verity Indexes

Stored Queries

ColdFusion

Architecture – CUIPID 1

Metadata

Index

User Interface

Voyager

SQL database

MARC

INDEX

WebVoyage CUIPID

MARCXML

Filesystem

Verity Index

METS

CUIPID

Challenges Complex interface Multiple interfaces Information Literacy Inflexible vendor UI UI <> Metadata in MARC

SARA

Why?

Overcome limitations of commercial metasearch application

Influenced by grouped-search-results page at Amazon.Com

Experiment ColdFusion as a platform for metasearch Multiple concurrent Voyager searches

SARA

What?

ColdFusion application Concurrent Voyager searches Demo

SARA

How?

Cold Fusion executing Verity searches Cold Fusion executing SQL queries to CDs,

DVDs, and eJournal database (copy of Voyager content)

Cold Fusion executing multiple, concurrent http calls to Voyager, parsing and screen scraping for results number

CUIPID

Why?

Usability issues with WebVoyage User expectations shaped by popular sites Goals

Forgiving interface No knowledge needed FRBR-like interface Record enrichment (user reviews, etc)

Hundreds of things we wanted to do…

CUIPID

What?

Platform for User-Centered-Design of catalog user interfaces

XML copy of library catalog records “Did you mean” spell checking Grouping of search results Maps to stack locations FRBR future Unlimited possibilities Demo

Web Server

MS SQL

ColdFusion

CUIPID

Voyager

Oracle

WebVoyage

PERL copy

Library website user interface

How?

XML files

VerityIndex

Google.Com

D.Y.M. Web Service

XMLParser

spell check

Circulation

Status

CUIPID

Vision of a new catalog Take advantage of metadata

(videos/DVDs) Manipulation Navigation Behind the scenes processing Enhanced displays Usability

CUIPID

FRBR

CUIPID

Version 1 demo

CUIPID

Version 2 demo

CUIPID

Online Catalog Usability Issues Comparison to popular sites Vision of a new catalog (MVD designs) FRBR CUIPID CUIPID 2 XPath

CUIPID

XPath