user-Centered digital library

The purpose of this study was to find out whether users should be involved in the design stage of a Digital Library (DL). Hence an experiment has been undertaken to find out the level of user satisfaction with a user-centred DL (UDL) compared to a non-user-centred DL (NDL). In this experiment, the UDL prototype has been compared with the NDL prototype. The two prototypes were then evaluated by separate users with various Information Technology (IT) backgrounds. Results show that users’ task performance was better in the UDL version of the prototype. DOI: 10.4018/jdls.2010102701 2 International Journal of Digital Library Systems, 1(1), 1-23, January-March 2010 Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. which interviewed users and experts in three areas: library, information and computer science. The aim of this project was to build a user-centred DL, by interviewing users about potential decisions on system functionality. The project focused on 12 participants who were professionals in the area of computer science and information retrieval. Participants were questioned on four topics: 1. Current information retrieval practices 2. Current information dissemination practices 3. Desired information retrieval and manipulation capabilities 4. Demographic data. The result of this project was a usable DL prototype and a set of nine principles for DLs. One of particular interest to this study was the eighth principle, which declared that a user-centred development approach should be adopted and that the design focus should be on users, as otherwise DLs would not communicate effectively and efficiently with their users. The research described in this article is closely related to the Envision project; however, as opposed to the Envision project, our participants will be from groups with a variety of IT backgrounds. The structure of this article is as follows: the next section presents related work; this is then followed by a presentation of the design implementation of our UDL and NDL prototypes. The results of our study are then presented and analysed. Lastly, conclusions are drawn and possibilities for future work identified.