A user study of the design issues of propie: a novel environment for enhanced interaction and value‐adding of electronic documents

Abstract

In this paper, we present a proposed information environment (PROPIE) for enhanced interaction and value‐adding of electronic documents (e‐documents). The design of PROPIE was based on a thorough user needs and requirements assessment in interacting with information through well‐documented findings, and a focus group with twelve participants to elicit features that were deemed desirable in future interactions. The design was also based on an earlier work which reviewed the advancements in various user interface (UI) technologies, visualisation and interactive techniques, and a consideration of novel information structuring and organisation techniques that pose important implications for the design of more advanced UIs. Providing a suite of novel features and interactive tools that can be flexibly combined, PROPIE allows users to apply multiple novel ways to query intuitively and navigate information in an e‐document. The querying and browsing processes in PROPIE are supported by various interactive and visualisation techniques. Users work within a visually sovereign, integrated environment for information gathering and organising, based on navigable, fractional information objects that are also affiliated with rich metadata and additional layers of value‐adding information. A set of interface mock‐ups was developed to demonstrate the potential of the environment in supporting the design of a new generation of electronic journals (e‐journals). We report here empirical results from a study conducted to obtain representative users‘ feedback with regard to using PROPIE for interacting with e‐journals. Twenty‐two participants from a variety of academic backgrounds participated in the evaluation. Overall, PROPIE was found to have the potential both for enhancing the user’s interaction with information captured within e‐journals and for adding value to e‐documents in various ways.

Towards a new generation of information environment for the use of e-documents

“…The derived set of interaction and information object properties has been reported and discussed in detail in an earlier work [1]. The PROPIE evaluation comprises three tiers of evaluation and tiers 1 and 2 results have been reported [2,3]. In this paper, we consolidate all the evaluation results and outline the major findings of the research.…”

Towards a new generation of information environment for the use of e-documents

“…The PROPIE evaluation comprises three tiers of evaluation and tiers 1 and 2 results have been reported [2,3]. In this paper, we consolidate all the evaluation results and outline the major findings of the research.…”

Online cultural heritage exhibitions: a survey of information retrieval features

“…In an online exhibition site, for instance, users can specify a query against a set of exhibit artefacts, navigate an exhibition with the aid of visual clues about what items are available and where they are in the virtual space, and obtain detailed information via a zooming mechanism. The evaluation carried out in the study by Liew et al (2001) also show that users welcome features that allow them to create and save digital comments and attach these to a document, an image, an artefact, etc., and to be able to return to these, and to share these with other users.…”

“…An earlier empirical study examining users' interaction in an electronic environment (Liew et al, 2001) has also shown that an integrated suite of appropriate interactive tools for querying, navigating, organising and authoring information can add value to users' browsing and searching experience. In an online exhibition site, for instance, users can specify a query against a set of exhibit artefacts, navigate an exhibition with the aid of visual clues about what items are available and where they are in the virtual space, and obtain detailed information via a zooming mechanism.…”