I have been Looking at different ways to make SIL’s digital research content more interactive, findable, and usable. Today I found http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/. It is interesting how they approach the facets of Location, Projects, Publications, and People up in the right hand corner. I think they did a good job. The site feels like it is balanced.
Tag Archives: UX
Too many terms of service
You might have heard about the recent change in the Google terms of service. I have, several times. I use several Google services. Logistically, this makes a lot of sense. They sent out an email quoted below saying that they were consolidating over 60 terms of service agreements. I have had two thoughts about this
- Why is there no blowback or negative PR for Google like there was for FaceBook? [1]Eric Eldon. 11 May 2010. Analysis: Some Facebook Privacy Issues Are Real, Some Are Not. http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/05/11/analysis-some-facebook-privacy-issues-are-real-some-are-not [Link] … Continue reading
- This is the sort of scenario I have been warning one of the companies I am working for about creating. We have 3-4 separate online communities currently with separate terms of service with two other major communities about to launch. This is part of the User Experience which should not be over looked.
BTW: I am grateful for the centralization at Google.
Dear Google Apps administrator for _________,
We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience for your users across Google products.
As always, Google will maintain your data in strict compliance with the confidentiality and security obligations provided to your domain.
If you permit your users to access optional additional Google services for your domain, your users may separately receive notifications communicating the new Privacy Policy. You can visit your Google Apps control panel at any time if you’d like to review the additional services accessible to your users.
We’re excited about the improvements we are making across our products and appreciate your support. You can view the new privacy policy at http://www.google.com/policies. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.
Please do not reply to this email. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. Also, never enter your Google Account password after following a link in an email or chat to an untrusted site. Instead, go directly to the site, such as mail.google.com or www.google.com/accounts. Google will never email you to ask for your password or other sensitive information.
Handicapped: What does it mean?
This past Christmas Becky and I visited her cousin, who has, as of about a year ago been diagnosed with ALS. We were able to talk a bit about what it means for him (experientially) to be handicapped. We talked about laws, systems, and attitudes in our society with regard to services for handicapped people. – Much the User Experience kinds of stuff, just not with the web.
It was the first time I had heard someone discuss critically the pros and cons of the implications of the ADA. We talked a bit about how handicapped people are affected by the laws and their implementations.
One example our cousin gave was walking from the handicapped parking to a restaurant. At one establishment the handicap spot was on the same side of the driving road but the spot was further to walk than the closest parking spots. Not all handicapped cases are the same. For some it would be better to cross the street to walk the shorter distance than to walk the “safer” but longer distance.
We also talked about some experiences he had with Disney and with Southwest Airlines.
Without taking credit for our cousin’s stories or wanting to bash on either of these companies, let me relay the flowing experiences and some reflections on them. It was interesting that his interpretation was that socially in Disney being handicapped, when it came to waiting in lines, meant that you got preferential treatment. This was because there was a separate and often shorter line for Handicapped persons. He remarked that this is not exactly fair to non-handicapped persons. And that the purpose of the laws for persons with handicaps is to make things equal, not preferred.
However, his experience with Southwest was of a different nature. Being a faithful customer of Southwest since the early 2000’s I have often enjoyed my “plane crackers”. He remarked that it was really difficult for someone with muscular challenges to navigate between the rows of seats. (Someone else with several kids, was using a kid to reserve the front seat for other people who were boarding later.) It was also difficult to get seats which were together for his family. I found this a little hard to believe until I was flying Southwest this past January. Having heard my cousin’s story, I took note with new eyes on people boarded the aircraft and how the elderly, families and handicapped people were assisted.
On my way to Oregon, there was a man next to me who had lived in the U.S. for a number of years but was originally from Columbia. He was in his 80s and wore hearing aids. He never heard the cabin bell saying that it was alright to get up and go to the bathroom. This would normally be alright but the light for buckling the seats never went off. When the stewardess asked for his drink he could not hear her ask if he wanted cream and sugar with his coffee. Luckily, I was there to “yell” in his ear and he got cream and sugar.
