structured data euroia iv
DESCRIPTION
The importance of structured data to the practive of Information Architecture / User ExperienceTRANSCRIPT
Structured Data:
None / Some / All
EuroIA VI, Paris, September 2010
1995-2010 = Gazillions of Websites
Our design problem was an evolution of visual literacy
—Readers were trained to find information in printed books/magazines/newspapers
—Digital publications lack physical context
—Location and scope of information was invisible
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Clients = Publishers Users = Readers
Our Design Task was to connect Readers to content
—Adapt graphic language – type, color, image – from the page to the screen
—Create navigation systems that help users understand what they can find on a website
—Communicate the structure of content in flexible repeatable units
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2010 Users are
—Convinced they can find what they want “on the Internet”
—Producing & managing dematerialized content: photos, videos, music, email, compound documents
—Creators & consumers with storage/creation and retrieval/consumption needs
—Looking for something all the time
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2010 Users want to
—Record, share, publish
—Be convinced, amused, in control
—Find, sort, sift and copy
—Mix, reorder and arrange
Users now have the experience of solving problems by manipulating metadata even though they don’t know what metadata is
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Today’s IA/UX Problem
Every IA/UX problem is a Data Continuum
—No Structure Vacuum Raw
—Some Structure Marsh Eatable
—Complete Structure Field Cooked
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Unstructured Data
Data Vacuum: no metadata has been added to items
Even Data Vacuums include content & context
The 50-year-old Information Retrieval / Library Science trade-off:
—Precision: finding only what you are looking for
—Recall: finding everything that might contain what you are looking for
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Data with no structure: Names
—A character-string a person, place or thing is known by
—People have many names: professional names, familiar names, legal names
—Places and things have many names in different languages
—As data, a name presents a major problem: IT IS NOT UNIQUE
—For example: “paul kahn”
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“paul kahn” string exist in many places
—About 299,000 results in Google
—25 different people in LinkedIn
—100+ different people in Facebook
—378 photos on Flickr (where the tag “paulkahn” is used for two different people)
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There are many “paul kahn”s
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Paul W. Kahn,
author and Law
Professor at
Yale University,
New Haven CT
Dr. Paul Kahn,
Urologist in
Plantation FL
Paul Kahn,
writer, editor,
psychological
counselor and
disability rights
advocate in
Newton MA
Roshi Paul
Genki Kahn
Spiritual
Director of Zen
Garland in
Wyckoff, NJ
Paul Kahn
chef, The
Publican,
Chicago IL
Semi-structured Workarounds
Add additional strings for context
[screen grab of sample completion for paul kahn in Google toolbar or Google search]
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Where did I put that document?
The tools we use:
—Personal Memory
—Folder names
—Desktop search
What kinds of structure can we present?
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Implicit metadata:
—Document type
—File name
—Time/Date stamp
LATCH (+): Five ways to organize information for understanding and ease of use
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Location
Alphabet
Time
Category
Hierarchy + Common Focus
Richard Saul Wurman INFORMATION ANXIETY 2
Semi-Structured Data
Data Marsh: some metadata without predefined language or requirements
—Tagging : ad hoc uncontrolled keywords
—Time / Location stamps: where and when
—Each metadata dimension is flat (no hierarchy) and independent
—Many kinds of relationships can be inferred
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Aggregation/Reproduction Sites
—Sites that aggregate user-provided content Slideshare / YouTube / Dailymotion / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Flickr
—Sites where users can create and republish content to social networks LinkedIn / Facebook / Twitter
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Structured Data
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Data Fields: where metadata has been explicitly added to items according to an agreed-upon standard
—The Content is made to fit a pre-defined structure
—The required parts of the structure are completed
—Each metadata dimension qualifies and reinforces the
meaning of the content
—Many kinds of relationships can be harvested
NY Times Immigration Explorer
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NPR Patchwork Nation
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DC Homicide Map
— http://dc.everyblock.com/crime/by-offense/homicide/by-date/2010-01-01,2010-05-31/#tallermap
USHMM Propaganda Timeline
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Microsoft Live Labs Pivot
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Would the world be a better place if
—Everything had a unique ID?
—Every digital object with a unique ID contained structured data?
How does structured data affects quality of life questions?
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A Proverb for User Centered Design
—Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken [who can give water to the horse that will not drink of its own accord?] (Old English Homilies, circa 1175)
—You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink
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Structured Data Value Proposition
—2010 Users know what they want
—Almost no one wants to create Structured Data
—Our clients and their audience increasingly understand how to use Structured Data
—The Structured Data Value Proposition is the key to our profession
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