If I'm going to turn the scope onto usability testing and meta-information (metadata, information architecture, the "belly of the beast," so to speak), then I need to do a couple of things.
First I must answer, what does usability testing measure.
Second, I must define how metadata functions in the user experience.
Third, I must make a case for why metadata functionality should play a role in the user experience; for instance, if a user is going to search directly for a single item in a website, then why would s/he need to understand the navigability of the site itself?
Does this affect arrangement of finding aids on archival websites? How should arrangement of finding aids be affected, versus should we bother with that?
Finally, I'll need to shape the definition of usability testing to also encompass metadata usability.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
What does usability test?
Usability, for the purposes of my research interests, measures the functionality of software or a website for people to achieve the purposes for which it was intended and created. Usability tests how graphics and text interact on the image of the page; it tests whether the right words attach to the correct kind of link; it measures how effective specific text is.
Usability testing is not, however, interested in meta-information. I very deliberately choose to call this "meta-information" because I'm approaching the original idea of "meta," and I want to separate "metadata" and all its connotations from this, for right now. Meta-narrative, for instance, is the narrative outside a text that elucidates the text. Metaphysics deals with transcendence from science.
Meta-DATA deals with the outside data, that yes, is descriptive to a website, but that is also representative of a website as a whole; meta-DATA is "beyond" the site; meta-DATA is NOT the site; and in fact, META-data is that which pulls users into a site, though they never actually SEE the means by which they are pulled (metadata).
I've talked to a lot of metadata librarians who keep telling me--whom I wouldn't blame of they get slightly annoyed at my questioning--"Metadata is just a tool." (And I say this fondly because I feel friendship and gratitude for all my metadata librarian friends. I've had such fascinating conversations with them, and their patience is something for which I also have undying gratitude.)
While I agree, metadata is a tool, I also agree that my car is only a tool, a means by which I drove from Lubbock to Austin this past week. As I drove, I stopped and took photographs of windmills between Fluvana and Sweetwater; I pulled off to look at cemeteries when they were marked; after arriving in Austin, I ventured out to Barton Springs one evening and sat on a boulder to watch the rain as it fell in the water.
Let's look at the verbs that the tool, my car, allowed me to use here: "to drive" (in a car), "to stop" (in a car); "to pull off," "to arrive," "to venture." That car is one heck of a tool. Albeit, it is a tool, but it is the tool by which I was able to explore a lot.
I assert that metadata is similarly powerful. Perhaps metadata is only a tool, but I argue that it is the highway by which we access information.* If usability tests structure, functionality, layout, even information architecture of a website, should it not also test usability of the meta-information attached to a website?** Also, while libraries and archives, in digitization, recognize that metadata is important and useful, industry has not started to recognize this--and I do wonder if units of digitization actually do usability testing on the metadata itself. I've heard of libraries running usability tests on their website, but I have only heard of libraries putting together focus groups for search engine ranking improvement--rather than use testing of metadata itself. Even more, metadata is also a set of decisions created by a specific person or persons to limn how the website should be located by/present itself users. It's a powerful and deliberate decision set that brings a person from Chechnya to a website in Texas--perhaps just a tool, but a strong tool nonetheless.
(I had a long talk today with Dr. Still, my dissertation director, and this was what we went over.)
*(Do not mix my car metaphor with the highway metaphor. It's a dangerous thing to get caught in Ana's metaphor land.)
**Writing an article on this right now. Hope to send it out for publication soon.
Usability testing is not, however, interested in meta-information. I very deliberately choose to call this "meta-information" because I'm approaching the original idea of "meta," and I want to separate "metadata" and all its connotations from this, for right now. Meta-narrative, for instance, is the narrative outside a text that elucidates the text. Metaphysics deals with transcendence from science.
Meta-DATA deals with the outside data, that yes, is descriptive to a website, but that is also representative of a website as a whole; meta-DATA is "beyond" the site; meta-DATA is NOT the site; and in fact, META-data is that which pulls users into a site, though they never actually SEE the means by which they are pulled (metadata).