On the way back from Oregon an elderly lady with an oxygen/nebulizer kind of machine with her was disembarking from the plane. She was slow moving and felt really bad for keeping others waiting who were going to disembark. After most of the passengers had disembarked I asked the steward on duty how he would have handled this kind of passenger in the case of emergency. He said that they hope to never have an emergency, but in the case of one, it would be challenging. They would probably have to do some kind of two person carry to get the passenger out of the plane.
I am not sure that I have a strong closing paragraph for readers. But it is eye opening for me to think of systems (lines at amusement parks or customer service and boarding systems) in terms of User Experience and Usability with disabilities in mind.
Finding your inner Zachman
The last couple of weeks I have been working on applying the Zachman's framework for enterprise architecture to two projects. I have been struggling through the first row and then skipped around a bit. I think I have found the part of the project (any project) I am most passionate about.... Working with Human Interface Architecture and explaining it as a designer to the builder of the Presentation Architecture. In my mind this level needs to be closely related to the Business Process Model and to the List of Business Goals/Strategies. [1] John Zachman. 2008. Diagram of: A framework for enterprise architecture. http://zachmaninternational.com/2/Zachman_Framework.asp. [Accessed: 2 December 2011] [PDF] [Link]
TM in the URL for WordPress
I like my URLs to be semantic, it helps with SEO and it helps users to know what a page is about based on the URL. Today I was looking over one of my old posts and found that the TM is added to the URL. In the admin UI the title looks like this:
Notice that I have used the &
in html in the tiled. This is stripped out by the automatic URL generating engine of WordPress. However the ™ as a unicode character is not removed. Some languages with non-roman scripts need Unicode in the titles, so not all unicode characters should be disallowed in the titles. In fact, all Unicode characters should be allowed in the title field. Sometimes unicode in the URL is allowed, however it is not always best practice (unicode above the ASCII range). I in this case it should not be allowed by WordPress. I have my permalink settings set to custom. I do /%year%/%postname%/
.
https://hugh.thejourneyler.org/2010/selected-works™-bepress/
.However, when the user selects the url to copy it they do not get a URL which is paste able the same as when they saw it in the URL bar, they get something like the following:
https://hugh.thejourneyler.org/2010/selected-works%E2%84%A2-bepress/
.
One solution might be for authors to use the following HTML markup in the title:
™
™
But this is not user intuitive or presenting a “thoughtless process for end users/authors”.
Apple App Store
I know I am bit late to the party, but I just updated to OS X 10.6.6. I have been resisting the App Store for ages. (I am doing a slide scanning project with Nikon CoolScan scanners, whose drivers require OS X 10.6 and lower.) But I needed to re-install Developer Tools and my OS disk was scratched. – A real pain. So I had to download 10.6.6 to get the new development tools to work. And a part of the package I get the App Store. So I might as well check it out. It is a real pain to use.
- There is no way to save an app I am interested in purchasing but am not going to purchase right now. – This is a feature in the iTunes store.
- The search algorithm for apps does not help me get the apps I want. – I thought I would try a search for a metadata editing tool. Some apps which I know are in the Apple App Store, and this is their primary function are not showing up. Disappointing.
Diving into the UX World
For the past few weeks I have been working with a team on redoing a large corporate website (almost two large corporate websites).
During the course of the project I have had several people, who are unfamiliar (and familiar) with web technology talk with me about UX and UI, but in terms of Design. They might say: "We need a re-design. Our branding is not displayed well." or the might say " Oh, but it was designed to do that, it is doing exactly what it was designed to do!" So, most of the people (I am encountering) talking in terms of design, are talk about the business design or the function of a website at a very high level. Not the UX and UI level of design. I have tried to explain it in the following terms
The words Usability and Design each suffer from a very unfortunate ambiguity. Usability in a very raw sense means is a tool usable. Just because every tool can be a hammer, does not mean that every tool should be shaped like a hammer. Design in computing also suffers a similar fate. If some computer tool does something, it does so because it was designed to do so. This does not mean that the computer tool is esthetically pleasing or that it creates a good impression on its user. An impression of such a nature that the user might want to come back to the site and use it again. The following diagram contrast the words, functional, reliable, usable, convenient, pleasurable, and meaningful.
