Communicating Context:
The Power of Digital Interfaces
Jeanne Kramer-Smyth
University of Maryland, College Park
Spellbound Blog
What are we going to talk about? Interface Design Examples of interfaces What can YOU do to support preservation
of context and original order in the interfaces being built in your organization?
Assumptions You are not software developers Focus on digitized collections
Top Priorities for Interface Design
Simple ClearConsistentSupport hunt for more information
My favorite book on interface design!
Building Blocks Communicate contextual Information Support navigation among related records Provide useful Search Results Preserve the relationships among individual
records through careful planning
Contextual Information Five Ws (who, what, when, where & why) Historical and Biographical Information Finding Aid Institution Information
Context Example
Single Record with Context
Multiple Records with Context
Search ResultsMany Paths to the
Same Record
Interface Evaluation Checklist Five Ws (who, what, when, where & why) Finding Aid Institution Information Rights information Finding related records Support for many paths to records Useful search results
Final Thoughts Preserving some level of context is easier
than preserving original order There are lots of amazing approaches
being tried Good web design will go a long way
towards preserving context Educate your web designers about Archival
Concepts
Contact Info & Questions
Jeanne Kramer-Smyth
http://www.SpellboundBlog.com
This presentation will be available online on the Spellbound Blog site after the conference.
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