Presentation at CLARIN Annual Conference 2014 24 October 2014, Soesterberg, The Netherlands

1. Too Many Varied User Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects
Max Kemman -@MaxJ_K
(soon: University of Luxembourg)
Martijn Kleppe -@MartijnKleppe

2. Problem
Wewanttodeveloptoolsthatwillbeusedbyscholars
•User-centreddesign
Butdousersknowwhattheywantorneed?
•NotaccordingtoJakobNielsen(2001)orSteveJobs(Reinhardt,1998)
•Innovation is technology-driven (Norman, 2010)
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Requirements for Digital Humanities Projects
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3. Question
Do humanities scholars know what they want from computational tools?
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4. Context -Two projects
PoliMedia (CLARIN-NL call 3)
•AutomaticallycreatinglinksbetweendebatesoftheDutchparliamenttomediaitems,madeavailableinasearchuserinterfaceinwhichdebatesoftheDutchparliamentcanbeexplored
•www.polimedia.nl
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5. PoliMedia -Search
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6. PoliMedia -Debate
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7. PoliMedia –Link to radio
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8. PoliMedia –Link to newspaper
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9. Context -Two projects
OralHistoryToday(CLARIAH seeddemonstrator)
•AsearchuserinterfacesimilartoGoogleinwhichoralhistoryinterviewsandcollectionscanbesearchedandexploredtodiscovertopicsacrossamultitudeofcollections
•zoeken.verteldverleden.org
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10. Oral History Today -Search
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11. Oral History Today –Word cloud
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12. Oral History Today –Visual facets
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13. Oral History Today -Interview
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14. Method
PoliMedia
•Userrequirementselicitation:interviewswith5scholars(F2F)
•Evaluation:eyetrackingwith24scholars
OralHistoryToday
•Userrequirementselicitation:interviewswith15scholars(Skype)
•Evaluation:walkthroughwith5scholarsperupdate(Skype)
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15. Method
Processing
•Categorizingstatements
•Feasibilitydiscussionwithdevelopers
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16. Results -PoliMedia
39 user requirements
•21 deemed within-scope
•18 deemed out-of-scope
•27 unique user requirements
Most common (3/5):
•Media output from beforethe debate
•Names of people involved
•Location in the newspaper
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17. Results -PoliMedia
Out-of-scope
•Processing of media items
–Size of headers, number of columns, …
•Processing of television programmes
–Filming techniques, music, length, …
•Processing of debates
–Sentiment analysis, interruption networks, …
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18. Results –Oral History Today
75 user requirements
•33 deemed within-scope
•42 deemed out-of-scope
•34 unique user requirements
•Most common (10/15):
–Filter for time period
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19. Results –Oral History Today
Out-of-scope
•More, more, more metadata
–Interviewee, interviewer, interview, …
•Search technology
–Search operators, synonyms, …
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20. Discussion
Do our results agree with Nielsen, Jobs and Norman?
•Small overlap between user requirements and project goal
•High awareness of what could be easier with a computer
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21. (Obligatory Dilbert comic)
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http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-04-14/

22. Discussion
Out-of-scope requirements show match of project goal with scholarly practices
•Highly individual
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23. Conclusion
Do humanitiesscholarsknowwhattheywant fromcomputationaltools?
•Clear idea for their own research
Question → Method → Requirements
•Too varied!
•Repurposingdata andtools
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24. Conclusion
Talk of Europe
•www.talkofeurope.eu
•Publishing RDF online
•No tool development ourselves, but inviting others
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25. Conclusion
Creative Camp
•October 2014: NISV, Hilversum
•April/May 2015: At your institution?
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26. •Extended abstract: http://www.clarin.eu/sites/default/files/cac2014_submission_29_0.pdf
•Dataset: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1170077
•Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/MaxKemman/too-many- varied-user-requirements-for-digital-humanities-projects/
•Nielsen, J. (2001). First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Users. Nielsen Norman Group blog. Retrieved July 01, 2014, from http://www.nngroup.com/articles/first-rule-of-usability-dont- listen-to-users/
•Norman, D. A. (2010). The way I see it: Technology first, needs last. Interactions, 17(2), 38. doi:10.1145/1699775.1699784
•Reinhardt, A. (1998). Steve Jobs on Apple’s Resurgence: “Not A One-Man Show.” Business Week Online. Retrieved October 17, 2014, from http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may1998/nf80512d.htm
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