A recent redesign of the collection search interface for an on-line art education tool (ArtsConnectEd.org) has provided an opportunity to compare usage patterns between the two versions. In this paper I first survey current search interface design patterns, then discuss the new interface, the log cleanup and analysis, and finally present evidence-based recommendations that may be applied to the general problem of presenting large collections on-line.
MW2010: Nate Solas, Hiding our Collections in Plain Site: Interface Strategie...museums and the web
A presentation from Museums and the Web 2010.
A recent redesign of the collection search interface for an on-line art education tool (ArtsConnectEd.org) has provided an opportunity to compare usage patterns between the two versions. In this paper I first survey current search interface design patterns, then discuss the new interface, the log cleanup and analysis, and finally present evidence-based recommendations that may be applied to the general problem of presenting large collections on-line.
see http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/abstracts/prg_335002302.html
MW2010: Nate Solas, Hiding our Collections in Plain Site: Interface Strategie...museums and the web
A presentation from Museums and the Web 2010.
A recent redesign of the collection search interface for an on-line art education tool (ArtsConnectEd.org) has provided an opportunity to compare usage patterns between the two versions. In this paper I first survey current search interface design patterns, then discuss the new interface, the log cleanup and analysis, and finally present evidence-based recommendations that may be applied to the general problem of presenting large collections on-line.
see http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/abstracts/prg_335002302.html
Application Performance Troubleshooting 1x1 - Von Schweinen, Schlangen und Pa...rschuppe
Application Performance doesn't come easy. How to find the root cause of performance issues in modern and complex applications? All you have is a complaining user to start with?
In this presentation (mainly in German, but understandable for english speakers) I'd present the fundamentals of trouble shooting and have concrete examples on how to tackle issues.
44CON 2013 - Browser bug hunting - Memoirs of a last man standing - Atte Kett...44CON
Just like drinking is not a game in Finland; neither is browser bug hunting - it’s serious business! Browser bugs have been supporting Atte Kettunen (@attekett) traditional Finnish way of living since late 2011 and he’s going to tell you all about how he has been living the dream browser bug hunting - focusing on one of the most secure browser around, Google Chrome!
He’ll tell you a tale of his experiences with bounty programs and how those have evolved since he started way back (vendors can show the love too!) and how he’s managed to survive in the harsh environment of browser bug hunting. He’ll impart some important bug hunting social skills by showing you how and how NOT to step on the others guys toes - very competitive cottage industry is browser bug hunting. ;)
Atte is also going to share with you how and why he selected his current target feature *(still full of bugs!), how he built his fuzzer-module(s) and the results produced. We’ll all walk a mile in a bug hunters shoes together and take a peek at the tool sets, as well as the infrastructures that are used to find browser bugs by individuals and vendors!
Webinar: Untethering Compute from StorageAvere Systems
Enterprise storage infrastructures are gradually sprawling across the globe and consumers of data increasingly require access to remote storage resources. Solutions for mitigating the pain associated with this growth are out there, but performance varies. This Webinar will take a look at these challenges, review available solutions, and compare tests of performance.
Beyond php - it's not (just) about the codeWim Godden
Most PHP developers focus on writing code. But creating Web applications is about much more than just wrting PHP. Take a step outside the PHP cocoon and into the big PHP ecosphere to find out how small code changes can make a world of difference on servers and network. This talk is an eye-opener for developers who spend over 80% of their time coding, debugging and testing.
String Comparison Surprises: Did Postgres lose my data?Jeremy Schneider
Comparisons are fundamental to computing - and comparing strings is not nearly as straightforward as you might think. Come learn about the history, nuance and surprises of “putting words in order” that you never knew existed in computer science, and how that nuance impacts both general programming and SQL programming. Next, walk through a few actual scenarios and demonstrations using PostgreSQL as a user and administrator, which you can re-run yourself later for further study, including one way you could easily corrupt your self-managed PostgreSQL database if you aren't prepared. Finally we’ll dive into an explanation of the surprising behaviors we saw in PostgreSQL, and learn more about user and administrative features PostgreSQL provides related to localized string comparison.
Beyond PHP - it's not (just) about the codeWim Godden
Most PHP developers focus on writing code. But creating Web applications is about much more than just writing PHP. Take a step outside the PHP cocoon and into the big PHP ecosphere to find out how small code changes can make a world of difference on servers and network. This talk is an eye-opener for developers who spend over 80% of their time coding, debugging and testing.