Because images show so much more than words I looked around for some images to describe the difference I have been trying to communicate. This has resulted in the following collection of images. In the process of linking to these pictures I hope to introduce my readers to some of the ongoing discussion of professional UX design and development.
This image was take from Peter Morville's article on User Experience Design. [3] Peter Morville. 21 June 2004. User Experience Design. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php [Link]User Experience Design is the art and science of integrating all the various elements that comprise an interactive system so that:
- The user's needs, limitations, goals, desires, expectations, are served
- The publishing organization's objectives are served as a result of serving the user's (#1)
- The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
This Diagram of the Flickr user experience model has been attributed to Bryce Glass by Kenny Chen on 5 April 2008, at http://www.kennychen.net/blog/2008/04/05/flickr-user-model-diagram/. [4] Bryce Glass. Diagram of the Flickr user experience model. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] [Link]
This image comes from What Is User Experience Design by Kimmy Paluch. [5] Kimmy Paluch. 10 October 2006. What Is User Experience Design. [Accessed:8 November 2011] http://www.montparnas.com/articles/what-is-user-experience-design [Link]
This image is taken from User Experience Strategy. [6] Luke Wroblewski. 27 July 2005. User Experience Strategy. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?203 [Link]
Additionally there some good articles:
- UX ROI: User Experience Return on Investment [7] UXPassion.com. 10 October 2009. UX ROI: User Experience Return on Investment. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://www.uxpassion.com/2009/10/ux-roi-user-experience-return-on-investment [Link].
- User Experience vs. User Interaction [8] uxrevisions.com. 23 December 2010. User Experience vs. User Interaction [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://www.uxrevisions.com/user-experience-design/user-experience-vs-user-interaction [Link].
- The difference between Usability and User Experience [9]uxrevisions.com. 23 December 2010. The difference between Usability and User Experience. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] … Continue reading
- Strategy by Design, the second page - about Recruiting T-Shaped People, was interesting. [10] Tim Brown. 1 June 2005. Strategy by Design. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/95/design-strategy.html [Link]
References
↑1 | Jesse James Garret. 30 March 2000. The Elements of User Experience. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf [PDF] |
---|---|
↑2 | Michael Commings. 16 August 2010. UX Design Defined. Uxdesign.com [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://uxdesign.com/ux-defined [Link] |
↑3 | Peter Morville. 21 June 2004. User Experience Design. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php [Link] |
↑4 | Bryce Glass. Diagram of the Flickr user experience model. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] [Link] |
↑5 | Kimmy Paluch. 10 October 2006. What Is User Experience Design. [Accessed:8 November 2011] http://www.montparnas.com/articles/what-is-user-experience-design [Link] |
↑6 | Luke Wroblewski. 27 July 2005. User Experience Strategy. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?203 [Link] |
↑7 | UXPassion.com. 10 October 2009. UX ROI: User Experience Return on Investment. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://www.uxpassion.com/2009/10/ux-roi-user-experience-return-on-investment [Link]. |
↑8 | uxrevisions.com. 23 December 2010. User Experience vs. User Interaction [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://www.uxrevisions.com/user-experience-design/user-experience-vs-user-interaction [Link]. |
↑9 | uxrevisions.com. 23 December 2010. The difference between Usability and User Experience. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://www.uxrevisions.com/user-experience-design/the-difference-between-usability-and-user-experience/ [Link]. |
↑10 | Tim Brown. 1 June 2005. Strategy by Design. [Accessed: 8 November 2011] http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/95/design-strategy.html [Link] |
Some Notes on Using FLEx
During the workshop there was ample opportunity to observe how 80 people interact with the same piece of software.
