Stap isi

14 February 2011

Shown the way by San Jose

Ever worked on the information architecture of a library site or section?

Labels like “information services”, “electronic resources” and “online databases” will send you mad. They describe their contents adequately to librarians, but to anyone else?

I had the good fortune recently to meet Sarah Houghton-Jan, the Librarian in Black and Assistant Director for the San Rafael Public Library.

In her previous role as Digital Futures Manager of San Jose Public Library, Sarah developed – fought for – the best information architecture I’ve come across on a library website.

Here is a snapshot of the top level sections:

• Books and Media – access to catalogues, readers’ advisory services, eBooks and book clubs; I like the link If We Don’t Have Your Book… which takes you to inter-library loans information and an opportunity to tell us what to buy
• Downloads – access to eBooks, audio books and music, plus subscription databases offering newspapers and journals; importantly, help pages for all these too, like New User’s Guide… and Supported Devices
• Services – information aimed at typical user groups (e.g. children, teens), plus the nitty gritty on photocopying, wireless and web access
• Research and Homework – here be electronic resources, under Find Articles Online and Homework Help; interestingly, also Local History Online
• News & Events – the library blog, whose usefulness is maximised by categorising posts and piping them into the sections above, very nicely done
• Locations – hours and locations, plus map

In her blog post on the redeveloped website she says:

We don’t use the words “database” or “OPAC.” We chose words that our users actually told us they wanted us to use.

Yes, they did user testing and Sarah has stats.

I’ve now forgotten the precise numbers she quoted, but from memory “Downloads” tested over 80%, more than double the recognition for “online databases”. The choice of labels may surprise you, but they are based on user vocabularies.

Dig through the site. There is lots to learn, and borrow.

— b3rn   design, ia, libraries   Feb 14, 09:13 PM   #   Comment

7 December 2010

Faceted views

The information architecture of council websites continues to be a challenge. Yet hierarchical structures remain the orthodoxy.

I very much like the Guardian‘s approach. They maintain the distinction between reporting and comment but don’t let it impede the reader’s path through the content. I think there are lessons to be learnt from their sophisticated approach.

I think we can discount the ‘pure search’ style approach that has been trialled by at least two local government authorities (Westminster and Lancashire). Not seeing smoke, I assume there’s no fire.

So it’s ironic that – for me – the most interesting idea of late comes from the company synonymous with search.

Google have finessed their faceted search to offer results categorised as: Everything; Images; Videos; Books; News; Places; Blogs; Realtime; and Discussions.

With the exception of ‘books’ perhaps, all make sense on a council website. You’re either after authoritative information on a process or product (facets could be ‘services’ and ‘facilities’) or you’re interested in date or place-based information, community interactions or media formats.

I like these distinctions.

Some local government authorities already offer place-based information. Good examples are Lichfield District Council’s My Area and Napier’s My Property.

I especially like Google’s categorisations ‘Realtime’ and ‘Discussions’.

— b3rn      Dec 7, 09:49 PM   #   Comment [1]

25 August 2010

The big payback

Why participate on the web? Web metrics give you some of the story – visitor numbers, content accessed – but how do you quantify trust? And how do you explain to senior staff the benefits of participating online in the first place?

Social Web – Reputation Management Cycles diagram by Laurel Papworth – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I’ve used this graphic many times to help get the point across.

— b3rn   community, the persuader, trust   Aug 25, 11:46 AM   #   Comment [1]

25 July 2010

#LGWN10 tweeps

Last year I knocked up a tweeps map ahead of the 2009 LG Web Network conference. The aim was to link via Twitter ahead of the event – and to muck about with Google’s maps and spreadsheets. Here’s one for this year.

I had intended to use Google Fusion Tables, a tool purpose-built to import and visualize table data online. (It made light work of this visualisation of RTA speed camera locations, ripped from an RTA PDF.) But from the get-go I couldn’t import my spreadsheet from Google Docs. Maybe the service is too beta.

Here then are the steps taken to create the #LGWN tweeps app:

1. Create a spreadsheet in Google Docs with a form to capture user input
2. In sheet 2 of the spreadsheet, import the user data with the function =ARRAYFORMULA(Sheet1!A:E) then run a function in the neighbouring columns to return latitude and longitude (with some randomisation to prevent markers stacking directly on top of each other if two tweeps are in the same location)
3. Share the spreadsheet – make the data public
4. Set up a webpage with a Google Map generated using the excellent new Google Maps API v3
5. Pull in and loop through the XML data, building markers in javascript for each tweep – I used a plugin for my CMS Textpattern but this could be handled natively by the Google Maps API

Geocoding

I chose to geocode within the spreadsheet because I was too timid to tackle the new Geocoder class in the Google Maps API.

I used the CONCATENATE function to construct a URL from the stem http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?output=csv&q= and the user’s location (suburb, town/city, country). For example, copy this URL into your address bar:

maps.google.com/maps/geo?output=csv&q=Darlinghurst,Sydney

The ImportData function runs this URL and adds the result to neighbouring columns. Note the limit of 50 ImportData functions per spreadsheet.

Twits as icons

When building the markers on the map, it was easy to grab the user’s profile picture and description from Twitter via their API. Try this URL with your screen name:

http://api.twitter.com/1/users/show.xml?screen_name=[ScreenName]

I generated a generic shadow using Google Maps Icon Shadowmaker although I didn’t anticipate some profile pictures having transparency.

Copy, paste, cross fingers

I hope this project shows that anyone with HTML, a search engine and some patience can build tools for fun and on the cheap. It’s a monkey see, monkey do approach. Not very efficient, often frustrating, but you have to get your hands dirty.

See Gabriel Svennerberg for a good introduction to the API, work off the demos at Google and find inspiration at Google Maps Mania.

And if you’re coming to LGWN10, add yourself to the map.

— b3rn   community of practice, lgwn, maps   Jul 25, 01:25 PM   #   Comment

9 March 2010

Your Tube

Last year Craig Thomler alerted us to the fact that Youtube offers free branded channels to government departments globally. I can confirm that this offer is open to local government as the organisation I work for has taken advantage of it.

What do you get?

Custom banners and profile images, longer videos, autoplay on your featured video, no ads on your uploaded videos and Google Analytics integration.

See Mike Kujawski’s blog post and YouTube’s Partner Help Centre for more detail.

I still can’t find public information on the offer (I searched with Google) but Craig Thomler’s post has a copy of the form email from Google. It has the contact address.

— b3rn   google, tools, video, youtube   Mar 9, 07:37 PM   #   Comment

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