Beyond php - it's not (just) about the codeWim Godden
Most PHP developers focus on writing code. But creating Web applications is about much more than just wrting PHP. Take a step outside the PHP cocoon and into the big PHP ecosphere to find out how small code changes can make a world of difference on servers and network. This talk is an eye-opener for developers who spend over 80% of their time coding, debugging and testing.
Application Performance Troubleshooting 1x1 - Von Schweinen, Schlangen und Pa...rschuppe
Application Performance doesn't come easy. How to find the root cause of performance issues in modern and complex applications? All you have is a complaining user to start with?
In this presentation (mainly in German, but understandable for english speakers) I'd present the fundamentals of trouble shooting and have concrete examples on how to tackle issues.
44CON 2013 - Browser bug hunting - Memoirs of a last man standing - Atte Kett...44CON
Just like drinking is not a game in Finland; neither is browser bug hunting - it’s serious business! Browser bugs have been supporting Atte Kettunen (@attekett) traditional Finnish way of living since late 2011 and he’s going to tell you all about how he has been living the dream browser bug hunting - focusing on one of the most secure browser around, Google Chrome!
He’ll tell you a tale of his experiences with bounty programs and how those have evolved since he started way back (vendors can show the love too!) and how he’s managed to survive in the harsh environment of browser bug hunting. He’ll impart some important bug hunting social skills by showing you how and how NOT to step on the others guys toes - very competitive cottage industry is browser bug hunting. ;)
Atte is also going to share with you how and why he selected his current target feature *(still full of bugs!), how he built his fuzzer-module(s) and the results produced. We’ll all walk a mile in a bug hunters shoes together and take a peek at the tool sets, as well as the infrastructures that are used to find browser bugs by individuals and vendors!
Webinar: Untethering Compute from StorageAvere Systems
Enterprise storage infrastructures are gradually sprawling across the globe and consumers of data increasingly require access to remote storage resources. Solutions for mitigating the pain associated with this growth are out there, but performance varies. This Webinar will take a look at these challenges, review available solutions, and compare tests of performance.
Beyond php - it's not (just) about the codeWim Godden
Most PHP developers focus on writing code. But creating Web applications is about much more than just wrting PHP. Take a step outside the PHP cocoon and into the big PHP ecosphere to find out how small code changes can make a world of difference on servers and network. This talk is an eye-opener for developers who spend over 80% of their time coding, debugging and testing.
String Comparison Surprises: Did Postgres lose my data?Jeremy Schneider
Comparisons are fundamental to computing - and comparing strings is not nearly as straightforward as you might think. Come learn about the history, nuance and surprises of “putting words in order” that you never knew existed in computer science, and how that nuance impacts both general programming and SQL programming. Next, walk through a few actual scenarios and demonstrations using PostgreSQL as a user and administrator, which you can re-run yourself later for further study, including one way you could easily corrupt your self-managed PostgreSQL database if you aren't prepared. Finally we’ll dive into an explanation of the surprising behaviors we saw in PostgreSQL, and learn more about user and administrative features PostgreSQL provides related to localized string comparison.
Beyond PHP - it's not (just) about the codeWim Godden
Most PHP developers focus on writing code. But creating Web applications is about much more than just writing PHP. Take a step outside the PHP cocoon and into the big PHP ecosphere to find out how small code changes can make a world of difference on servers and network. This talk is an eye-opener for developers who spend over 80% of their time coding, debugging and testing.
Beyond php - it's not (just) about the codeWim Godden
Most PHP developers focus on writing code. But creating Web applications is about much more than just wrting PHP. Take a step outside the PHP cocoon and into the big PHP ecosphere to find out how small code changes can make a world of difference on servers and network. This talk is an eye-opener for developers who spend over 80% of their time coding, debugging and testing.
Debugging Complex Systems - Erlang Factory SF 2015lpgauth
Debugging complex systems can be difficult. Luckily, the Erlang ecosystem is full of tools to help you out. With the right mindset and the right tools, debugging complex Erlang systems can be easy. In this talk, I'll share the debugging methodology I've developed over the years.