Of the 80 participants no more than 10 were from the university. While I was presenting my session I asked some technology owned questions and I found out that: Continue reading
The iPad Team
The Concept
I have had some ideas I wanted to try out for using the iPad as a tool for collecting photo metadata. Working in a corporate archive, I have become aware of several collections of photos without much metadata associated with them.
The photos are the property of (or are in the custodial care of) the company I work at (in their corporate archive).
The subject of the photos are either of two general areas:
- The minority language speaking people groups that the employees of a particular company worked with, including anthropological topics like ways of life, etc.
- Photos of operational events significant to telling the story of the company holding the photos.
Archives in more modern contexts are trying to show their relevance to not only academics, but also to general members of communities. In the United States there is a whole movement of social history. There are community preservation societies which take on the task of collecting old photographs and their stories and preserving, and presenting them for future generations.
The challenge at hand is: "How do we enrich photos by adding metadata to photos in the collections of archives?" There are many solutions to this kind of task. The refining, distilling, and reduction of stories and memories to writing and even to metadata fields is no easy task, nor is it a task that one person can do on their own. One solution, which is often employed by community historians is the personal interview. By interviewing the photographers or people who were at an event and asking them questions about a series of photos it presents an atmosphere of inquisitiveness and one where the story-teller is valued because they have a story-listener. This basic personal connection allows for interactions to occur across generational and technological barriers.
The crucial question is: "How do we facilitate an interaction which is positive for all the parties involved?" The effort and thinking behind answering this question has more to do with shaping human interactions than with anything else. We are also talking about using technology in this interaction. This is true UX or (User Experience).
Past Experience
This past summer I have had several experiences with facilitating one-on-one interactions between knowledgeable parties working with photographs and with someone acting on behalf of the corporate archive. To facilitate this interaction a GoogleDoc Spreadsheet was set up and the person acting on the behalf of the archive was granted access to the spreadsheet. The individual conducting the interview and listening to the stories brought their own netbook (small laptop) from which to enter any collected data. They were also given a photo album full of photos, which the interviewee would look through. This set-up required overcoming several local environmental challenges. As discussed below, some of these challenges were better addressed than others.
Association of Data to a Given Photo
The challenge of keeping up to 150 photos organized durring an interview so that metadata about any given photo could be collected and associated with only that photo. This was addressed by adhering an inventory sticker to the back of each photo and assigning each photo a single row in the GoogleDoc Spreadsheet. Using GoogleDocs was not the ideal solution, but rather than a solution of some compromises:
Strengths of GoogleDocs
- One of the great things about GoogleDocs is that the capability exists for multiple people to edit the spreadsheet simultaneously.
- Another strength of GoogleDocs is that there is a side bar chat feature so that if there is a question durring the interview that help could be had very quickly from management (me, who was offsite).
- The Data can be exported in the following formats: .xlsx , .xls , .csv , .pdf.
- There was no cost to deploy the technology.
- It is accessible through a web-browser in an OS neutral manner.
- The document is available wherever the internet is available.
- A single solution could be deployed and used by people digitizing photos, recording written metadata on the photos, and gathering metadata during an interview.
- Most people acting on behalf of the archive were familiar with the technology.
Pitfalls of GoogleDocs
- More columns exist in the spread sheet than can be practically managed (The columns are presented below in a table). There are about 48 values in a record and there are about 40,000 records.
- Does not display the various levels of data as levels of data as levels in the user interface.
- Cannot remove unnecessary fields from the UI of various people. (No role-based support.)
- Only available when there is internet.
Maximizing of Interview Time
To maximize time spent with the interviewee the photos and any metadata written or known about a photo was put into the GoogleDoc Spreadsheet prior to the interview. Sometimes this was not done by the interviewer but rather by someone else working on behalf of the archive. Durring the interview the interviewer could tell which data fields were empty by looking for the gray cells in the spreadsheet. However, just because the cells were did not mean that the interviewee was more prone to provide the desired, unknown, information.
