Session recordingWhere Linked Data Can Impact User Experience: Findings from a Study on Discovery Workflows, Emma Boettcher (University of Chicago)
Slides available:
https://static.sched.com/hosted_files/ld42020/e0/2020LD4_discovery_boettcher.pdfIn 2019, the University of Chicago Library conducted interviews with 19 students and faculty members about how they discover literature for their research. During the sessions, the interviewers did not mention linked data once – and that was intentional. Unlike usability studies that put a solution in front of the participant and evaluate whether it solves their problems (or produces new ones), this form of user research allowed us to learn more about existing workflows and challenges in our participants' research. With each interview, we learned what relationships between resources our users value during discovery, how they measure the usefulness of search results, and where they see themselves situated in their fields. This presentation will go over the findings from this study, focusing especially on the ones that have implications for linked data for discovery. It will cover how library users seek out related resources and what relationships matter to them; how date, author, and other parts of an article are used and evaluated for relevance to the researcher's topic; and the challenges encountered by newcomers to a topic, even if they consider themselves experienced researchers in other fields. Based on these findings, the sessions will also suggest where future work, both in user research and in linked data for discovery interfaces, could make the most impact. While the presentation may be of most interest to UX researchers and designers, it should also be of interest for anyone who works in discovery at their library.
A research agenda for the evaluation of semantic search interfaces, Jim Hahn and John Mark Ockerbloom (University of Pennsylvania)
Slides available: https://works.bepress.com/john_mark_ockerbloom/20/ For research libraries to move successfully from experimentation to implementation with library linked data and semantic search interfaces, we need to better understand how these systems can best support users' information discovery needs. This presentation outlines a research agenda and methodologies we will use in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries to evaluate, implement, and extend library discovery systems using enriched and linked metadata, including systems used in the LD4 community. Our intended audience is librarians and developers of linked data systems with an interest in discovery. Our research agenda begins with user tasks described in the IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM), but also considers extensions to those basic tasks that linked data-enabled systems support. These extensions include enhanced topical browsing; the discovery of works, people, and topics across multiple information collections; and the selection and delivery of the most appropriate copy of a sought-after work in a multi-library context that takes into account both content and obtainability. Our evaluation methodologies include both quantitative and qualitative analyses. We will begin with analyses of current discovery search logs, and continue with user studies to determine user tasks that are well-supported by our semantic search systems, and to identify gaps in data, services, and interface designs for meeting user needs. We may also prototype extensions to our platforms and metadata and test their effectiveness. Platforms we will use for evaluation include the SHARE-VDE linked data catalog being developed with various library partners, the Blacklight-based catalog developed at Penn for our local library collection and for an experimental Ivy+ shared discovery service, and Penn's Online Books Page catalog and accompanying Forward to Libraries service. We hope in our research to articulate the best uses of semantic searching, and the most effective investments in systems, interfaces, and metadata to support discovery in a linked-data environment.
