Usability testing of the Letters of 1916 Digital Edition
| Pages | 120-143 |
| Date | 20 March 2017 |
| Published date | 20 March 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-10-2016-0111 |
| Author | Judith Wusteman |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information user studies,Metadata,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Usability testing of the Letters of
1916 Digital Edition
Judith Wusteman
School of Information and Communication Studies,
University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to describe the process and implications of usability testing a
prototype version of the Letters of 1916 Digital Edition.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper presents the testing, the lessons learned and how those
lessons informed the subsequent redesign of the site.
Findings –Results imply that a majority of users, even digital humanists, were not looking for a unique and
specialised interface, but assumed –and preferred –a user experience that reflects common search systems.
Although the audience for digital humanities sites is becoming increasingly diverse, the needs of the different
user groups may be more similar than had previously been assumed.
Research limitations/implications –The usability test employed 11 participants, five of whom were
coded as “general public”. Four of these five had previously volunteered to transcribe and upload letters.
This meant that they were already familiar with the project and with the Letters of 1916 Transcription Desk.
However, their prior involvement was a result of their genuine interest in the site, thus ensuring that their
interactions during testing were more realistic.
Practical implications –The lesson learned may be useful for the Digital Editions of future crowdsourced
humanities projects.
Originality/value –Letters of 1916 is the first crowdsourced humanities project in Ireland. The theme of the
project is topical, emotive and socially important in Ireland and among Irish diaspora today. The project’s
content has been created by the “ordinary citizens of Ireland”and they are likely to be the major users of the
Digital Edition. The study explores how the Digital Edition can support these users, while also facilitating the
range of traditional scholars and digital humanities researchers.
Keywords Digital libraries, Qualitative research, Crowdsourcing, User studies, Usability testing,
Digital humanities
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Letters of 1916[1] is the first crowdsourced humanities project in Ireland. It seeks to
illustrate everyday life in Ireland in 1916 through the examination of correspondence, both
public and private, across a broad range of topics: from the Easter Rising, the Great War
and politics, to family matters, love letters and business correspondence (McGarry and
Schreibman, 2015). The project was launched with a public-facing Transcription Desk in
September 2013. In March 2016, a digital scholarly edition of the collected and transcribed
letters was launched (see footnote 1). In order to ensure that it met the goals of its users, a
usability study of an early working prototype of the Digital Edition was conducted in July
2015. Via usability testing, the study explored the user response to the site, particularly to
the search and navigation functionalities and the presentation of individual letters.
This paper describes the process of usability testing and discusses how lessons learned
from the testing were used to inform the subsequent redesign of the site.
2. Research question
The research question that the usability testing sought to answer was whether the Letters of
1916 Digital Edition met the goals of its main user groups. The Letters of 1916 project team
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 35 No. 1, 2017
pp. 120-143
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/LHT-10-2016-0111
Received 21 October 2016
Accepted 29 November 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
With thanks to the Letters of 1916 project team for their involvement in the usability study. Particular
thanks to Shane McGarry, Emma Clarke and Professor Susan Schreibman (Principal Investigator).
120
LHT
35,1
identified these user groups as “the general public with a general interest in Irish history
during the Great War period”, digital humanists and traditional academics (McGarry, 2015).
The main goals of these users were identified as the ability to:
•Search and browse for letters.
•View and workwith a chosen letter. This wouldinclude understanding howto access a
letter’s related media and metadata and, in the case of academics, how to cite a letter.
•Understand and be able to navigate the site’s organisation, including its relationship
with the Letters of 1916 Transcription Desk.
The theme of the Letters of 1916 project is topical, emotive and socially important in Ireland
and among Irish diaspora today. The project’s content has been created by the “ordinary
citizens of Ireland”. These members of the general public have a strong feeling of ownership
of the project and are likely to be the major users of the Digital Edition. These same citizens
vary widely in their technical prowess and cover a wide age-range, with many in an older
(retired) age bracket. The usability study was an opportunity to gain insights into how the
site could facilitate these “ordinary citizens”, whilst also facilitating the range of traditional
scholars and digital humanities researchers.
3. Literature review
3.1 Crowdsourcing in the humanities
Crowdsourcing (Holley, 2010) is “the process of leveraging public participation in or
contributions to projects and activities”(Dunn and Hedges, 2012). In relation to the
humanities, public participation may take many forms, for example the transcription of
handwritten texts, the tagging of photographs, entry of metadata or commentary on content
(Dunn and Hedges, 2012). Examples of crowdsourcing in the humanities include the
University of Oxford Great War Archive, in which participants were invited to upload
digital surrogates of materials relating to their own family history of the First World War
(Lee and Lindsay, 2009). Other humanities crowdsourcing projects include Old Weather[2]
and Transcribe Bentham[3], both of which involve volunteer transcription. In the case of the
Old Weather project, photographs of thousands of ships’logbooks are being transcribed
and analysed. The aim of Transcribe Bentham is to create TEI[4]-encoded transcription text
for 12,500 Jeremy Bentham folios (Moyle et al., 2011).
Research into crowdsourcing motivations indicate that highly active contributors have
“both personal and extrinsic motivations; that they do it both for themselves and for others”
but that, often, the dominant motivation relates directly to the project’s subject area
(Dunn and Hedges, 2012). Open-access to the knowledge created via crowdsourcing,
allowing volunteers to share their work with friends or colleagues, “can give a great level of
satisfaction to the volunteer, and forms part of a project’s reward structure”(Dunn and
Hedges, 2012).
3.2 User groups
Walsh et al. (2016) note that cultural heritage services are increasingly being tailored to
individuals and groups but that there is disagreement as to how to categorise users.
For example, it is not clear exactly what users fall into the category of the “general public”.
They also point out that, within groups, users and user characteristics can vary
considerably and that “roles can change over time depending on age, personal/social
circumstances and motivations, as well as users’relationship with technology”. Russell-Rose
and Tate (2013) focus on two main differences between users: domain expertise, which
includes familiarity with the subject of the service or site; and technical expertise,
which includes familiarity with technology and search systems.
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Letters of 1916
Digital Edition
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