1 Direct Manipulation Proposal 17 Direct Manipulation is when physical actions are used instead of commands. E.g. In a word document when the user inputs data using the keypad instead of having to input via a command line editor.

2 3 Tasks Three tasks that the user will perform on the interface of the universities library website are as follows: 1.Records of the books borrowed 2.Searching for books 3.Extending loans on books

3 Records of books borrowed A user with a login to the university website can view the books that he/she has previously borrowed. To allow the user this type of interaction, the home page of the website should have an image relating to this page. Once this image has been selected a following page should be viewed allowing the user to see all the books they have previously borrowed from the library. This is available on the previous website interface but is especially useful if the user wants to know which books were responsible for different quotes that he/she has found. Another use for this feature is one book may have been useful and the user might want to borrow this book again for a consecutive time. The idea of having an image in the homepage linking to the page that shows the records of the books borrowed is using data manipulation and is in a way relating the user to real life in the sense that the icon could be a book with the title on the book saying list and therefore a list of books in the real world would be some sort of book list and this is in this case books that have been borrowed.

4 Searching for books This is another essential to the website which could also be selected in a similar way to the previous slide of records of books that have already been borrowed. In this case, searching for books could have a torch as the designated icon as people in real life search for things that have been lost with torches. Although, in this case, nothing has been lost but there is something that needs to be found (books). Once the icon has been selected and the corresponding page has been loaded by the browser, the interface should show a box where the user can type the name of the author, title of the book etc. and also select which they are doing whether it be searching for the author, title of book or both etc. In the idea of using data manipulation, the box where the user will type data into would be displayed underneath the selecting of book or author that they will be searching for to keep the user stepping down in orders of how the page should be completed. Finally finishing with a search button at the bottom of the page.

5 Extending loans on books In the idea of making the interface better and also more useful for the user the new task of allowing the user to extend there loans on books is an addition to the website. This will be helpful as the user does not need to physically visit the library to extend there loan this can be simply done online; this is much to the extent of the idea behind online banking and managing your money via the internet. To show an icon that would represent extending a loan, I will show a calendar as the days of which the book should be returned will be extended. This will also be on the home page to the website and will pass over to the corresponding page once the icon has been clicked. Again using data manipulation in the sense that it is the user who will be manipulating the data when he/she decides how long the loans are going to be etc. this could be displayed on a page similar to the others described in that there could be a drop down box with the amount of days possible for the book to be extended in terms of the loan and this restriction (drop down box) will allow the user to make no mistakes as the data can only be selected and this has already been checked for mistakes.

6 Metaphor for the Interface The basis behind the interface of the website is a cabinet. The idea being that the user starts with the home page, which in effect is the cabinet when it is opened and then the user selects where they wish to go whether this be to search for files, which could be the top drawer to the cabinet or it be to extend a loan and that be to the bottom drawer. The other option of extending a loan for a book could be shown in the sense that a file is pulled out of the drawer, modified by the user and then placed back into the drawer.

7 Choosing a cabinet as the metaphor I chose a cabinet as the metaphor for the website as people can relate to this due to the idea behind a library and reserving books being similar to that of which people can do with cabinets. E.g. people can place socks in one drawer whilst placing tops in the next. Much to the same case people can adapt files in different orders into different drawers in cabinets and this is the example which most relates to the idea behind my interface idea. Therefore when people wish to search for something be it a book or records of a book; they would search for this in the same categorised way as they would a top or some other piece of clothing. Also a cabinet is a very simple way of describing how the interface works, if I chose a metaphor that related to a roller coaster with loops etc then the user would become confused and therefore a cabinet is a simple metaphor that everyone can relate to as anyone with a house is likely to have a chest of drawers if not a cabinet.

8 What is in the interface The interface will have three main drawers in the way there would be in a cabinet. These will be labelled as follows in icons instead of writing to try to relate the user in as simple way as possible to the contents in the “drawers” or folders. Therefore one of the icons that will be displayed on the home page which in effect is the link to the openings of the various different drawers is the icon for searching to find books and the icon for this is a torch. The reason behind this being that a torch is a way in which people can relate to searching. Also people would not search using a search engine to find their socks however a torch would be used in the dark to find all sorts of different things and therefore that is why I have picked a torch as the icon for searching. The second icon is the calendar which is used as the icon for extending loans and this is much in the sense that the days in the calendar will be extended from when the book was supposed to be returned to when it is actually meant to be returned. The last icon is records of books that have been borrowed in the past and for this the icon that I have chosen is a book with the writing list on it. I feel a book list idea is a good way of relating the user to the contents of this page.

9 Interface Design – Home page The home page to the website has a very simple interface. This is to minimize the way that the user can go wrong in the process of completing what it is that they want to accomplish whether it be extending a loan on a book or simply finding one. That is why three simple icons have been noted to designate the different areas of the website. The user simply clicks on one of the icons and this will take them to the corresponding page. To make things more simple once the icon has the mouse pointer over it the name of the page that is to be visited will be displayed above the icon. This again minimises the chances of the user losing their place on the website. Although using the browser window they can simply go back to the page that they were on in the first place. Also keeping the interface simple and not using any other components that a user may not have with them e.g. a touch screen monitor, the interface stays simple using a mouse pad and the keyboard. Even though this may not be the best thing in the sense two components need to be used, this cannot be avoided if the mouse is to be used as it would be difficult and more time consuming to develop a keyboard on screen for the user to type into or to guess everything that the user was going to type e.g. the name of the book – all book names would have to be loaded into a drop down box therefore it is easier to use two components.

10 Interface design – task pages Once the home page links have been selected the following task pages will be loaded by the browser. This can be any of the previously mentioned tasks. E.g. searching for books. So therefore when searching for a book the user will need to search for the book by first selecting the way in which they are going to search whether it be title, author etc. and then they will need to type the name into the box that will be underneath the first step and then the user will select the search button and results will be brought up and shown to the user. The user can then go on to do whatever they please whether it be return to the homepage or exit from the library website.

11 Mappings – searching for a book How the user performs it: Goes to the library and searches along book shelf How the interface performs it: Searches the database for the name that has been inputted. How the user performs it: Once found the user can then take out the book How the interface performs it: Displays the book on the web page.