2016 ESIP Summer Meeting

This session aims to discuss the applicability of using User Interface (UI)/User Experience (UX) principles and techniques in evaluating the services offered by data archives/repositories. The session will provide an overview of usability principles and common usability evaluation techniques as well as the different areas in which these principles and techniques could be applied in a data archive/repository setting. The session will also have two guest speakers presenting the usability testing/experience from their respective institutions. Additionally, as an example and using "cognitive walkthrough" as the evaluation method, the session will report on the evaluation results of the data submission process from five different data archives/repositories with geoscience as the focused discipline. By sharing the types of usability issues that user might encounter during a data submission process and demonstrating the potential fixes, the session invites the attendees to discuss whether the application of usability evaluations could lower the barrier to data use, and subsequently, possibly increase user participation in the data archive/repository process. A key aim of the discussion is to show how UX analysis and design need not be burdensome and can yield immediate results. A sample of discussion questions is listed as follows: Are usability evaluations currently being applied at your data archive/repositories? If yes: What are the evaluation techniques used? What are the services areas that have been evaluated? What are the key lessons learned? If not: What are the reasons? What are some of the key motivators that could help in integrating usability tests with the evaluation of data archive/repositories' services? How can low-cost high-speed usability approaches be integrated into a design process? How can you perform 'usability triage' (focusing on important but easy to fix issues)? How can you demonstrate the benefits of improving usability?