I've talked to a lot of metadata librarians who keep telling me--whom I wouldn't blame of they get slightly annoyed at my questioning--"Metadata is just a tool." (And I say this fondly because I feel friendship and gratitude for all my metadata librarian friends. I've had such fascinating conversations with them, and their patience is something for which I also have undying gratitude.)
While I agree, metadata is a tool, I also agree that my car is only a tool, a means by which I drove from Lubbock to Austin this past week. As I drove, I stopped and took photographs of windmills between Fluvana and Sweetwater; I pulled off to look at cemeteries when they were marked; after arriving in Austin, I ventured out to Barton Springs one evening and sat on a boulder to watch the rain as it fell in the water.
Let's look at the verbs that the tool, my car, allowed me to use here: "to drive" (in a car), "to stop" (in a car); "to pull off," "to arrive," "to venture." That car is one heck of a tool. Albeit, it is a tool, but it is the tool by which I was able to explore a lot.
I assert that metadata is similarly powerful. Perhaps metadata is only a tool, but I argue that it is the highway by which we access information.* If usability tests structure, functionality, layout, even information architecture of a website, should it not also test usability of the meta-information attached to a website?** Also, while libraries and archives, in digitization, recognize that metadata is important and useful, industry has not started to recognize this--and I do wonder if units of digitization actually do usability testing on the metadata itself. I've heard of libraries running usability tests on their website, but I have only heard of libraries putting together focus groups for search engine ranking improvement--rather than use testing of metadata itself. Even more, metadata is also a set of decisions created by a specific person or persons to limn how the website should be located by/present itself users. It's a powerful and deliberate decision set that brings a person from Chechnya to a website in Texas--perhaps just a tool, but a strong tool nonetheless.
(I had a long talk today with Dr. Still, my dissertation director, and this was what we went over.)
*(Do not mix my car metaphor with the highway metaphor. It's a dangerous thing to get caught in Ana's metaphor land.)
**Writing an article on this right now. Hope to send it out for publication soon.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
What's the difference between an archive and a library?
I have so much to learn. In addition I have so much to learn about archives, libraries, technology, digital project management, digital collection curation, managing people to manage systems, improving efficiency while maintaining standards, creating a name for my institution in preparation for a Web 3.0 environment (which is emerging right in front of our eyes).
Okay, so, in short, I have a lot to learn.
I would like to start an interrogation at one question: What is the difference between archive and library?
There are more than one, so change that verb to "are" and since the subject should agree, make "difference" plural.
1) Library houses copies of data, to be handled, sneezed on, and generally mistreated; archive houses unique materials, to be handled in a controlled environment where sneezing is prevented and mistreatment frowned upon.
Unique materials. Copies of materials.
In learning about managing digital archival projects (special collections), I've been trying to piece together information from archivists, librarians, IT people, technical communicators, and researchers. And I have come up with two things:
A) It is important to make digital avatars of archival materials because this is the only way people might be able to access these materials. (And thus the materials should appear as similar as possible to the original.)
B) It is important to keep people's hands off the original materials. (For very practical, obvious reasons.)
2) In library, what gets scanned is often making a copy of a copy; while this is very important for research availability, the information scanned isn't really something that it is readily apparent must be preserved. In archive, the exact opposite is true--scanning and metadata are tied together, packaged up, and preserved whole, entirely with the goal in mind that this eventually might be the only extant copy of the item.
2B) Then, if library successfully does its job, would no items ever have to go into archive again? (Just a curiosity.)
3) Archive and Library metadata are very different. (Derr...)
4) Sometimes Library and Archive don't communicate or see eye-to-eye with one another in terms of digital practice. Or, sometimes library A will see eye-to-eye with archive B, while archive A and library B say this should not be the case.
What other differences and similarities can we come up with here?
I'm mulling over this one.
Okay, so, in short, I have a lot to learn.
I would like to start an interrogation at one question: What is the difference between archive and library?
