Module 10a: Display and Arrangement IMT530: Organization of Information Resources Winter, 2008 Michael Crandall

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 2 Module 10a Outline Using metadata for presentation Traditional approaches New methods

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 3 From Libraries to the Web Libraries used metadata to organize physical materials Much of the knowledge we’ve been using has grown from that tradition But on the web, content doesn’t have to live in a single location –Opens up possibilities for multiple access points and views –Metadata enables this

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 4 Still Problems Taylor points out some difficulties that machines can’t solve –Abbreviations –Filing order (prefixes, numerical vs. alpha) –Dates –Punctuation We’ve seen that good authority control can go a long way toward minimizing these problems, but they won’t go away, so be aware of them when building systems

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 5 What You Can Do Wodtke’s article discusses how a good controlled vocabulary can improve findability –Notice in her examples that the display of the results is a large part of the experience –It’s not just finding the answer, it’s how it’s presented as well Understanding how to use your metadata for display of results is the last step in the process of connecting users to information

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 6 MSWeb Search

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 7 Areas for Exploration Search –Search forms: –Search results: –User assistance: –Display: all of the above Navigation –Hierarchical –Linked to search Presentation- some examples

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 8 Advantages of Graphical Displays Easier to represent diverse and complex relationships Give an immediate overall view of the environment Enables more dynamic and aesthetically appealing interface Underlying data are mapped to graphic primitives such as shape, color, size, position (Bertrand-Gastaldy, 1986; Ceglar et al., 2005) slide from Jin Ha Lee, 3/6/2007

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 9 Graphical Displays Should… Induce the viewer to think about the substance rather than about methodology, graphic design, the technology of graphic production, or something else Reveal the data at several levels of detail, from a broad overview to the fine structure Serve a reasonably clear purpose OCLC Dewey Browser (Tufte, 2001) slide from Jin Ha Lee, 3/6/2007

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 10 Types of graphical displays Many types, more than we can cover in this class (there are entire courses on visualization). Some examples –Trees –Clusters –Networks –Self-organizing maps –Facets –Tag Clouds Underlying data are mapped to graphic primitives such as shape, color, size, position. (Ceglar et al., 2005) slide from Jin Ha Lee, 3/6/2007

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 11 Trees Hierarchical relationships Works well for browsing slide from Jin Ha Lee, 3/6/2007

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 12 OCLC Dewey Browser slide from Jin Ha Lee, 3/6/2007

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 13 Clusters Stronger connections within a group than to outside (e.g., similarity) slide from Jin Ha Lee, 3/6/2007

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 14 Networks Objects/Concepts (nodes) and relationships (arcs) slide from Jin Ha Lee, 3/6/2007

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 15 Self-organizing maps Two-dimensional map representation of a large collection of information objects:

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 16 Facets

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 17 Tag clouds

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 18 Common issues Disconnection between metadata description and information resource –Integration of discovery to delivery (Dempsey, 2007) Too busy and visually cluttered –Include the important features for users and leave out the uninformative and distracting parts Getting lost –Preserving the search/browse history slide from Jin Ha Lee, 3/6/2007

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 19 Good displays… Exploit humans’ rich pattern recognition capabilities Encourage serendipitous discovery Show the complex data (multiple dimensions and/or large volume) at several levels of details slide from Jin Ha Lee, 3/6/2007

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 20 Questions? If not, take a break!!!

IMT530- Organization of Information Resources 21 Exercise 10a A chance to explore some interesting methods of presenting the results of metadata-enabled content Spend the next 45 minutes exploring the sites in Exercise 10a and thinking about how metadata helps produce what you see