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
7. What do the logs tell us about how this interface is used? id timestamp term # user agent 187710 2008-04-28 12:03:21.043 fire 53 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 187711 2008-04-28 12:03:22.123 tropical beaches Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 187712 2008-04-28 12:03:26.233 water 148 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 187713 2008-04-28 12:03:27.170 nature and animals 25 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
8. Top search terms in ACE 1 trying to browse? part of an assignment? Term Frequency photographs 734 paintings 413 sculpture 275 arts 263 ceramics 169 pattern 156 photograph 150 landscape 123 masks 121 children 112
12. Recovering session information (simplified) EFF showed user agent usually contains enough unique information to identify a user out of 1,500 others. Combined with 3-minute session window = good enough. Timestamp Term User Agent Session 1:10:01pm horse Firefox 3 1 1:10:45pm pony Firefox 3 1 1:12:22pm flower IE 7 2 1:30:12pm gallop Firefox 3 3 1:31:42pm portrait Firefox 3.5 4 1:33:08pm portrait Firefox 3 3
22. Time on site: easy to measure, hard to understand Is your interface inviting deeper exploration, or is it just taking them forever to figure it out?
26. Prevent dead ends 3x more dead ends! You Should Tell users (133) How many (826) Results (0) To expect (26) Bad Design Makes Them guess What's behind Each door
34. The end. All Stormtrooper photos via CC license at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/ Pic. of baby with book: by me
Editor's Notes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/4046427260/ Today we're going to talk about our collections online, and the interfaces we build to give access to them. Or, as is often to the case, to essentially hide them.
Last year we completed a redesign of a collection search interface, and this paper explores the different usage patterns between the old and new version. By comparing the same site, same users, and same timeframe (across two years), we were able to see some clear patterns in how the interface both helps and hinders exploration. So first, the problems we identified. Second, the research and results. Then a few recommendations based on these numbers. And finally, what's next beyond our interfaces?
Let's start by defining the problem. To avoid pointing fingers, I'll use the Walker Art Center as an example -- with the disclaimer for the problems that "it's on our list". :-) This is a pretty typical page for a museum collection site: a few highlights, some news, and ...
... a search box. In order to find ANYTHING in our collection, you have to search for it. ... but that's ok, because everyone's familiar with our collection, right? Of course not. And with this interface, there's no way you could be. It's all hidden. In a plain site. Bam...
To rub it in, we use the word "Explore". Good luck.
This, however, is the site I'm going to talk about today: ArtsConnectEd. Specifically, ArtsConnectEd version 1, from 1997-2009. ACE is a joint project between the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center. It provides a suite of tools for teaching the arts, and it contains our combined collections online. As you can see, this interface is also pretty plain, and due to the single search box it basically continues to hide our collections from casual users.
In 2007 we decided to start tracking WHAT people were searching for, to help inform a redesign. Note the lack of IP or a session identifier. This is terrible news for our analysis. (I didn't build the logging mechanism.)
So the data isn't ideal, but it's enough to get us started looking at the top search terms. The top 10 is split: 5 look like words someone might put in to get a sense of what's in the collection, and most of the others look like they might be part of assignments. How can we tell what's what? What do these words mean?
I decided to break the words down into buckets of information, using the broad facets of information about the artwork: artist names, medium, and culture. There's actually a 4th bucket for "other", words that don't fit into one of these facet lists. The word lists I used came from the cleaned-up metadata in ACE2. So now that we've given some meaning to the words, what do the searches look like?
In ACE1, almost exactly half of all search terms contained a "facet word" from one of those buckets. So the top half is the 3 facet buckets, the bottom half is every other kind of word. At this point we don't have the context to interpret it, so we'll just remember this graph: 50/50.
This is a snapshot of the facet terms over the entire log period. It does show us where the buckets overlap: the blue culture bucket is most likely to also contain another facet word. Again, pretty useful, but it doesn't really show us usage trends during a search session -- because we didn't log that information. But what if we can rebuild the session information and trace a search through its results?
It turns out we can. Using the unique information in the User Agent string: browser version & build, OS version & build, etc., we are able to make fairly confident assertions about session groupings. I also added a lot of code to watch for computer labs where we'd see hits coming faster than someone could reasonably type, and also rapid switching of between search terms. Spot checking shows very accurate session recovery.
So now that we have session information, we know it's the same person, and we can tell if they paged within results. You can see the solid black line is the percent of searches that contained a facet word, and it averages to 50%, just like we saw in that pie chart: 50/50. What that pie chart didn't tell us is how it grows over time: the further someone pages, the more likely they are to be searching with a facet word, and especially a Medium word. This is the big red flag in the data that screams to me: "people want to browse!" Interesting to note, as compared to Venn diagram: artist names occur most often in the first few pages of results, but then medium takes over. So this is how people used ACE1. What does the new site, ACE2, look like?
