Fascinating discussions!

A further point I'd like to add is the vocabulary used: words such as site,
collection, brochureware do not necessarily mean the same to our users as
they do to us.

I personally like the generic word 'stuff' which has clear pretensions to
universality (if not to precision).

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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martin
Bazley
Sent: 13 June 2007 13:12
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Integration of Museum brochureware site & searchable online
collections

Hi all

Really interesting discussion - and it's great to see this issue 
under active consideration in the early stages of development.  I do 
quite a bit of evaluation and user testing of museum sites, and this 
area crops up a lot.  People do a search thinking they are searching 
'museum objects' and get brochureware results - or vice versa. Having 
multiple discrete online collections makes for even more fun...    I 
think making browsing and searching more intuitive is currently one 
of the most important but least addressed challenges for cultural 
sector website developers.

In my view there is no hard and fast rule about whether to combine or 
keep separate boxes.  Having one box sounds far more sensible and 
user-friendly on the face of it, until you watch people trying to get 
a sense of what the site is all about, what is actually on there, and 
what they can do with it.  Having two separate boxes helps to make 
the point visually that they are able to do more than one type of 
search.  An alternative of course is to have just one box, but offer 
them different types of query via check boxes (preferably not a drop 
down) - but this can confuse...    Another approach is to have one 
box, and clearly separate 'collections' or 'museum objects' from 
'brochureware' or 'museum information' in the results, indicating how 
they can refine the search or move on from there to something else.

The simple approach of two boxes with dynamic text offering "Search 
museum website" and "Search our collections" or equivalent can work 
well.  And carefully chosen images and other visual layout devices 
can help distinguish these and reinforce the context.  I guess the 
'site search' is probably the best one to have in the same place on 
every page, but if the site is particularly strong on collections and 
does not warrant a site search, the opposite might be true.   One 
approach is to think through a few likely user scenarios for key 
target audiences and provide appropriate search boxes at appropriate points.

The main trap to avoid is the prevalent assumption that magically 
offering multiple searches via a single box will automatically make 
things easier for users.  For all but researchers and specialist 
users, knowing roughly what kind of stuff there is to search and what 
it's for (from their point of view) is at least as important as being 
able to search through it.

Apologies if most of this is stating the obvious. :-)

Martin

PS A related topic I would love to see discussed is presentation of 
results, including:

- how many results to offer, and how best to present 
brochureware/collections results separately where appropriate

- ranking results by relevance and indicating where search terms 
occur and by implication how relevance is assessed, Google style.  Is 
this the best approach and if so why do so few sites do this 
effectively?  Is it technically hard to do, or a function mainly of 
the quality of data in the records, how fields were set up, changing 
documentation practices, etc?

  - (on the search pages) strategies for indicating what search terms 
can be used, what the labels on the various fields in 'Advanced 
Search' refer to, and how to offer help with Boolean and other 
high-level search techniques, without drowning out the page, and so on.



At 11:30 13/06/2007, James Watson wrote:
>Dear all.
>
>This is an issue we've been thinking about at the National Maritime
>Museum for a while now.
>
>We have catalogues for museum collection and library/ manuscript
>collections, we also have a search which runs across our CMS based
>'main' site. At the moment they're all separate. We have worked through
>various options for integration. Though nothing is live.
>
>Without wishing to state the obvious, in our experience it's technically
>doable to integrate searches across systems with transparent, open
>architectures; but when you start trying to integrate proprietary front
>ends to proprietary systems (especially, in our experience, library
>opacs) it quickly starts to become more difficult (and that tends to
>mean expensive).
>
>Interestingly, a few people have started rolling out integrated searches
>across their various catalogues: the British Library, the Library of
>Congress and the National Archives have all done this in about the last
>year.
>
>As for synchronising the navigation of an online collections site (of
>whatever format) and your 'main' website, clearly it's relatively
>straight-forward to use the same look and feel, but as using the same
>'options' in the nav on your, say, events page, and on one of your
>online collections site pages, might be quite a different matter.
>
>Another thing I'd be interested in - don't know if anyone knows of any -
>would be any specific user (or usability) research, into what punters
>would find most useful - specifically, do they want integrated searching
>between regular and collections web pages, and do they want integrated
>nav between them too?
>
>Cheers
>
>James
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>James Watson
>Digital Collections Manager
>Digital Media Team
>National Maritime Museum
>Greenwich
>London
>SE10 9NF
>[log in to unmask]
>020 8312 8506
>http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>Ben Lobo
>Sent: 13 June 2007 01:04
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Integration of Museum brochureware site & searchable online
>collections
>
>Hi Bryan,
>
>I recently helped to integrate a CALM for Archives catalogue into the
>British Postal Museum and Archive's site
>(http://postalheritage.org.uk/).
>
>It's much more than a brochureware site - it's a Plone-based CMS with
>tons
>of content including, for example, the Phillips Collection of British
>Victorian stamps (http://postalheritage.org.uk/phillips) - but we did
>face
>the sort of issues with regards to separate searches and consistent
>navigation that you're referring to.
>
>We had to do quite a lot of customization work with CALM to maintain the
>overall look and feel of the site which was a challenge technically but
>it
>was well worth the effort, especially for the usability benefits that
>followed on from providing a consistent user experience.
>
>With regards to resolving the issue of two search boxes, it wasn't
>technically possible to combine the catalogue search with the sitewide
>search in a sensible and usable way within the scope of the project so
>we
>opted to maintain both searches and make the distinction between the two
>as
>clear to users as possible to avoid confusion.
>
>As far as I know, there hasn't been any feedback to suggest that the
>presence of the two search boxes causes any significant usability
>problems.
>
>I hope this is useful.
>
>Regards,
>
>Ben
>
>--
>Ben Lobo
>Application Developer
>Adaptive Technologies Ltd.
>+44 (0)1273 728128
>http://www.adaptivetechnologies.com
>
>
>On 6/12/07, Bryan Wills <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > At the London Transport Museum, we will shortly be putting more of our
> > collections online, including a 6000 strong poster/artwork collection
> > and a re-branded photographic collection consisting 15,000 images.
> >
> > Many existing Museum sites with online collections have a brochureware
> > site and a link to one or more separate searchable collection
>resources
> > - Many times the two are separate, often with different navigation.
>Has
> > any out there successfully combined the two? Same navigation with deep
> > access to collection materials.
> >
> > If so, how did you resolve potentially having two search boxes?
> >
> > Have Museums deliberately stayed away from this integration for
> > technical reasons or usability reasons?
> >
> > I would be very interested if any one has any experience or evaluation
> > to support integration of brochureware site & online  collections or
> > experience to support that the opposite is true.
> >
> > Thanks Bryan
> >
> > Bryan Wills
> > Head of Digital Resources
> > London Transport Museum
> > 39 Wellington Street
> > Covent Garden, London
> > Tel : 02075657288
> > Email [log in to unmask]
> > Web http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk <http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/>
> >
> >
>
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---
Martin Bazley
ICT4Learning
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Wimbledon
SW19 5HA
07803 580 727

www.ICT4Learning.com  

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