Data Input Challenges
One unanticipated challenge which was encountered in the interviews was that as the interviewer would bring out an album or two of photos that the interviewees would be able to cover more photos than the interviewer could record.
Let me spell it out. There is one interviewer and two interviewees there are 150 photos in an album lying open on the table. All three participants are looking at the photo album. The interviewee A says look that is so-and-so
and then interviewee B (because the other page is closer to them) says and this is so-and-so!
This happens for about 8 of the 12 facing photos. Because the interviewer is still typing the first name mentioned they ask and when do you think that was?
But the metadata still comes in faster, as the second interviewee did not hear the question and the first one did but still thinking. The bottom line is that more photos are viewed and commented on faster than can be recorded.
Something that could help this process would be to in some way to slow-down (or moderate) the ability of the interviewee(s) to access the photos. Something that could synchronize the processing times with the viewing times. By scanning the photos and then displaying them on a tablet it slows down the viewing process and integrates the recording of data with the viewing of photos.
Positional Interaction Challenges
An interview is, at some level, an interaction. One question which comes up is How does the technology used affect that interaction? What we found was that a laptop usually was situated between the interviewer and the interviewees. This positioned the parties in an apposing manner. Rather than the content becoming the central focus of both parties, the content was either in front of the interviewer or in front of the interviewees. A tablet changes this dynamic in the interaction. It brings both parties together over a single set of content, both positionally and cognitively. When the photo is displayed on the laptop, the laptop has to be rotated so that the interviewees can see the image and then turned so that the interviewer can input the data. This is not the case for a tablet.
Content Management Challenges
When Paper is used for collecting metadata it is ideal to have one piece of paper for each photo. Sometimes this method is preferable to using a single computer. I used this method when I had a photo display and about 20 albums and about 200 people all filling out details at once.
People came and went as they pleased. When someone recognized someone or someplace they knew, they wrote down the picture ID and the info they were contributing along with their name. However, carrying around photo albums and paper there is the challenge of keeping all the photos from getting damaged, and maintaining the order of the photos and associated papers.Connectivity Challenges
When there is no internet there is no access to GoogleDocs. We encountered this when we went to someone's apartment, expecting interent because the interent is available on campus and this apartment was also on campus. Fortunately we did have a back up plan and paper pen was used. But this means that we now had to type out the data, which was written down on the paper; in effect doing the same recording work twice.
Size of Devices
Photo albums have a certain bulk and cumbersome-ness which is multiplied when carrying more than one album at a time. Add to this a computer laptop and one might as well add to the list of required items, a hand truck with which to carry everything. A tablet is all in all a lot smaller and lighter.
Laptop and TabletThis image is credited to Alia Haley [2] Alia Haley. 31 August 2011. Tablet vs. Laptop. Church Mag. [Accessed: 11 September 2011] http://churchm.ag/tablet-vs-laptop. [Link]
Proof of Concept Technology
As I mentioned before, I had an iPad in my possession for a few days. So to capitalize on the opportunity, I bought a few apps from the app store, as I mentioned that I would and tried them out.
Software which does not work for our purposes
Photoforge2
The first app I tried was Photoforge2. It is a highly rated app in the app store. I found that it delivered as promised. One could add or edit the IPTC and EXIF metadata. One could even edit where the photo was taken with a pin drop interface.
Meta Editor
Meta Editor, another iPad app, which was also highly acclaimed performed task almost as well. Photoforge2 had some photo editing features which were not needed in our project. Whereas Meta Editor was focused only on metadata elements.
- Both applications edit the Standards based IPTC and EXIF metadata fields in photos. We have some custom metadata which does not fit into either of these fileds.One aspect of the technology being discussed, which might be helpful for readers to understand, is that these iPad applications actually embed the metadata into the photos. So when the photos are then taken off of the iPad the metadata travels with them. This is a desirable feature for presentation photos.
