2015-09-03 Working Group Meeting

Owned by Rain Michaels (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Sept 15, 2015Version comment
5 min read

Date

Attendees

Goals

  • Find out status of Test Corpus
  • Recap user testing
  • Questions from CHC about good/bad/desired UI elements
  • Questions from CHC based on user testing and UI elements
  • Input from Working Group on aesthetic design
  • Discuss next steps & when WG should be prepared to respond to UI content

Meeting details

Eastern time: 12:30 pm
Central time: 11:30 am
Mountain time: 10:30 am
Pacific time: 9:30 am

To join the meeting:
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/504319125
Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) - a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.
Dial +1 (646) 749-3122
Access Code: 504-319-125
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting
Meeting ID: 504-319-125

This meeting will be recorded.

Discussion items

TimeItemWhoNotes
5 minRecap

Rain

  • Recap of what we discussed last meeting and what happened during the three weeks
5 minTest CorpusAngela
  • Check in on status of Test Corpus
20 minUser testing

Rain
Dara
Mark
Susan 

  • Recap user testing
  • Discuss highlights and any observations from those on the tests
  • Hear any reactions from overall Working Group
  • Questions from CHC based on user testing
10 minUI ElementsRain
  • Questions from CHC about good/bad/etc. UI element selections
10 minAesthetic DesignJungleen
  • Questions from CHC
  • Thoughts from overall Working Group
5 minWrap up & questions

Rain
Mark

  • Open time for questions
  • Confirm date and time of next meeting

Meeting minutes

Recording:

NOTE: The first 11 minutes of the recording were missed. detailed notes are provided below. What was missed where insights from Dara, Mark, and Susan on their experience with the user testing.

Next steps:

  1. Mostly to be added after call. Known items pre-call:
  2. Continued review of / questions on JIRA issues by CHC and WG
  3. CHC working on wireframes 
  4. CHC working on aesthetic design elements
  5. Next meeting  

Detailed notes: 

Test Corpus: Angela and Brian will have an update for us on the next call.

User testing highlights:

  • Dara - both users were scholars who have worked with other finding aids. Found it difficult to identify where a particular component was coming from and the breadcrumb trail wasn’t obvious to them. Neither liked the verbiage in use. Would have found it helpful to have a button to see the whole finding aid. Neither found that the EAD PDF option was available, had to be directed to it.
  • Mark - took both a long time to recognize the breadcrumbs. Even after recognizing them they still weren’t useful. When actually on a finding aid, neither realized that they can scroll down for a long time. Having agent and subject links on top made it seem that they couldn’t scroll. Search results as hyperlinked titles was really confusing. Context was really missing. Neither realized search terms were being “or’d” together.
  • Susan - observations much the same. User experience librarian ran tests so she watched remotely. Graduate student and archivist. Confusion about sorting the results. No matter what type of result you had, choices of how you can sort them where the same even if they didn’t make sense. Things like the icons were confusing. Not sure what they meant or did. When labels are long, the … is unhelpful. Lack of context was the biggest issue.
  • Sue - read notes and went through this recently with a researcher. Needs to be a better ability to create context.
  • Scott - cliff notes, stunned b/c everything that was sighted here was cited in the two IL tests
Conversation about terminology: 
  • Documentation team has been working on this from perspective of administrative users. Linda posted this as a comment.
  • Krista sent a link: www2.archivists.org/gloassary
  • Maura: put up as a page on the wiki —
    • CHC to put up initial page
    • Sue will take lead on the document
    • Scott will provide background
  • Angela: time to make a lot of sense to go back to the specification from 2011. Angela volunteer Scott to revisit that document and use that as the base for this jargon. (page 10, record detail display pages as a good example, field labels already suggested)
  • ICANN option - generally positive reaction, as long as popup is in natural language. But might be overkill, if can get rid of as much jargon from get go would be preferable.

Conversation about flagging / collating tool:

  • Linda - researchers generally find this useful
  • Sue - indicated in persona based on the way that the interface works now. If can still get to a component without the finding aid, this is a useful tool.
  • Krista - often researchers might like to keep this information private, so if do add it, make it so that it is something only that user can see.

Conversation about sorting by date created and/or modified:

  • Krista - words created or modified would be confusing, but what people are interested in knowing if there is something new, or changed.
  • Mark - agrees with this. Not a sorting option but rather a browsing feature. Matt echo’d, but if smaller changes take place could be confusing.
  • Scott - date created important to those searching for music.
  • Sue - people searching more interested in the dates on the items.
  • Maura - user would think that created was the item within the collection.
  • Mark - do need some kind of date sorting.

Conversation about removing components from search results entirely:

  • Scott - reluctant to say or suggest that. Flat presentation is where the issue lies. Hesitant to pull those out. 
  • Dara - would like to have that option. Perhaps a toggle to get to everything or have the option to just retrieve the finding aids. 
  • Sue - depends on what is actually going to be indexed for the search. E.g. if notes are included, then there could be way too much.
  • Susan - look at the princeton finding aids database, does a nice job of only showing collection and showing component hits and context beneath, which is very helpful
Design conversation:
  • Mark - likes the simple and that search is prominent
  • Maura - likes neutral colors
  • Angela - what comes out of the box needs to be neutral
  • Sue - simpler the better out of the box, but the layout and general visuals could really be helped, good foundation to be used and modified as needed with colors and accents
  • Angela - we should also probably just talk about that we are not interested in changing use of font/size that much, but archivespace color scheme isn’t going to change, but could have a better use of the color scheme, will not be changing the identity of ASpace
  • Krista - with ASpace branding in mind, like look of archivesspace.org landing page, and really like this (use of black to counter blue, etc.)
  • Scott - ability to modify the appearance relatively easily with the current system is something of a problem — we can certainly make recommendations on how to make this easier for institutions, but some of that work is work that Brian will need to be done — ON CHC side: recommend what is modifiable. (e.g. header, logo, colors, fonts, etc. within bootstrap)

Action items