So if we think people want to browse, what should we be building? With the new interface we wanted to combine the power of a book's index with the enjoyability of flipping to a random page. We wanted a map that told you exactly where to find the piece you want, but also gave the serendipity of browsing a gallery...
Did we do it? Hard to say. Here's what we built. We start with the whole collection, and let users narrow it down with filters using those facets we talked about.
Piotr Adamczki(sp?) has a paper this year about collection dashboards, sort of an at-a-glance summary of the collection and what's in it. Using these pulldowns it's easy to see the breadth of the collections by the numbers after each facet.
If we pick Sculpture from the Medium pulldown, the Culture numbers automatically update to reflect the new number of results for each.
Finally, we use autocomplete lists to help users spell artist names. 'Cause they're hard, sometimes.
So how does it compare? Instead of a 50/50 split in facet words and other words, ACE2 sees only about 1/3 of the search words being facet terms. The other 2/3 are words to refine their search. So are they browsing using the filters? Yes: about 25% of all searches use filters corresponding to these three types of facets (artist name, medium, culture)
Here's that same graph of usage over a session, this time for ACE2. Wildly different from ACE1: as a user pages deeper into a result set, in ACE2 they are much more likely to have an empty search term. They're browsing using the filters.
This is probably the best metric we have for actual success of the interface. We see a 20% bump in coverage in the collection, which means people found and looked at 20% more unique objects from the collection. Some of this number is due to objects now being in search engines, but it's largely internal traffic. The bump on the right, however, total views of all objects, did get more help from search engines as you'll see later.
Big, big caveats here. Most of this extra time was spent on the object detail pages, presumably because there's more to do there. (or maybe because they're confusing) I was expecting to see a big jump in time spent on the site as people enjoyed the new browse experience and spent hours exploring the collection. Not the case. Overall the time spent on the site went down a bit, but this seems to be because the number of unique visitors went way up. So the moral of this slide is: be careful if you decide one of your metrics for success is going to be "time on site".
This is the "do users get it?" question. Do they understand the interface enough to not type "Sculpture" into the search box, but instead use the pulldown? Yes, they get it: on average they use the browse pulldowns 4 times more frequently than typing in the equivalent words.
More of an observation masquerading as a recommendation: "Users want to browse" Front door: "Highlights" is not browse Back door: "More like this" is not browse Side door: "Artist list" is not browse
In cases where we don't show users what to expect, they are three times more likely to browse into an empty result set than when we warn them. So that ends up being about 1% of all our users who don't believe those (0)s, but the point still stands. These numbers help. There's a whole other debate as to whether we should remove the empty options or not - we have very small pulldown lists, so we keep everything.
We see too much of this: a user has a successful search including a browse facet (step 1), and then thinks "ah, I know what I want to look for next!" In step 2, they get no results because their browse facet is mutually exclusive. Of the users that get to step 2 (blocked results), 25% continue on to step 3 because they don't notice their browse facet is still on. We have breadcrumbs, but apparently they aren't doing it. The "no results" page needs an explicit set of links explaining what's limiting their results, and what to do about it.
A few things here: Suggest spelling based on the dictionary of words in your database, not Websters. You only want to suggest words that exist. Second, we see that it works: there are more respellings in ACE2, presumably because we're suggesting the correct words. Also, the graph on the right reinforces the uptake on the browse pulldowns and auto-complete: every facet has fewer spelling corrections, presumably because they're choosing from a list instead of trying to type it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/3951143570/
Searches start on Google. So even if you have the best interface in the world, you have to think about how people find your content before they get to your interface.
This is the terrible truth. I did some hard looking at our incoming links, and tried searching for a few random pieces from our collection, and it's just not there. Search engines try their best, but if your whole site is behind a text input field, it's hidden. A sitemap can solve this without an interface change: it's just a list of all the URLs in your collection, so everyone can crawl them without guessing.
Enough said. Get yourself a sitemap, make your collection crawlable, and use some basic SEO techniques. Or else you essentially don't exist.
What about marking up our well-formed HTML with extra semantic tags? Three things we're shooting for here: 1. Better search result displays in major engines. SearchMonkey already lets you define templates to display custom RDFa information. 2. Better search results. If we can tell the search engines *about* our data, they can search it better. 3. All the cosmic rainbow goodness that comes from Linked Open Data. This is the next phase of findability - your web site still matters, but less and less.