There are more than one, so change that verb to "are" and since the subject should agree, make "difference" plural.
1) Library houses copies of data, to be handled, sneezed on, and generally mistreated; archive houses unique materials, to be handled in a controlled environment where sneezing is prevented and mistreatment frowned upon.
Unique materials. Copies of materials.
In learning about managing digital archival projects (special collections), I've been trying to piece together information from archivists, librarians, IT people, technical communicators, and researchers. And I have come up with two things:
A) It is important to make digital avatars of archival materials because this is the only way people might be able to access these materials. (And thus the materials should appear as similar as possible to the original.)
B) It is important to keep people's hands off the original materials. (For very practical, obvious reasons.)
2) In library, what gets scanned is often making a copy of a copy; while this is very important for research availability, the information scanned isn't really something that it is readily apparent must be preserved. In archive, the exact opposite is true--scanning and metadata are tied together, packaged up, and preserved whole, entirely with the goal in mind that this eventually might be the only extant copy of the item.
2B) Then, if library successfully does its job, would no items ever have to go into archive again? (Just a curiosity.)
3) Archive and Library metadata are very different. (Derr...)
4) Sometimes Library and Archive don't communicate or see eye-to-eye with one another in terms of digital practice. Or, sometimes library A will see eye-to-eye with archive B, while archive A and library B say this should not be the case.
What other differences and similarities can we come up with here?
I'm mulling over this one.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
It takes a lot of people, though maybe it shouldn't be all cooks in the digital kitchen
The more I read about digital project management, the more I learn about how many people it takes to do things the Right Way. The Right Way requires a lot of people who specialize in very specific tasks, things that might be almost too narrow in the view of other professions. The Internet and digital project theory are changing so rapidly that I'm often overwhelmed at how much I have to learn about and attempt to put into practice.
In a way, one might ask the question, "Do you want to be changed, or be a force of change?" Or, Gandhi more applicably, "Be the change you see in the world." (I think.)
In a way, one might ask the question, "Do you want to be changed, or be a force of change?" Or, Gandhi more applicably, "Be the change you see in the world." (I think.)
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Web 3.0, Facebook, Privacy, Identity Control
URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/29/zuckerberg-privacy-stance_n_556679.html
As this article points out, don't post anything on Facebook that you wouldn't mind the whole world reading.
In fact, I always consider the issue as, don't write anything on the Internet that would make you upset to have publicly distributed to the people most concerned with the topic you've written about. (What does this mean?)
This has a lot to do with identity control--online PR, so to speak.
While yes, we all write things in anger to our nearest and dearest, I always try to remind myself that unless it's an argument that I can rationally and logically support, I probably shouldn't put it online, whether in an email, or Facebook, or a blog. Because, really, there is no surety of privacy on the Internet, and this is only going to get worse. Although I'm a huge proponent of common sense, I recognize that a lot of things get put onto the Internet that violate common sense. Instead, I deviate farther from common sense and closer to pragmatism. If I said to my dearest friend in the world something that I would probably not have said to my boss, it should be something that is at least clear-sighted, about which I could say, "Well, this is true." (Now, I should also say, I think very highly of my boss, and I'm not just saying that because she sometimes reads my blog.)
Two things people need to stop conflating are security and privacy. Take your house, for example--just because you have deadbolts bolted and doorknobs locked, there is nothing to stop the peeping Tom (or Tina) across the street from watching you through an un-curtained window as you change clothes; similarly, you can have plenty of security to protect credit card payments to your electric company, but you're not about to stop anyone from knowing that you've gone to Sprocket's Electric website to pay your electricity bill.
As I told my friend Catherine (friend for 4.3 billion years) in an email--Facebook is actually behind on their privacy settings. I have repeatedly been surprised by how hesitant they are to get their feet wet. I'm not saying I like this lack of privacy; simply, there isn't a whole lot that anyone can do about it, and Facebook was a slightly later sell-out than I would have guessed.
