Structure and schema

Over the past two days I have been working on the documentation of the structure and schema for the showcase portal. I needed to get it done by the end of the day today since I'll be off next week and the developers need that information.

Schema: 
I defined the facets for the schema, described their inputs, what they will do in the entry interface and in the portal interface. It took some time to write up the descriptions. I had to consider whether or not each element was required, because not all elements will apply to all projects, and how each element would be handled in searches.

Boolean AND and OR make a difference in the advanced search. After considering how the elements work together, I defined the Booleans values thus:

            Selecting multiple facets in an advanced search should search with a Boolean “AND”; results will be returned for projects meeting all search criteria.

            Selecting multiple terms in a single facet in advanced search should search with a Boolean “OR”; results will be returned for projects meeting any of the search criteria.

The logic behind this is that if someone wants to search for a virtual reality (category facet) project in medicine (discipline facet), they want projects that meet both criteria. If someone is searching for projects that are virtual reality or augmented reality (both in the category facet), they want projects that fit either criteria.

Structure:
I also diagrammed the structure of the portal and made wireframes for each of the four page types.

Portal site structure

I had a rough draft of the home page that I was able to update based on the notes and decisions from Monday's meeting. I also wireframed the advanced search, search results and project description pages. I also took a sample project from that spreadsheet of examples and used the information to create a mockup project description page to show what an actual page might look like.

Now that some decisions have been made, I have felt very productive. Wireframes, sitemaps (the structure diagram), the detail of the schema--I was able to get a lot of work done in two days. I submitted the document to the developers this afternoon. Hopefully it contains the information they need to get started. And hopefully they will give me feedback after spring break if there was anything missing or if anything was unclear. 

The point of the internship is to learn and to gain experience. Most of the projects I have done to this point have been theoretical class exercises, so having feedback from actual developers on an actual project will be helpful for my future practice. Did I use correct terminology? Were the diagrams understandable? Did I provide the information they needed? Too much? Too little? Did I miss something? I look forward to hearing back from Dave and Patrick when I get back in to the office.

Assessing and reassessing

Last week I made 3 rough wireframes to show a few basic ideas for the AVL Showcase website. 

Then I had a weekend to think. And I thought about the idea that the director keeps referring to as his idea for the site. 

So Monday I went back to the beginning and really looked at that example and how the search and filtering work. I took a second look at some examples I had gathered of sorting and filtering. I really spent some time assessing the pros and cons of the differences in the sites and wrote up a brief to explain what I liked and didn't like about each option as it relates to this project. 

I also added a fourth rough wireframe based on that original site, something I hadn't really thought about before in the design.

A 4th design for the homepage

We have a meeting scheduled for next Monday where I will present what I have so far, and decisions can be made so I can move forward. I don't want to spend time wireframing further pages until we establish which of the 4 versions is the most suited. There are pros and cons to each, which I will need to talk about when we meet. 

Once that is settled, we need to prioritize the keywords and their categories, deciding which are going to be used in the filters because I will need those filters for the wireframing. 

Waiting to get feedback

This week involved a lot of looking at lists of keywords, arranging and rearranging them to try to make meaningful sense of all the possibilities. I spoke to a non-team member who might be the type of user this web portal will be designed for. Her feedback on how she would search for projects was very helpful, especially in terms of the labels for the main categories.

I also made some very rough wireframes of the idea I'm currently working with. And now I'm at a point where I really need some feedback.

I have 3 basic layout ideas, trying to balance "easy" buttons with the vast array of descriptors that will be used. Making a decision on which of those ideas to work from will allow me to start wireframing in earnest.

Version 3 of the basic layout

The second thing I need feedback on is my organization of the keywords and which should be used in filters and which just left to search terms. Or, do we leave all of them in a big tag cloud? Maybe not the best idea, but possibly closer to what is desired.

I also need to start gathering the assets that will go into the website. We need to organize the items, give them appropriate keywords, create a database or spreadsheet, write descriptions, etc.

So, I am waiting for my supervisor to look over what I have done and then we need to schedule a meeting with the manager and director so those decisions can be made.

And that's the take away this week: sometimes people are busy and you have to move to another part of the project you can do while you wait.

Search vs filter

One of the big decisions I am working on for this project is deciding which keywords are for filtering and which will just be for search. 

My preliminary list has over 130 descriptors. That's way too many to work well for filters, but filtering is part of the essential plan for the site. 

So, I need to sort the keywords into groups, decide which are important to use in filters, which might be extraneous, and which we should still use in the metadata for searchability. I'm narrowing down which I think need to be used in the filters with help from staff via card sorting.

I also have started sketching a very preliminary wireframe, those famed boxes and arrows, to explain how I'm thinking about the design. It's helpful to have this when I explain what I want done with my index cards.

Preliminary pencil sketch

What I'm finding as I do this is that it's actually quite hard to group some of these concepts and determining which are important isn't always clearcut. 

In my first pass through the index cards, I created a group I called "purpose" which contained concepts related to how a type of technology might be used. Included in this group were keywords like "research", "preservation", and "virtual tour". 

Now, those might be terms that are useful as filters or not. They may be better left to search. But a conversation my supervisor had today with a potential client highlights how having those types of keywords could be valuable. The people she was talking to wanted to be able to create virtual tours of the library and the different spaces there. Since a virtual tour could be done in VR, panographic images, 360 images, and maybe other options, being able to search and find previous projects that are virtual tours would be helpful. 

So, I'm still sorting and resorting keywords, gathering data, and really thinking about how they might be used. Hopefully I'll have a clear idea by the end of next week so I can move on to designing the interface.