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Re: Archival Collection On-Line



I would also like to congratulate you on putting this valuable collection online.  Some of my comments are specific to this collection, but many are about online access to primary materials in general.

> I agree, but on the first page, second paragraph, it tells you where to
> find the pictures.

How many users are reading that paragraph to figure this out?  One unfortunate characteristic of computer use is the "Paradox of the Active User," pointed out by John M. Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson back in 1987 (http://www.cs.vt.edu/~rosson/papers/paradox.pdf).  Users prefer to move around and try things out, rather than reading directions, even if reading the directions would actually save them a lot of time and grief in the long run. 

In the context of the Web, this means most users will just start clicking on links or typing terms into search boxes before they'll try reading paragraphs of text describing the content.  One implication is that the information architecture of the site (its link locations and labels, visual layout, conceptual structure)  needs to do most of the descriptive work for the user.  If a link indicates to a user that there must be digital images behind it, the user can just click on that right away.  When text is used to describe content, it must be very brief and take advantage of natural perceptual "pop-out" effects that result from formatting in a way that empahsizes the important parts.  Jakob Nielsen makes many of these points in his "How Users Read on the Web" (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html). 

Of course, the degree to which the intended user group will read paragraphs of text can only really be determined through user testing and observation.  Perhaps those using this collection are apt to read before they do, but most users are not.  The appropriateness of the label "container list" is also one that can be determined through testing.  First impressions would indicate that it could be confusing to a non-archivist (What's a container? How does that relate to a series?  Since the link above says "Scope & Content", does this mean the container list has no content?), but observing real users will give the best indication. 

> I have received other comments regarding the fact that
> it was set up for archivists, rather than users.  But then, why do we set
> up our finding aids the way we do?  

Very good question.  Moving from paper to digital copies of finding aids is obviously beneficial to many users.  And doing things like serving HTML to them instead of requiring them to have special plug-in software like SGML viewers is also helpful.  But what empirical evidence do we have that our existing finding aid presentations conform to the needs of our potential users?

> You can also open the image side of the frame into a separate web window

How many users know this?  

> One reason is that we didn't want the navigation bar to get too big and
> unwieldy.

Not to belabor the point, but one solution to this problem is to eliminate the navigation bar.  Instead of the frame on the left, information about where the user is in the finding aid can be provided along with the content itself, in one window.  Having two lists of the container content along side each other, one with links, the other without, could be a bit confusing.

One presentation that many users have grown accustomed to is the "bread crumb" path indication used by sites like Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com).  A set of words at the top of the screen indicate where in the hierarchy the user is (what many in the HCI field call "scent"), rather than depending on a frame (e.g. Regional > U.S. States > Michigan > Arts and Humanities > History > Genealogy ).

Another approach is something like the Bentley Historical Library's "hits in context" (http://www.umich.edu/~bhl/EAD/search_p.htm), which indicates to the user where she is without having to provide an additional navigation bar.

I would agree that when using frames it's often best to allow the user to resize frames.  Since users generally will spend only a tiny amount of their time on our sites, we should try to take advantage of the things they've grown accustomed to when using other computer systems.  One of the biggest advantages of using frames - its similarity to the windowing that happens in many graphical user interface (GUI) applications - is lost, when users can't manipulate the size of those windows. 

I think one of the biggest issues archivists face when providing online access to materials is making them usable to those unaccustomed to archival practice.  Though some archivists hope that our potential online user group is composed of mostly PhDs in history with extensive archival research experience, this is not the case.  In fact, many dedicated researchers will continue to physically visit our institutions.  So the real potential lies in gaining users who were not previously familiar with doing primary research.  As Jackob Nielsen indicates in another context (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991114.html), most users will spend a minute portion of their time on our sites, so its best to try to conform to many of the conventions used by others sites they do visit regularly.  Those sites determine what they come to expect when moving around the Web.  If they must learn a whole new way of using the Web just for one collection, it's quite likely they'll just look somewhere else.  And that would be quite unfortunate.

Comments are my own and not those of my employer.



========================================================
Cal Lee
Electronic Records Project Archivist
Kansas State Historical Society
Phone: 785-272-8681, ext. 280         Fax: 785-272-8682
http://www.kshs.org/archives/recmgt.htm
                        "Obsolete power corrupts obsoletely."
                                                        - Ted Nelson

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