For instance, take the Skittles-Twitter experiment. (Where Wrigley Candy Co. tracked everyone's tweets, and any tweet in which the word "Skittle" had been used was posted onto the Skittles website.) It's not like these abilities don't exist; it's simply a question of, who is going to take the initial heat/hate for doing it first--because, realistically speaking, the people who take the hate/heat (yup, deliberate there) are going to wind up being more advanced.
And yes, I love Google--I'd have loved Palpatine, too, yes--and guess what...they've been doing an awful lot already that you don't know about. So, look at the Facebook implications and be grateful that they're being (more) upfront about it. Web 3.0 is here, and it's not going away. Capitalism is driving it. And I think, eventually, we're going to see more corporate involvement in the writing of laws to accommodate for the digital environment.
Question is: Is the digital environment as real as the "real world?"
Answer: Hard to say. For instance, in grad school we used to have a professor who said that indeed, the digital environment -was- just as real, and he taught his classes over a webcam--which, for the early 2000s, was a very innovative idea. But we'd always threaten to wire the laptop on which he taught into the bathroom, just so we could roll him around on the laptop cart and hear him say, "Where are you taking me?"
Ah, pragmatism. I love you.
As this article points out, don't post anything on Facebook that you wouldn't mind the whole world reading.
In fact, I always consider the issue as, don't write anything on the Internet that would make you upset to have publicly distributed to the people most concerned with the topic you've written about. (What does this mean?)
This has a lot to do with identity control--online PR, so to speak.
While yes, we all write things in anger to our nearest and dearest, I always try to remind myself that unless it's an argument that I can rationally and logically support, I probably shouldn't put it online, whether in an email, or Facebook, or a blog. Because, really, there is no surety of privacy on the Internet, and this is only going to get worse. Although I'm a huge proponent of common sense, I recognize that a lot of things get put onto the Internet that violate common sense. Instead, I deviate farther from common sense and closer to pragmatism. If I said to my dearest friend in the world something that I would probably not have said to my boss, it should be something that is at least clear-sighted, about which I could say, "Well, this is true." (Now, I should also say, I think very highly of my boss, and I'm not just saying that because she sometimes reads my blog.)
Two things people need to stop conflating are security and privacy. Take your house, for example--just because you have deadbolts bolted and doorknobs locked, there is nothing to stop the peeping Tom (or Tina) across the street from watching you through an un-curtained window as you change clothes; similarly, you can have plenty of security to protect credit card payments to your electric company, but you're not about to stop anyone from knowing that you've gone to Sprocket's Electric website to pay your electricity bill.
As I told my friend Catherine (friend for 4.3 billion years) in an email--Facebook is actually behind on their privacy settings. I have repeatedly been surprised by how hesitant they are to get their feet wet. I'm not saying I like this lack of privacy; simply, there isn't a whole lot that anyone can do about it, and Facebook was a slightly later sell-out than I would have guessed.
For instance, take the Skittles-Twitter experiment. (Where Wrigley Candy Co. tracked everyone's tweets, and any tweet in which the word "Skittle" had been used was posted onto the Skittles website.) It's not like these abilities don't exist; it's simply a question of, who is going to take the initial heat/hate for doing it first--because, realistically speaking, the people who take the hate/heat (yup, deliberate there) are going to wind up being more advanced.
And yes, I love Google--I'd have loved Palpatine, too, yes--and guess what...they've been doing an awful lot already that you don't know about. So, look at the Facebook implications and be grateful that they're being (more) upfront about it. Web 3.0 is here, and it's not going away. Capitalism is driving it. And I think, eventually, we're going to see more corporate involvement in the writing of laws to accommodate for the digital environment.
Question is: Is the digital environment as real as the "real world?"
Answer: Hard to say. For instance, in grad school we used to have a professor who said that indeed, the digital environment -was- just as real, and he taught his classes over a webcam--which, for the early 2000s, was a very innovative idea. But we'd always threaten to wire the laptop on which he taught into the bathroom, just so we could roll him around on the laptop cart and hear him say, "Where are you taking me?"
