IWMW 2009: Hands-on prototyping for (meta)data structures
Transcript of IWMW 2009: Hands-on prototyping for (meta)data structures
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IWMW 2009Hands-on prototyping for
(meta)data structuresEmma Tonkin
Talat Chaudhri Alexey Strelnikov
Introduction: metadata
What is it, why, and who cares?Actually covers quite a lot of things: Terminologies (taxonomies, controlled
vocabularies) Vocabularies Data structures/models (entity-relationship
models, conceptual models)
Example For example:
'Event Metadata' excerpt
Event Type: WorkshopWorkshop LocationWorkshop TypeWorkshop Date (ISO 8601/W3CDTF)Opinion of Workshop {Boring, Interesting...}
Eliciting information from users People have many different opinions, and
are capable of believing a lot of mutually contradictory ideas! :-)
Classification systems or data structures (hopefully) represent a consensus or at least a compromise
They therefore improve as we learn more about opinion
They also exist (and are useful) within a given context of use – for a given purpose
Organisation...
Needs context! And exists for a purpose! Clean sock drawers are very nice, but
don't necessarily achieve anything unless you wear socks :)
Prototyping techniques
Scope what we're trying to achieve! Learning about data structures Building quick easy models Finding easy ways to test them
Free-listing 'Name all the x's you know'
eg. What types of image can you think of?
Or - What types of book are there? Or - What features might you use to
describe a book? Or – What sort of resources do
researchers create and publish? You might have your own use cases to
look at!
Free-listing on “workshop metadata”
Peer review status
Date
Times
Duration
Event in which it occurs
Venue
Attendee list
Major trends, topics
Organiser(s)
Remote attendees?
Streamed?
Outputs?
Feedback
Presentations
Papers
Slides
Tutorials
Related articles, links, people
Coffee
Breaks
Networking (who met who)
Networking (wifi!!)
Pitches
Endorsements (SIG, etc)
Other events on similar topic
Other events run by same people...
Research area and findings
Related research activities
Consistency
Build a table: (Note: This is a lot like social tagging!)
Compare and contrast your results.Word AppearancesVenue 5
Related research areas 2
Breaktime beverage 1
Card sorting
Once you have some terms, then it's time to figure out how they fit together
This is especially easy to do with taxonomies
supports interface design by grouping functions/menus/etc,
Supports development of conceptual models
Card Sorting: Method1) Make sure you have something to sort (using for
example the approach described earlier)
2) Bribe/trap some 'users' into agreeing to take part (note 'user' means 'the sort of person you are trying to write a system for')
3) After explaining the rules ('we're not testing you... just learning about the area') ask them to sort the cards into logical groupings
May be 'open' (users can create novel groupings or categories) or 'closed' (users must use predefined groupings)
Using the results!
Another table can be built from these results:
Which categories were created? How frequently were they used (how
many users applied them?)Term/Category
Bird Nature Manmade Food Buildings
Seagull | ||
Lighthouse | |
Fish & Chips
||
Evaluating an information structure (eg
classification/taxonomy) Scenario-based evaluation:
1) Get existing classification2) Develop some scenarios for which it
can be used3) See if it is possible to step through the
data structure in order to successfully complete a scenario
Example: Card sorting
Final comments
A user level view of things is probably simplified (and so it should be!)
What the user sees does not have to be what you store...
What the developer sees probably does – good documentation helps to encourage uptake of data structures/metadata.
Test early, test often. Card is cheaper than code!