[Web4lib] AJAX on library websites?

[Richard Wiggins]

I think the Wisconsin people search application is way cool, but any change
in interfaces to make them more interactive may have unintended
consequences, especially w/r/t accessibility.  One advantage is that the
Wisconsin system quickly zones in on faiirly unique names, while also giving
immediate feedback that you've typed enough letters to avoid the "too many
hits" snare for popular names.  Try "smith, j" for example.

The Ga Tech journals search is also interesting.  Again, I wonder if there
are usability implications.  For instance, let's say I want to look up the
full text of a recent article in the journal Nature. (As a totally random
example.)   So I go to
http://www.library.gatech.edu/search_locate/electronic_journals.html and I
select Exact Match from the drop-down.  I type the word "Nature"   On screen
I see a drop-down list of a bunch of journals with "nature" in their
titles.  That drop-down obscures the Submit button. I want the exact match
of "Nature" but I see in the drop-down  titles such as "FRACTALS AN
INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL ON THE COMPLEX GEOMETRY OF NATURE"... How is this
an exact match?   What percent of people searching for "Nature" want that
title?

With a traditional, non-interactive search, I'd just click Submit and get my
exact match.

In both cases I think it's valid to ask "What problem are we trying to
solve?" and I think the only way to answer whether it's an improvement is to
do controlled usability testing where you assign specific tasks to testers
and measure which interface works best for the most people.   And you have
to ask if it works at all for blind people using screen readers.

/rich

PS -- everyone calls it AJAX now but I first went agog over its
implementation in Gmail in April, 2004.  Does anyone know of a major
previous example?


On 12/17/05, Ross Singer <ross.singer at library.gatech.edu> wrote:
>
> Luke,
>
> What is the intended utility of this service?  By the time I wait for
> the number of results to display, I could have performed the search on
> my own.  It seems like allowing the user to perform the search, then
> offer alternatives to it in the result page seems like a better use of
> resources.
>
> Amy, we also have implemented a small bit of AJAX at Georgia Tech (I
> second Jeremy's point about using it sparingly and for specific
> purposes where 'stateliness' is justified -- I can't comment on whether
> or not GT's implementation completely conforms to that).
>
> We implemented it for our e-journal search:
> http://www.library.gatech.edu/search_locate/electronic_journals.html
> (start typing in the journal title field)
> and our databases page:
> http://www.library.gatech.edu/search_locate/databases.php
> (search for databases field)
>
> The e-journal service was first and is the more useful (it was easy to
> set up the db one, so why not, was my rationale) and has proven to be
> quite popular.  An unintended (positive) side effect was exposure to
> items in our collection that users wouldn't otherwise know we own (with
> 25,000+ titles, there are more journals than our users -- or librarians
> -- can keep up with).
>
> It's simpler to implement on these services, since they don't change
> very much.  We cache the search results every month (since our journal
> list really doesn't change until our knowledgebase is updated), so the
> results are very fast (except, possibly, near the first of month).
>
> Anyway, I am interested in other uses of AJAX, because it is delicate
> balance.
>
> -Ross.
>
> On Dec 16, 2005, at 11:20 PM, Luke Vilelle wrote:
>
> > Hi, Amy, at Virginia Tech one of our systems gurus
> > implemented AJAX into the OPAC. You can see it for
> > yourself on the keyword search at
> > http://addison.vt.edu. We've called it the Addison
> > Guesstimate, and you can toggle it on or off
> > underneath the search box.
> >
> > Not sure how many people actually see the AJAX work
> > (we've gotten very little feedback on it), because you
> > have to wait a 1/2-second after you've stopped typing
> > before you see results, but it's pretty neat. An
> > explanation of the feature is provided at
> > http://addison.vt.edu/screens/help_index.html#guesstimate.
> >
> >
> > Luke Vilelle.
> >
> > --- Amy M Ostrom <amostrom at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Dear Web4libbers:
> >>
> >> Sorry for multiple emails.  I am wondering if anyone
> >> else has been
> >> following AJAX (asynchronous javascript and xml) and
> >> is thinking about
> >> implementing it somehow into their library design?
> >> The University of
> >> Wisconsin directory (
> >> http://www.wisc.edu/directories/?name= ) is an
> >> example, and using it I thought this new combination
> >> of web tools could
> >> be a great benefit to libraries.  Any insight or
> >> examples would be
> >> wonderful!  Thank you.
> >>
> >> In peace,
> >>
> >> Amy M Ostrom
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