Ah, pragmatism. I love you.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Mixed Reviews, Creating your Online Identity, and Follow-ups
Apparently, I have a couple of friends who cyberstalk me, particularly through this blog. (They're close friends, one of whom I've known for 20 years, so they have full cyberstalking rights.) But I got mixed reviews from them, in person, about my previous post about confidence/competence/self-assuredness. So I should ask my dear friends who cyberstalk me (you know who you are): While I do appreciate your comments in person as we're eating lunch, I have to ask, nay beg, even, that you post comments here, too. (Carol is very good at this. Thank you, Carol!)
AND this brings us to our next topic: Online Identity Creation.
Recently, I've been conducting informal research on how people present themselves online. While word-of-mouth is one way to build a reputation, another way is to deliberately shape online one's identity in whatever light one wishes to do so. For instance, someone who wants to find "Ana Krahmer" online, can pretty easily verify where I work, what I do in my job, and what topics of discussion interest me. But, out of all this information, in reality, the only thing that is verifiable is where I work because I'm listed in the staff directory there. My worlds sometimes merge, as I describe in the first paragraph, where a close friend will poke around my blog out of curiosity about what I'm discussing, but sometimes, I'll get an email inquiry about something I've discussed in the blog. But what I find interesting is, I have never received questions in email based off of the staff directory at work.
I don't really know what that says, beyond that you have to be very deliberate about what goes up online about yourself. Do you want to set out to establish yourself as a software developer? A system engineer? A graphic designer? Then make for darned sure that everything on the Internet that pertains to you relates, also, in some way to how you want your identity to be represented.
I mean, I don't care if people know that I consume any kind of book as some people consume candy, or that I can be a complete grammar snob, but these aren't things I'm really developing my online identity around. And, although I'm using myself as the example for this discussion, this topic arose from talking to another friend who has done a great job of professional self-promotion through his career interests; it's in fact a very skillful use of Web 2.0 and 3.0.
AND this brings us to our next topic: Online Identity Creation.
Recently, I've been conducting informal research on how people present themselves online. While word-of-mouth is one way to build a reputation, another way is to deliberately shape online one's identity in whatever light one wishes to do so. For instance, someone who wants to find "Ana Krahmer" online, can pretty easily verify where I work, what I do in my job, and what topics of discussion interest me. But, out of all this information, in reality, the only thing that is verifiable is where I work because I'm listed in the staff directory there. My worlds sometimes merge, as I describe in the first paragraph, where a close friend will poke around my blog out of curiosity about what I'm discussing, but sometimes, I'll get an email inquiry about something I've discussed in the blog. But what I find interesting is, I have never received questions in email based off of the staff directory at work.
I don't really know what that says, beyond that you have to be very deliberate about what goes up online about yourself. Do you want to set out to establish yourself as a software developer? A system engineer? A graphic designer? Then make for darned sure that everything on the Internet that pertains to you relates, also, in some way to how you want your identity to be represented.
I mean, I don't care if people know that I consume any kind of book as some people consume candy, or that I can be a complete grammar snob, but these aren't things I'm really developing my online identity around. And, although I'm using myself as the example for this discussion, this topic arose from talking to another friend who has done a great job of professional self-promotion through his career interests; it's in fact a very skillful use of Web 2.0 and 3.0.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Women in Male-Dominated Professions?
I'm not sure if this is something all women do, or if I just have a lack of confidence in my own abilities--or if this is something that I'll slowly grow out of. (This isn't to say I'm a spring chicken; rather, I'm saying that I'm not as young as I used to be nor as old as I hope to one day achieve.)
But I have a constant lack of confidence in my abilities. I don't think that what I'm doing is "good enough"; instead I think what I'm doing is, in fact, barely enough. I've had friends point this out to me. I recently asked a friend about a professor whose course I will be taking over the summer, saying to him that I'm terrified of screwing it up, that I'm really afraid I won't be good enough to do well in the course.
