Adaptive Systems UCLA/Pacific Bell Initiative for 21st Century Literacies

1. Adaptive SystemsUCLA/Pacific Bell Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Howard Besser UCLA School of Education & Information http://www.newliteracies.gseis.ucla.edu/ http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard

2. UCLA/Pacific Bell Initiative for 21st Century Literacies- • The Problem and Issues • Project Dates & Staff • The User • Summit • Policy • Design Issues & Adaptive Systems

3. 21st Century Literacies • Information Literacy • Visual Literacy • Media Literacy • Cultural Literacy • ...

4. The Problem and Issues • If we solve Access Problem (technology, bandwidth, training), other impediments to an informed citizenry still remain • Need critical evaluation of resources (reliability, authoritativeness, thoroughness, recency) • Need skills to pare down from information overload • Need critical thinking skills • Need to deal with different users having different backgrounds and capabilities

5. Project Dates & Staff • Summer 2000-Dec 2001 • $1 million • Co-Directed by Aimée Dorr and Howard Besser • October 21, 2000 Summit (planning involved 20 people from Pacbell & UCLA) • Rest of project primarily UCLA • Coordinator Sheila Afnan-Manns (afnanmanns@gseis.ucla.edu)

6. The User • Evaluative bibliography of literature and projects • Analysis of what we know thusfar from several different perspectives (curriculum design, library services, critical theory, information retrieval, user-centered design, …) • Examining model curriculum

7. Summit (1/2)Oct 21, 2000 • Bring widespread attention to the underlying issues • 360 professionals from education, librarianship, public policy, and industry • 15% Higher Ed faculty, administrators, librarians • 28% K-12 teachers, principals, superintendents • 14% public and K-12 librarians • 33% future practitioners, policy makers, librarians, educators • 8% business community • 3% government (governor’s office, state dept of Educ, …)

8. Summit (2/2)Oct 21, 2000 • Snappy video to highlight the problems (25 unsolicited requests to show video in 1st month after Summit) • Over 2 dozen exhibits and poster sessions explaining related projects throughout the country • Guest speakers (Alan Kay, Marcia Bates, Pat Breivik, Kathleen Tyner, Anna Deavere Smith, Tal Finney)

9. Policy • information literacy standards • issues related to the "Digital Divide” • privacy and ownership concerns • ...

10. Design Issues • Examine factors that inhibit efficient and effective use of an information system • Examine how best to design systems to match the literacy levels, technological capabilities, and other characteristics of the user • Principles, Practices, and Guidelines for Good Design for Facilitating Access (screen design, searching & navigation, metadata & description, info structures & organization, usability testing, …) • Build Adaptive Systems-

11. Bad Type

12. Fonts/Colors/Backgrounds

13. Colors & Fonts

14. Background Color #D9D900

15. Width Problems

16. Cluttered Choices

17. Clutter

18. Icons

19. Background & Menu Bars

20. Meta Tags

21. Make User Change Browser

22. Contact Information

23. Our Resources Website

24. Good Design Principles • Promote good design practices throughout the Design community • Get the Design community to sign on to a set of Principles for Good Design- • Create Guides & Best Practices Documents-

25. Possible Good Design Principles • Don’t disenfranchise users who have slow processors, older browsers, low bandwidth, visual impairment, etc. • Clearly note the recency of any information resource • Make sure that a user can easily determine what organization/agency created or contributed to an information resource

26. Important Dimensions toGood Design Principles • screen design • searching & navigation • metadata & description • info structures & organization • usability testing • …

27. Our Resources related toGood Design Principles • Screen Design - The visual design of the screen can impact usability. Color, font, the use of images, and layout of screen elements are essential design components. • Searching and Navigation - Ease of navigation and search/browsing options are critical components of usability. • Metadata and Description - Good metadata and site description will help users find the appropriate website. • Information Structures and Organization - How information is organized and categorized shapes access. For systems with an underlying searchable database, the structure of the database itself will determine the outcome of searches. • Usability Testing - Includes resources on how to evaluate sites and on testing for usability.

28. Build Adaptive Systems • Build Systems that adapt the same back-end information to different user profiles (different knowledge bases, different technical capabilities, different cognitive structures) • User profiles may include advanced researcher in a particular subject area, general undergraduate student, high school student, … • Different profiles will need different user interfaces, navigation, searching vocabulary, file formats and sizes, ...

29. Design • User Interface • Navigation • Browse • Search • Efficient bandwidth use User Profiles Combination of dimensions and purpose • Content • Mark-up • Various metadata • Protection features knowledge base Technological capibilities • Design functional examples • Differing screen arrangements • Differing functional options • Vocabulary mapping • Diminishing image size Age language/culture Dimensions • Purpose • Casual user • K12 student, lifelong learner • Information/hobby • Scholar/preservation • Business • (Colorado Dig Proj) • Cultural tourist • Casual user • Scholar • (CIMI)

30. Adaptive Systemswhat they’ll do • Can serve different audiences (general public, purposeful inquirer [cultural tourist], domain specialist) • Each profile audience will • see a level of discourse addressed to them • experience a user interface appropriate to their profile • use vocabulary they are familiar with • Yet all will be using the same back-end set of information

31. Adaptive Systemshow they’ll work • Passing search terms through a thesaurus to map specialist vocabulary to/from vernacular • Adapting vocabulary from curatorial language into common discourse; development of markup extensions to EAD/CIMI/CIDOC to allow description for different audiences • In general, specialized users will experience more text-based interfaces, while general users will experience more graphic/visual interfaces

32. Adaptive Systemsdevelopment plan • Research and experimentation • Profile 5-10 different user communities • Mechanize 2-3 different information delivery systems • Demonstrate the utility of this approach (proof of concept) for further research and design

33. Suggestions for joint CDL/UCLA project • Use OAC/California Cultures Collection • Profile and construct a series of different front-ends for different audiences • Front-ends- • Target Audiences- • Evaluate

34. Profile and construct a series of different front-ends for different audiences:Front-ends to include • Screen design for searching and for display • Browsing, probably with some high-level categorization/grouping • Searching • Vocabulary mapped through thesauri

35. Profile and construct a series of different front-ends for different audiencesTarget audiences might include • 4th grade students • 12th grade students • 4th grade teachers • 12th grade teachers • University faculty • Some people outside the history/social studies sector

36. What does this all mean forInfo Professionals? • Good set of Design Guidelines • Feasibility of Adaptive Systems that deliver the same back-end info tailored to different sets of user needs

37. Adaptive SystemsUCLA/Pacific Bell Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Howard Besser UCLA School of Education & Information http://www.newliteracies.gseis.ucla.edu/ http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/