AS03a - Terminology - Report

Overview

At the request of ArchivesSpace Development team member, Susan Pyzynski (Harvard University), Emilie Hardman (Houghton Library, Harvard University), with the assistance of Simmons intern, Anna Speth, designed and conducted a usability testing session on several areas of concern for the development of ASpace. One of those areas was concerned with user-friendly terminology and defaults for labels; that is the focus of this report, though a “part b” report from this session will follow to present the results of the modified card sort exercise participants engaged in.

Tests were conducted at Houghton Library with six participants recruited by the Harvard Student Agencies on Wednesday, October 12, 2016. Participants were senior undergraduates or graduate students at Harvard University focused on work within the arts, humanities, and/or social sciences. Two participants could be classified as very experienced archives users, three had some significant-moderate archival experience with class assignments and personal research interests, and one participant had never made use of an archive or special collection.  

The Test

Definitions of core components of archival description were prepared for each element on a collection page (e.g. http://aspace.hudmol.com:7310/repositories/X/resources/X). Definitions were constructed with reference to the SAA Glossary, with edits made to simplify and streamline lengthy or technical definitions with the aim of clarifying meaning for a non-specialist audience.

Participants were given half sheets of paper with the definitions and asked to supply a title or a name that they thought would quickly and clearly describes what this element was. Each set of these sheets was arranged in a different order before presentation to the participant. The openness of this test allowed for many different responses, but we hoped to find common threads among the participants as they applied labels they thought would immediately make the meaning clear. Participants were welcomed to ask questions or talk about their thought process as they performed this task. They were also welcomed to put more than one label or name if they wished, both at this point in the session and later during the card sort exercise. For this reason some of the tallies below surpass six.

The following elements were included in this test:

[Abstract]

            A very brief statement about the nature of the collection.

[Acquisition]

A statement describing when and how the collection came to the archive/library, e.g. through single or multiple purchases, donations, etc.

[Arrangement]

Information about how the archive/library has organized the collection. Organization may be by subject matter, date, alphabetical order, or something else.

[Biographical/Historical]

An overview of the creator of the collection’s life; may detail important life events and dates, occupations, achievements, etc.

[Collection Language]

The language(s) of collection material.

[Contents and Arrangement]

A table of contents listing the contents of the collection.

[Preferred Citation]

A recommended citation for use in bibliographies/works cited/publication.

[Processing Information]

A statement about the person or people who worked on collection when it arrived at the archive/library, also specifies what kind of work was done to the collection and when. This is generally also a statement of authorship, as the person responsible for this work often writes the collection description/finding aid.

[Restrictions on Access]

Information about any restrictions on access to the collection due to the nature of the information in the materials being described, such as those imposed by the donor, by the repository, or by statutory/regulatory requirements.

[Scope and Content]

A narrative summary of the collection, the nature and content of the materials and the ways in which they were created. Includes information the format (e.g. computer files, correspondence, drawings, etc.) and the most significant topics, events, people, places, and time periods represented in the material contents of the collection.

Summary

Abstract

While “Abstract” may indeed make sense to users when it is presented on a site, the word most think of to describe its function is “Overview.”

Acquisition

As we saw in previous testing, the header “Acquisition” caused confusion for users, however, it was the term that most participants themselves generated to describe this data. This illustrates that the term is a logical one in an abstract sense, but misleads users when deployed in context of the archival discovery/access system. It is also important to note that in the second section of this session, participants were asked to organize these elements to their liking and only one participant elected to keep this data element visible on a main page, explaining that it was not important to their immediate goals and shouldn’t take up space at the same hierarchical level as other elements. Even the one participant who kept this element on the main page moved it to a lower “below the fold” level.

Arrangement

“Organization” was the word that most participants used to describe this element, but a majority also were more interested in this being something actionable. That is, they were not interested in reading about how a collection had been organized, they wanted to be able to use the work of arrangement to do something with the materials themselves--to filter or resort a view of the components based on the way they had been arranged by the archivist.

Biographical / Historical

The preference for “creator” seems to come from the use of this term in the definition/description. Interestingly, this element elicited a number of questions about how many people might be included in this statement because, they noted, there were often many different people involved in creating content that might be part of an archive. They also questioned how complete this information would be and where it would come from (“are curators writing this part?”) Participants were not sure how decisions would be made to focus on one person over another. As we’ve seen in other sessions, participants tend not to expect to find this kind of biographical information within the archival discovery platform and perhaps this contributes to their wariness over the decisions made about what and who to include in a <bioghist>.

Collection Language

In labeling this data element, most respondents indicated verbally that it was “an easy one.” Generally it seemed very straightforward to give the element a name in that moment, but when it came to placing it on the page, four of the participants paused to discuss it in greater detail because they weren’t convinced that it was useful on the collection page itself. In broad strokes, participants wanted to, at an early stage, be able to filter out collections with languages that they could not read. Some participants realized however that there may be complications with regard to the fact that a collection may include materials in a number of different languages. Two participants decided that regardless of the complications that they would want this data to be actionable, not just a passive presentation. One participant determined that because of the complications and the importance of the information, as it would dictate whether or not the materials would be accessible to a user, that the data should be displayed at the highest level of the page in a very clear and direct way.

Contents and Arrangement

Five out of six of the participant supplied a name for Contents and Arrangement, all of which involved the term “Organization.” Three highlighted the organization of the collection, while two specified the method of the organization, drawing attention to the potential archivist intervention in the collection. Both in the course of naming and specifying layout however, participants were much less concerned with what this was called, indeed two participants indicated it “[didn’t] need to be called anything,” rather it just “needs to do something.” Participants wanted the work of the archivist to be made actionable as a filter or a jump, so that they could, for example, see all of the correspondence by selecting it from a drop down list.

Preferred Citation

A majority preference emerged for this element to be given an action-oriented name: “cite this.” Participants explained that this is language commonly used in databases that they use and it gives them a sense that they will get citation information in a standardized format (or, more to the point, standardized formats) that they can use. They were concerned with this information not just being an archive’s or library’s idea of what should be included in a citation. They wanted, further, for this element to give them options for citation format (MLA, APA, etc.). Only one participant indicated that it should export to a citation management tool, most were happy to copy it from the page.

Processing Information

Processing information was an element with no agreement around its name. This seems to point to some confusion over what it means or is, as well as a sense that it may not be very important to the user’s goals. Four out of six of the participants also moved this element off of the main page and indicated that it was not useful information for their purposes.

Restrictions on Access

The phrase “Access Restrictions” emerged as a strong favorite. In conversation participants emphasized that they preferred this order of words because “Restrictions” as a first word might feel more limiting or off-putting. They also felt strongly that this element should not be displayed at all if no restrictions were active.

Scope and Content

Little specific agreement can be found with regard to Scope and Content, however, all of the suggestions either generically or specifically evoke the collection in their title. This emphasis seems important to note; it is an assertion from users that an explicit tie between the information presented and the collection it is describing is desired. Our systems treat this connection as implicit, but this finding points to an opportunity to clarify the relationship and generate more confidence for the users.