Yes, it is all about You: User Needs, Archaeology and Digital Data

Eric KansaUC Berkeley School of Information

Unless otherwise indicated, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/>

Sarah Whitcher KansaThe Alexandria Archive Institute

Orientation of Web ResourcesOrientation of Web Resources

Difficult

General / shallow

Specific / depth

Easy

Easy Difficult

General / shallow

Specific / depth

Orientation of Web ResourcesOrientation of Web Resources

Easy Difficult

General / shallow

Specific / depth

Most archaeological databases

Most archaeological databases

Orientation of Web ResourcesOrientation of Web Resources

Easy Difficult

General / shallow

Specific / depth

Most archaeological databases

Most archaeological databases

??

Orientation of Web ResourcesOrientation of Web Resources

A “good” user experience: – Appealing– Credible– Easy to use– Relevant

Studying User NeedsStudying User Needs

Image by Jeff Kubina via Flickr (CC-by license) <http://www.flickr.com/photos/kubina/296367267/>

- Free, open access

- Open source- Citable- Stable URLs- All media &

data linked- CC licenses- Export / reuse

Open Context DevelopmentOpen Context Development

2006

2007

2008

2009+

Validation of Data Model, initial content

(10 project / collections)

Open Context DevelopmentOpen Context Development

2006

2007

2008

2009+

Enhance performance,

interoperability (RESTful services), additional content

(2007 NEH award)

Open Context DevelopmentOpen Context Development

2006

2007

2008

2009+

Expand content, demonstrate

distributed services, iterative design with

researchers

(2008 NEH/IMLS award)

What Users WantWhat Users Want

A typical user community…A typical user community…

(1) People, places, things

(2) >50% “other”

What are people looking for? Are they finding it?

Is there something we can do about this?

What do Users Want?What do Users Want?

• Whole project approach• Literature, esp. gray• Regional exploration• Field system

What do Users Want?What do Users Want?

• Whole project approach• Literature, esp. gray• Regional exploration• Field system

ComprehensiveComprehensive

EfficientEfficient

Faceted Browse Faceted Browse

• Search results summarized as facets to guide exploration

• Stable URI for every item to citable human-readable version and also machine-readable version (Atom + ArchaeoML)

Mashups for CooperationMashups for Cooperation

• Atom web services for data portability, distributed search, aggregation

Special ThanksSpecial Thanks

University of Chicago: OCHRE Project

Doris and Donald Fisher

Internet Archive (media repository services)

The United States National Endowment The United States National Endowment for the Humanitiesfor the Humanities