Week Ten Readings...

This week I examined the following three readings: Chapter 8 from Digital Libraries, by William Arms, (c) 2000 M.I.T. Press. Rob Kling and Margaret Elliott "Digital Library Design for Usability" and Tefko Saracevic, “Evaluation of digital libraries:An overview".

This week's focus is on interaction and evaluation of Digital Libraries. First up, William Arms Chapter 8: User interfaces and usability. This chapter discusses computer system's usability in terms of interface, components and design. Arms points out that all components of computer systems should effectively run together so that a user can properly search and use a digital library. The article also discusses the conceptual model of interface design, browsers and mobile code as well as functional design of interfaces. Interface is discussed at length.
Prior to reading this chapter, I never realized the importance of interface design or that it can be viewed as an art. As a user, I think that interfaces can be taken for granted. Users may not always realize how revolutionary interfaces are and how much they have changed the way we use and view digital libraries.

Next up, Rob Kling and Margaret Elliott "Digital Library Design for Usability". This paper discusses two forms of Digital Libraries usability. The two forms are, interface usability and organizational usability. Kling and Elliot state, " Organizational usability refers to the ways that computer systems can be effectively integrated into work practices of specific organizations." Five models of computer system design are examined: the traditional functional life-cycle model, the user interface model, and the usability engineering model, medical Informatics Model,and highly Automated Model of DL Design as well as the Organizationally Sensitive Model of "Design for Usability".
I found this article to be informative, clear and concise. The authors did a really great job of explaining their ideas for organizational usability as well as describing the typical models of computer systems. I also found their suggestions to be thoughtful and intelligent, I agree that now is a great time for the Digital Library community to "appreciate the importance of "design for organizational usability" to develop significantly more effective systems."
Now for my notes on Tefko Saracevic's , “Evaluation of digital libraries:An overview".
This report is a data filled evaluation on works of digital libraries. The introduction discusses the explosive growth of digital libraries in the last decade except in the area of evaluation. This reading basically breaks down corpus, approach, construct, context, criteria, methodology of dl lit. I really enjoyed this article, I think it is a very helpful breaking down and explaining evaluation of digital libraries.