- Even if we do embed the metadata with these apps the version of the photo being enriched is not the Archival version of the photo it is the Presentation version of the photo. We still need the data to become associated with the archival version of the photo.
Software with some really functional features
So we needed something with a mechanism for capturing our customized data. Two options were found which seemed to avail themselves as suitable for the task. One was ideal the other rapidly deployable. Understanding the iPads' place in the larger place of corporate architecture, relationship to the digital repository, the process of data flow from the point of collection to dissemination, will help us to visualize the particular challenges that the iPad presents solutions for. Once we see where the iPad sits in relationship to the rest of the digital landscape I think it will be fairly obvious why one solution is ideal and the other rapidly deployable.
Placement in the iPad in the Information Architecture Picture
In my previous post on Social Metadata Collection [3]Hugh J. Paterson III. 29 June 2011. The Journeyler. [Accessed: 13 September 2011] https://hugh.thejourneyler.org/social-meta-data-collection. [Link] I used the below image to show where the iPad was used in the metadata collection process.
Since that time, as I have shown this image when I talk about this idea, I have become aware that the image is not detailed enough. Because it is not detailed enough it can lead to some wrong assumptions on how the iPad use being proposed actually works. So, I am presenting a new image with a greater level of detail to show how the iPad interacts with other corporate systems and workflows.
There are several things to note here:
- Member Disporia as represented here is not just members, it is their families, the people with whom these members worked, it is the members currently working and it the members living close at hand on campus, not just in disporia.
- It is a copy of the presentation file which is pushed out to the iPad or the website for the Member Disporia. This copy of the file does not necessarily need to be brought back to the archive as long as the metadata is synced back appropriately.
- The Institutional Repository for other corporate items is currently in a DSpace instance. However, it has not been decided for sure that photos will be housed in this same instance, or even in DSpace.
That said, it is important that the metadata be embedded in the presentation file of the image, as well as accessible to the Main container for the archival of the photos. The metadata also needs to sync between the iPad application and the Member Diaspora website. Metadata truly needs to flow through the entire system.
FileMaker Pro with File Maker Go
FileMaker Pro is a powerful database app. It could drive the Member Disporia website and then also sync with the iPad. This would be a one-stop solution and therefore and ideal solution. It is also complex and takes more skill to set up than I currently have, or I can currently spare to acquire. Both FileMaker Pro and its younger cousin Bento enable Photos to be embedded in the actual database.Several tips from the Bento forums on syncing photos which are part of the database:
Syncing pictures from Bento-Mac to Bento-iPad
Sync multiple photos or files from desktop to IPad
This is something which is important with regards to syncing with the iPad. To the best of my knowledge (and googling) no other database apps for the iPad or Android platforms allow for the syncing of photos within the app.
Bento
Bento is the rapidly deployable option.What are the differences between Bento 4 for Mac, Bento for iPad 1.1.x, and Bento for iPhone/iPod touch 1.1.x?
It took me about 2 hours (while doing other stuff) to download a trial version, find out how it worked, import my data from the GoogleDoc and then sync my database with the iPad.
Here is a YouTube video demonstrating my proof of concept using Bento.
httpv://youtu.be/_Eo5Ru0BF-k
Here is a series of iPad Screen shots.
Some outstanding issues
- Geo-location of Photos in Bento. Bento version 4 does have location fileds which can be used with a pin drop interface to add location data to the appropiate fileds in the database. My proof of concept demo does not demonstrate this feature.Using Geo-location fields in Bento: Working with Location Fields in Bento
How to use Location fields in Bento for iPhone/iPad 1.1.1 - Rapid reuse of data. Because the interview process naturally lends itself to eliciting the same kind of data over a multitude of photos a UX/UI element which allows the rapid reuse of data would be very practical. The kinds of data which would lend themselves to rapid reuse would be peoples' names, locations, dates, photographer, etc. This may mean being able to query a table of already input'd data values with an auto-suggest type function.
