Effect of Different Or Changing Representation of Content on User Perception

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Erik Mitchell

Comprehensive Exam Question 3

3. User Perspectiveson Metadata

Effect of different or changing representation of content on user perception.

The following includes two questions address user perceptions. You may elect to answer them in one single statement, or in two separate statements. Please gauge your time so that you may address both questions below in the four hour writing time-period allotted.

a.) In your literature review, you state that: “The position that metadata is a bridge between the document and the user is the central assertion of this review”, and “This literature review suggests that the role of document structure in a digital environment is a key element of the interaction between an internal cognitive state and the extended information world”.

In today’s digital world, the representation of an object for storage can be independent from how it is presented to the users (separation of content from presentation). What does this imply for the document’s “structure” playing a key role linking the internal cognitive state and the extended information world, when there can be different versions of the “structure”? For instance, should we be concerned with the user’s mental model of the structure as seen through the user interface? Or their idea of the underlying structure, if they have one? And what if the user interacts with one presentation (mental model) of the content item structure in one context, but another in a different context, what implications does this have? (for instance as author and editor of Wikipedia).

b.) Your literature review also states that “Traditional bibliographic cataloging has generally assumed that the objects being described and therefore their attributes are more or less stable”.

Bibliographic cataloging has had to deal with attribute stability in the past, for instance serials, bibliographic cataloging of electronic resources, use of MARC fields for updates. In today’s world we have a plethora of digital items that are constantly changing, or being modified. What implications does this have for user’s perceptions of content items based on the metadata description of them, when there may be so many versions available? For example, if a user searches a union catalog and finds 40 copies of 5 different versions of an electronic resource, or a scholar performs a Google search using the title of a journal article and finds hundreds of versions across repositories, journal sites, and the authors website. What role does their perception of, and understanding of the metadata play in helping them retrieve the specific content item they desire?

Time started: 8:13

Time completed: 11:47

Overview

This question asks about the role of metadata in information interaction from two perspectives. The first question examines the role of metadata with regards to the interaction between a user and multiple information system interfaces involving a core set of data.The second question examines the role of metadata in assisting users to differentiate resources during search. Both questions center on examining the role of metadata in relation to the user experience and question to what extent metadata plays an active role in this experience. The response to these two questions begins by outlining the role of metadata in digital documents and continues with a discussion of relevant information seeking models. It discusses the implications of the user experience from the perspective of the socio-technical and extended mind models andexplains the role of metadata skills in these interactions using Blooms taxonomy. It then tackles the complementary questions asking what role metadata plays in information interaction in different user interfaces, how metadata is used through different user roles, and examines how metadata aids users during search.

Defining the digital document

The concept of the document has changed significantly over time. As Wright (2007) and Rosch illustrate, information objects have changed along with information traditions. Wright observes that information objects centered primarily on oral and graphical traditions. These objects turned into text-based objects as scrolls and tablets and eventually to mass produced text works (Gutenberg). As Wright points out, the evolution of the document from oral to text to digital formats involved a number of key changes including a blurring of the lines between oral, graphical, and written traditions, an increase in quantity and scale of information objects, and an increase in access and interoperability between information objects (Wright, Morville). In my literature reviews, I discuss how metadata evolved from being a ‘secondary’ or derivative element of textual works (e.g. a bibliographic record) to being an embedded part of primary information objects (e.g. RSS feeds, tag clouds). Further,my literature reviews discuss how the presence of this metadata requires a new set of skills and conceptual understandings (literacies) on the part of information users to make effective use of these resources.

Some features of digital information objects include embedded metadata as part of the document structure, representative metadata serving multiple roles including descriptive, technical, administrative, and preservation (Gillian), external metadata tracking the document lifecycle and events (Lagoze), and an ability to be presented in multiple formats due to the flexibility of the underlying document structure (Mabrito & Medley). Lagoze focuses on the transition from the traditional fixity of print documents to the fluidity of electronic documents in discussing his ABC metadata model, asserting the need to use metadata to keep track of the states and versions of electronic resources. Likewise, Berners-Lee asserts that the changing nature of document format should also include a migration to semantically structured and bi-directionally linked documents (Linked data). Further, technological examples such as Semantic Web based document editors (Omeka), RSS feeds, data-remix applications (swurl, YahooPipes, Intel Mashmaker) and application programming interfaces (facebook, flickr) underscore the idea that the digital document can be presented, modified, and re-mixed in ways that text documents cannot.

Defining the user and their information interaction roles

The change in documents requires a re-examination of user information seeking models. Some models have used a process-based approach to information seeking. These models are similar to information problem solving (IPS) approaches to information literacy (IL) models. Process based models of information seeking include Taylor (4 states), Belkin (ASK), Dervin & Nilan (SenseMaking), Bates and Toms (berrypicking), and Erdelez (information encountering). These models include both linear and iterative IPS approaches. Other models take a holistic approach to defining the user such as Chatman (life in the round), Williamson (ecological theory), Kuhlthau (affective and cognitive states). These models include IPS issues (Kuhlthau’s guided inquiry for example) but also address the impact of emotional, physical, and social factors in influencing how users interact with information. Chatman for example asserts that our cognitive response to information seeking is influenced by our social and affective response to that situation. Both of these types of information seeking models focus on the information user as a ‘consumer’ of information as opposed to a producer.

One implication of the digital document in our everyday information world is that the roles that we fill during information interaction change frequently. We can be at very quick intervals a consumer, author, editor, or re-mixer of information. In this response, the idea of the information consumer as an active user of information is key in recognizing the idea that information seeking is only one element of the information interaction process. This idea works in conjunction with educational theory such as Bloom’s taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002) which views information from a learning perspective (Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create). It is the premise of Churches (2008) that these information tasks require different skills/conceptual understandings. Further, recent information interaction models have focused less on the role of internal cognitive and affective states in discussing information seeking and have focused more on the social and environmental context of information interaction. Models which focus on the active user include the socio-technical model (Talja, Tuominen, and Savolainen), the Extended Mind theory (Clark & Chalmers), and Bloom’s taxonomy (Krathwohl). Both Kuhlthau and Audet also discuss these ideas in relation to Bloom’s taxonomy and the learning process.

Identifying relationships between users and digital documents

Talja, Tuominen, and Savolainen for example use the socio-technical model to discuss how the information interaction for a user is grounded in the dialog between a user, a social context, and an information object. In the socio-technical model, users come to information interactions with a set of skills and conceptual understandings that can be characterized as being from specific to general. Further, they come with a set of social perspectives which help them contextualize the information interaction (Vygotsky). In the Socio-technical model, the discourse between the user and the information object in a social context is of key importance in understanding the information interaction.

Likewise, Clark and Chalmers assert that the Extended Mind (EM) theory supports the idea that users rely on these information objects to support internal cognition through the encoding of complex concepts in external symbols or constructs. Holland uses this theory to suggest that these information objects serve as stigmergic structures, enabling information objects to serve as socially recognized clues to complex concepts. Ju(? Or is it Jacobs), builds on this concept, bridging the idea of metadata rich documents to the concept of EM in discussing the impact of metadata on user interaction with digital documents. Likewise,Ingwersen views EM as serving as a bridge between internal cognition in which the mind is central and socio-constructionism in which the interaction between information object and the user is central. One element of this idea is the fact that the information objects contain stigmergic structures which, although they may not be immediately recognized and understood by a particular user, serve to inform the larger social understanding of the digital document. Wright for example draws this comparison to the emergence of contracts in Europe during the renaissance. While most people did not understand the contract contents, they recognized the conceptual importance of the contract.

One of the key concepts to the idea of metadata literacy is that users require different skills for different types of information interaction. For example, users need the ability to recognize metadata during search but also require the ability to conceptually think about a tagging system to assign tags to their works. Likewise, users need to be able to understand the persistence of data across multiple interfaces to be effective users of digital documents but also need to be able to have technical skills to modify and re-mix these documents during authorship of new digital texts.

The relationship between data models, user interfaces, and the user experience

This question asks me to discuss two distinct roles of metadata in information interaction. First, it asks what role the underlying structure of metadata plays in the interaction between a user and an information interface. Second, it asks what role metadata plays during digital resource discovery and selection, particularly in the context of transitive digital documents. As a related element, the first question asks about the role of the metadata model in the user interaction with a digital document in different roles (consumer, creator, editor). This section discusses the relationship between data models and user interfaces and the impact of the model on the user experience separate from the user interface.

One of the primary purposes of an information interfaceis to create engaging and comprehensible platforms for user experience. As Morville and Rosenberg observe in their book on Information Architecture, the information model (document structure, organizational elements, navigation structures) are key to enabling these interfaces. Likewise, the levels of IA model by Jesse James Garrett places information organization elements at the foundation of the user experience. These two perspectives are based on the idea that data modeling provides the functional foundation for any user interface. As such, metadata models serve to enable the set of data, operations, and features of an information system. Although a particular view of an information system may blur the distinctions made in a metadata model or offer only a limited view, interfaces cannot provide data to the user if that data is not accounted for properly in the underlying model.

As the question points out, one feature of digital texts are that they can be presented in multiple ways while the underlying data model does not change. The question asks what roles the underlying structure plays when the user is quite possibly not aware of the data model separate from the interface. Despite the fact that the interface serves as an intermediary between the user and the underlying data model, the data model continues to play key roles in the information interaction including supporting generalized metadata tasks, enabling users to work with data through multiple interfaces, and enabling users to extend their experience as their understanding metadata grows. Each of these ideas is investigated below.

First, although the user interface may simplify the encoding and presentation of complex data structures, the user must still have an internal understanding of the function of that data to make use of it. For example, users on flickr have a number of metadata functions available to them. While the interaction with this metadata is technically simplified, understanding the role of these metadata elements (tagging, group association, coordinate-based image tagging, and assignment of descriptive, technical, and administrative metadata) is still part of their information interaction. Without the understanding of the roles those data structures play, the user will not be able to fit those data elements into their understanding of the interface.

Second, literature on the role of the user in interacting with digital documents (Mabrito & Medley, Rowlands et. al.) suggest that an element of the interaction is the ability of the user to understand data separate from the user interface. Mabrito & Medley suggest for example that interaction with metadata rich digital texts has so fundamentally changed their cognitive work in relation to information that they are considered to be somewhat illiterate according to traditional information literacy metrics. Likewise, research in tagging (Macgreggor & McCullough) found that users employed sophisticated conceptual models when creating tags and created tags with specific purposes in mind (description, indication of ownership, pim/gim, etc). Further, literature on metadata literacy from the librarian perspective emphasized the importance of understanding underlying data models and how those data models can be modified to be used in multiple interfaces (Schwardz, Intner). In fact Intner equated the idea of metadata literacy today to the growth of computer literacy in the 1970s. Her article suggests that just as computer literacy became a general literacy for the entire population so metadata literacy should become a generally understood literacy.

Third, literature suggests that metadata is used more by experienced users and users with high domain knowledge (Hert et al.). Pinto et. al, for example used information tasks including indexing and abstracting to teach core information skills from the perspective that teaching users advanced information skills enabled them to understand core information skills (such as the structure of a database) better. Hert et. al, found in their work on users of statistical metadata that users with high domain knowledge made more extensive use of the metadata than did users with low domain knowledge. These findings suggest that advanced users do not view a particular interface as being wholly representative of the underlying information and that they possessan advanced understanding of the metadata supporting the information system.

The tangible example that illustrates how these three ideas surrounding the role of back-end metadata models in the user experience is the use of RSS. In order to simply use RSS feeds, information users must be able to recognize an RSS feed, understand the role of an RSS feed in relation to the primary information objects, and understand (at some level) the data model of a RSS aggregator/reader. As a user advances in their understanding and interaction with RSS, they may find out more about the data model and the relationship of the surrogate to the primary object, find out how to use that data in multiple interfaces (readers, aggregators, re-mix applications) and understand how to create their own RSS feeds. In this example, the initial user-interface (an RSS reader) serves a decreasing role in helping the user understand and work with the metadata model while more direct interfaces (YahooPipes for example) play an increasing role. This suggests (as does Hert et. al.) that the more advanced a user is, the more connected with the underlying data structure they are.