He replied to me, "Whatever academic failings you seem to think you have, you don't. You'll do just fine." Which was a very nice way of him to point out my tremendous lack of confidence.
And then, recently, I was given tremendous compliments by two different people, neither of whom knows the other, but both of whom seem to think well of me. They both admire what I do, and the compliments are those that I can't just shake off as meaningless. I have a lot, a ton of respect for these two people, and all I can do when they express their compliments is panic, worried that I'll disappoint them.
Is this all women? I was recently speaking to Carol, of CarolsLib fame, with whom I'd also had the humor discussion. She said that she always focuses on the negative in her workshop evaluations, that if there is one thing that is negative, she wonders what the problem was. Do men do this? I've got a lot of male friends, and although they have their confidence shaken on a regular basis, it seems as if they started from a high point of confidence, and if it has been shaken, it drops. It seems like women, or at least I, build confidence from the ground up; I sort of feel like I'm working from the base of nothing, and I have to make something out of nothing. (Which sounds negative, I know, but it really does produce good professional results.)
Is this all women who work in male-dominated professions? I'm not sure. It actually may be. Is there an endemic sense in women who work in these professions that screams at them, "I don't belong here." I know that there have been times when I've discussed complex technological issues (often BSD or Linux-related) with people, and it's taken them a few minutes to realize that I really do know what I'm talking about. It's not only men who commit this error, and maybe it's because I use flowery, grammatically-correct language to discuss things, but I do know that there is doubt at first--usually easily dispelled.
And it could just be that, since I grew up in a family where, when I received a 98 on an essay, my mother would ask, "Why wasn't it 100%?" I'm just constantly in search of improvement, of perfection. While it's something that hurt my feelings at the time, I do believe that my mother really improved my job performance and the quality of what I put my mind to.
But I have a constant lack of confidence in my abilities. I don't think that what I'm doing is "good enough"; instead I think what I'm doing is, in fact, barely enough. I've had friends point this out to me. I recently asked a friend about a professor whose course I will be taking over the summer, saying to him that I'm terrified of screwing it up, that I'm really afraid I won't be good enough to do well in the course.
He replied to me, "Whatever academic failings you seem to think you have, you don't. You'll do just fine." Which was a very nice way of him to point out my tremendous lack of confidence.
And then, recently, I was given tremendous compliments by two different people, neither of whom knows the other, but both of whom seem to think well of me. They both admire what I do, and the compliments are those that I can't just shake off as meaningless. I have a lot, a ton of respect for these two people, and all I can do when they express their compliments is panic, worried that I'll disappoint them.
Is this all women? I was recently speaking to Carol, of CarolsLib fame, with whom I'd also had the humor discussion. She said that she always focuses on the negative in her workshop evaluations, that if there is one thing that is negative, she wonders what the problem was. Do men do this? I've got a lot of male friends, and although they have their confidence shaken on a regular basis, it seems as if they started from a high point of confidence, and if it has been shaken, it drops. It seems like women, or at least I, build confidence from the ground up; I sort of feel like I'm working from the base of nothing, and I have to make something out of nothing. (Which sounds negative, I know, but it really does produce good professional results.)
Is this all women who work in male-dominated professions? I'm not sure. It actually may be. Is there an endemic sense in women who work in these professions that screams at them, "I don't belong here." I know that there have been times when I've discussed complex technological issues (often BSD or Linux-related) with people, and it's taken them a few minutes to realize that I really do know what I'm talking about. It's not only men who commit this error, and maybe it's because I use flowery, grammatically-correct language to discuss things, but I do know that there is doubt at first--usually easily dispelled.
And it could just be that, since I grew up in a family where, when I received a 98 on an essay, my mother would ask, "Why wasn't it 100%?" I'm just constantly in search of improvement, of perfection. While it's something that hurt my feelings at the time, I do believe that my mother really improved my job performance and the quality of what I put my mind to.
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