too many varied user requirements for digital humanities projects
DESCRIPTION
Presentation at CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 24 October 2014, Soesterberg, The NetherlandsTRANSCRIPT
Too Many Varied User Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects
Max Kemman - @MaxJ_K(soon: University of Luxembourg)
Martijn Kleppe - @MartijnKleppe
Problem
We want to develop tools that will be used byscholars
• User-centred design
But do users know what they want or need?
• Not according to Jakob Nielsen (2001) orSteve Jobs (Reinhardt, 1998)
• Innovation is technology-driven (Norman, 2010)
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects2
Question
Do humanities scholars know what they want from computational tools?
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects3
Context - Two projects
PoliMedia (CLARIN-NL call 3)
• Automatically creating links betweendebates of the Dutch parliament to mediaitems, made available in a search userinterface in which debates of theDutch parliament can be explored
• www.polimedia.nl
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects4
PoliMedia - Search
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects5
PoliMedia - Debate
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects6
PoliMedia – Link to radio
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects7
PoliMedia – Link to newspaper
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects8
Context - Two projects
Oral History Today (CLARIAH seeddemonstrator)
• A search user interface similar to Googlein which oral history interviews andcollections can be searched andexplored to discover topics across amultitude of collections
• zoeken.verteldverleden.org
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects9
Oral History Today - Search
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects10
Oral History Today – Word cloud
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects11
Oral History Today – Visual facets
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects12
Oral History Today - Interview
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects13
Method
PoliMedia
• User requirements elicitation: interviewswith 5 scholars (F2F)
• Evaluation: eye tracking with 24 scholars
Oral History Today
• User requirements elicitation: interviewswith 15 scholars (Skype)
• Evaluation: walkthrough with 5 scholars perupdate (Skype)
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects14
Method
Processing
• Categorizing statements
• Feasibility discussion with developers
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects15
Results - PoliMedia
39 user requirements
• 21 deemed within-scope
• 18 deemed out-of-scope
• 27 unique user requirements
Most common (3/5):
• Media output from before the debate
• Names of people involved
• Location in the newspaper
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects16
Results - PoliMedia
Out-of-scope
• Processing of media items
– Size of headers, number of columns, …
• Processing of television programmes
– Filming techniques, music, length, …
• Processing of debates
– Sentiment analysis, interruption networks, …
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects17
Results – Oral History Today
75 user requirements
• 33 deemed within-scope
• 42 deemed out-of-scope
• 34 unique user requirements
• Most common (10/15):
– Filter for time period
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects18
Results – Oral History Today
Out-of-scope
• More, more, more metadata
– Interviewee, interviewer, interview, …
• Search technology
– Search operators, synonyms, …
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects19
Discussion
Do our results agree with Nielsen, Jobs and Norman?
• Small overlap between user requirements and project goal
• High awareness of what could be easier with a computer
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects20
(Obligatory Dilbert comic)
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects21
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-04-14/
Discussion
Out-of-scope requirements show match of project goal with scholarly practices
• Highly individual
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects22
Conclusion
Do humanities scholars know what theywant from computational tools?
• Clear idea for their own research
Question → Method → Requirements
• Too varied!
• Repurposing data and tools
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects23
Conclusion
Talk of Europe
• www.talkofeurope.eu
• Publishing RDF online
• No tool development ourselves, but inviting others
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects24
Conclusion
Creative Camp
• October 2014: NISV, Hilversum
• April/May 2015: At your institution?
24-10-2014CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects25
• Extended abstract: http://www.clarin.eu/sites/default/files/cac2014_submission_29_0.pdf
• Dataset: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1170077
• Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/MaxKemman/too-many-varied-user-requirements-for-digital-humanities-projects/
• Nielsen, J. (2001). First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Users. Nielsen Norman Group blog. Retrieved July 01, 2014, from http://www.nngroup.com/articles/first-rule-of-usability-dont-listen-to-users/
• Norman, D. A. (2010). The way I see it: Technology first, needs last. Interactions, 17(2), 38. doi:10.1145/1699775.1699784
• Reinhardt, A. (1998). Steve Jobs on Apple’s Resurgence: “Not A One-Man Show.” Business Week Online. Retrieved October 17, 2014, from http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may1998/nf80512d.htm
24-10-2014 26CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 - Too Many Varied User
Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects