MaNIS Interface Project Mayjane Co Denise Green Jane Lee Rebecca Shapley
The MaNIS Project ► ► NSF funded project to develop network of distributed databases of mammal specimen data ► ► Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley is one of 17 North American institutions involved.
Prototype 1 vs. Prototype 2 Feedback From: ► ► Severity 3 Violations ID’d by Paparazzi ► ► Marti ► ► Team Members Changes To: ► Panel Relationships ► Documentation ► Zero Results ► State Indicators ► New Search
Panel Relationships - Old
Panel Relationships - New
Documentation – Old
Documentation – New
Zero Results - Old
Zero Results - New
State Indicators - Old
State Indicators - New
New Search - Old
New Search - New
Demo
Pilot Usability Study: Purpose ► Can users understand, navigate, and use the interface without any training or explanation? ► Were there substantial improvements between the first interactive prototype and this second interactive prototype?
Pilot Usability Study: Method ► 3 participants Biology student Faculty curator Research information manager CAS ► 3 scenarios Which museums should I visit to review specimens? Where is the best place to capture a bat? What species is this? ► 2 test measures Task Time Number of Errors
What the Critics are Saying (Results of the Study) ► Users liked the step-by-step search refinement ► After one successful search they understood how the system worked ► Average rating for ease-of-use 4.3 out of 5 ► Average rating for overall satisfaction 4.3 out of 5
Lessons Learned ► User’s experience level with previous interfaces affects their expectations ► Designing a single interface to suit the beginner, the moderate user, and the super-user all at once continues to be a difficult challenge ► Both heuristic evaluation and usability tests provided lots of useful feedback ► Schedule more users than you need
Last Prototype Version What we aren’t doing: ► Have two conditions within one facet, related by OR. ► Ideas for the AND/OR display. ► Hundreds of other details we were able to imagine as good features of our design….
Last Prototype Version What we are doing: ► Display preview numbers on hyperlinks that add search conditions ► Location search in multiple fields ► Bold text within results where it matches search text
Last Prototype Version …or is it? The Research Information Manager at California Academy of Sciences considering implementing this design for some CAS online databases. BNHM /MVZ Summer internship involving implementation of design ideas into the actual MaNIS project.