Prototype for a web site for small and medium sized museums. Effective

Effective

The Quality Principles Handbook says:

Introduction

This section examines the second quality principle, that «A quality Website must select, digitise, author, present and validate content to create an effective Website for users». It:

examines how to interpret the effectiveness principle
outlines criteria for establishing whether or not a Website is effective
suggests a checklist of Website characteristics to be used to ensure effectiveness
describes a number of tests which can be taken in order to verify that the Website is effective.

Commentary

The core of the effectiveness principle is content - a high-quality Website must have content that is

appropriately selected and relevant
valid and correct
accompanied by appropriate commentary and supporting information and
well-presented.

A second crucial element of an effective Website is the ease with which users can navigate the material presented therein.

Relevance and selection

Cultural Websites are typically produced by cultural organisations which have, as a major asset, very large amounts of cultural content. This content may be books, images, statues, buildings, historic sites, or indeed take other forms. In many cases, the total holdings of a cultural institution cannot be placed on a Website, simply because there is too much material. This means that selection is critical. Any project or initiative which is creating a cultural Website must set selection criteria which allow it to choose which content is to be digitised and published online. The criteria will vary from project to project, from institution to institution. Good examples include:

user demand - choose the most popular items,
target audience - choose the items likely to be of most value to your chosen audience; this may vary depending on who you are serving,
conservation - choose the most delicate items, and restrict access to the originals,
project themes - choose items which fit the theme of the project,
cooperation with other institutions - choose items which fit the theme of a cooperative exhibition or project involving other institutions.

But there are many more possible selection criteria.

A well-chosen set of online items will greatly enhance the value of a cultural Website to its target audience. Presenting the content that the end user is looking for greatly increases the effectiveness of the user. Of course, this requires that you understand what your user is looking for – some research in this area may is essential before starting the technical aspects of the project.

Correctness

Regardless of the items selected and presented on a cultural Website, it is a critical responsibility of the cultural organisation to ensure that the information and content provided are factually correct. Cultural Websites have major educational and research impact and are important resources for these domains – errors of fact greatly undermine the value of any cultural site.

Ensure that the content and any accompanying text (see below) is reviewed by curatorial or sectoral experts before publication. Often, the technical staff involved in digitisation and Web publication may not have the specific expertise required.

It may be noted, however, that in the event that the source material is itself not 100% factually correct, this may be flagged and made obvious to the user, rather than simply not being displayed.

Supporting information

While the core of many cultural Websites will be the unique cultural items which are presented there, the site will gain a great deal of end-user value if all items are supported by additional information. Such information may cover the provenance of the items, historic events or individuals relevant to the item, links to related items in the same and other cultural institutions, literary references to items, etc.

A bare image, regardless of the item represented, is of limited value to the typical end user. The supporting information increases the value of the content and the effectiveness of the site.

As far as feasible, labels and supporting information should be multi-lingual. This increases the audience for which the site is effective.

Presentation

The overall usability and look-and-feel of any Website, including cultural sites, has a major impact on the effectiveness of the site. This area includes navigation, colour choice, image presentation, etc.

Much of this is quite subjective in nature. However, the following should be borne in mind by all cultural Websites:

All images should be clearly labeled, with a caption in addition to any ALT text which is linked to the image
The relationship between images (or 3D presentations or other digital artifacts) and supporting information should be clear. There should be no confusion as to which image a particular description applies to. This applies equally to multi-lingual information
All internal and external hyperlinks should work and the link should lead where the user expects
Images should be presented at a suitable resolution. For cultural content, high resolution is often important to allow proper study. Suitable technical solutions for this should be applied. Such solutions will need to take IPR into account
Large images should be presented as low resolution thumbnails, with the option to choose to download larger (slow-to-download) images

Navigation

The ability to find one’s way around a Website and to access the information which meets one’s particular requirements is central to the effectiveness of any Website, cultural or otherwise.

While the topic of Website navigation is too large to cover in any detail here, the following pragmatic notions may be taken into account.

The user should always know where he is on the site, relative to the other parts of the site. This is typically achieved with mechanisms such as the 'crumbtrail' (>>you are here >> site >> content >> category >> page, or similar)
The user should always be able to return to the page that he most recently visited. This ideally should be by using the browser 'Back' button; the use of technologies which hamper this should be avoided if possible
For large pages, a menu of 'page jumps' may be considered. These bring the user to a particular section within a page, without the need to scroll down
The user should always be able to return to the homepage of the Website. This may be a function of the 'crumbtrail' or may be implemented by always having the option to click a button marked 'Home' or something similar
An overview of the site structure, with links to the main sections, can simplify the finding of information that the user needs. A site map (with a structure of less than 4 levels of depth) may be provided
The ability to search the site should be provided. This specialised search tool should be as comprehensive as possible, in order to maximise the likelihood that the user finds what he wants. Both META and simple text indexing should be considered

Criteria

The following criteria should be met if a site is to be considered effective. The degree of effectiveness reflects the number of these criteria which are met; thus a site can be ‘75% effective’ if not all the criteria are met.

Some of the criteria overlap across the quality principles. For example, the use of metadata standards is relevant to the interoperability principle, while presentation and navigation are central to the user-centric principle.

Criteria for effectiveness include

User needs have been drawn up based on research involving user groups
Content selection criteria reflect the requirements of the target audience
All items are correctly labeled (identified)
All items are linked to the correct supporting material
All supporting material is factually correct
Items and supporting material have been reviewed by sectoral/curatorial experts
Supporting information should be structured in compliance with international metadata standards
Item labels and supporting information are multi-lingual
All internal and external links work as expected
Images are presented at a suitable resolution
Where necessary, thumbnails are used
High-resolution images are also available (subject to IPR)

Additional Criteria for Navigation include (but are not limited to), the following:

Crumbtrail available
Browser 'back' button works as expected
Page jumps used if necessary
Home page always accessible
Site map available (tree structure)
Site search facility in place

Checklist

This section presents a checklist to evaluate the site.

	YES	NO	N.A.
User needs have been drawn up based on research involving user groups
Content selection criteria reflect the anticipated user needs
All items are correctly labeled (identified)
All items are clearly linked to the correct supporting material
All supporting material is factually correct
Items and supporting material have been reviewed by experts
Item labels and supporting information are multi-lingual
All hyperlinks work as expected
Images are presented at a suitable resolution
Where necessary, thumbnails are used
High-resolution images are also available (subject to IPR)
Crumbtrail available
Browser ‘back’ button works as expected
Page jumps used if necessary
Home page always accessible
Site map available
Site search facility in place

Practical tests

This section suggests some simple, pragmatic tests and questions to be asked in order to assess how completely your Website meets the effectiveness principle

Have focus groups or other user representatives been consulted as to the choice of content which would make the site as effective and useful as possible for them?
Have formal content criteria been drawn up, and followed, which reflect the target audience requirements?
After digitisation and building of Web pages, have experts reviewed the content to ensure that item labeling (identification) is correct?
Have experts also reviewed the supporting information / description?
Is it clear which supporting information belongs to which cultural artifact?
Is supporting information in line with international meta-data standards such as Dublin Core?
Are item labels or supporting information available in multiple languages?
Is it easy and clear to switch between languages?
Have all internal and external hyperlinks been tested?
Are images presented at a suitable resolution?
Are image download times acceptable? Even for slow Internet connections?
Has the use of thumbnails been considered?
Are high-resolution images also available?
Have IPR and Digital Rights Management issues been considered for such images?
Have the navigation suggestions been considered?
Have the focus groups reviewed the site in terms of usability and navigation?

Museo&Web