Custom iPad App
Of course there is also the option to develop a custom iPad app for just our purposes. This entails some other kinds of planning, including but not limited to:
- Custom App development
- Support plan
- Deploy or develop possible Web-backend - if needed.
Kinds of custom metadata being collected.
The table in this section shows the kinds of questions we are asking in our interviews. It is not only provided for reference as a discussion of the Information Architecture for the storage and elements of the metadata schema is out of the scope of this discussion. The list of questions and values presented in the table was derived as a minimal set of questions based on issues of Image Workflow Processing, Intelectual Property and Permissions, Academic Merit and input from the controlled vocabulary's Caption and Keywording Guidelines [4] Controlled Vocabulary. Caption and Keywording Guidelines. [Accessed: 13 September 2011] http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/metalogging/ck_guidelines.html. [Link] which is part of their series on metalogging. The table also shows corresponding IPTC, and EXIF data fields. (Though they are currently empty because I have not filed them in.) Understanding the relationships of XMP, IPTC, and EXIF also help us to understand why and how the iPad tool needs to interact with other Archiving solutions. However, it is not within the scope of this post to discuss these differences.Some useful resources on these issues are noted here:
- Photolinker Metadata Tags [5] Early Innovations, LLC. 2011. Photolinker Metadata Tags. [Accessed: 13 September 2011] http://www.earlyinnovations.com/photolinker/metadata-tags.html. [Link] has a nice display outlining where XMP, IPTC and EXIF data overlap. This is not authoritative, but rather practical.
- List of IPTC fields: List of IPTC fields. However, a list is not enough we also need to know what they mean so that we know that we are using them correctly.
- EXIF and IPTC Header Comments. Here is another list of IPTC fileds. This list also includes a list of list of EXIF fileds. (Again without definitions.)
- Various programs and applications also add their own metadata fields in the IPTC section. Here is a mapping of some of the most popular ones: http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/imagedatabases/iptc_core_mapped.pdf
- IPTC Standard Photo Metadata [6]David Riecks. 2010. IPTC Standard Photo Metadata (July 2010). International Press Telecommunications Council. [Accessed: 13 September 2011] … Continue reading http://www.iptc.org/std/photometadata/documentation/IPTC-PLUS-Metadata-Panel-UserGuide_6.pdf
- Doublin Core with Photographs: http://makeit.digitalnz.org/askaquestion/questions/26
- Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1: http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/
- DCMI Type Vocabulary: http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-type-vocabulary/
- Describing Digital Content: http://makeit.digitalnz.org/guidelines/describing-digital-content/
It is sufficient to note that there is some, and only some overlap.
Metadata Element | Purpose | Explanation | Doublin Core | IPTC Tags | EXIF Tags |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Photo Collection | This is the name of the collection in which the photos reside | ||||
Sub Collection | This is the name of the sub collection in which the photos reside | ||||
Letter of Collection | Each collection is given an alpha character or a series of alpha characters, if the collection pertains to one people group then the alpha characters given to that collection are the three digit ISO 639-3 code | ||||
Who input the Meta-data | This is the name of the person inputting the metadata | ||||
Photo Number | This is the number of the photo as we have inventoried the photo | ||||
Negative Number | This is the number of the photo as it appears on the negative (film strip) | ||||
Roll | This is the ID of the Roll | Most sets of negatives are cut into strips of 5 or less this allows us to group these sets together to ID a “set” of photos | |||
Section Number | If the items are in a book or a scrap book and that scrap book has a section this is where that is recoreded | ||||
Page# | If a scrap book has a set of pages then this is where they are recoreded | ||||
Duplicates | This is where the Photo ID of a duplicate item is referenced. | ||||
Old Inventory Number(s) | This is the inventory number of an item if it were part of another invenotry system | ||||
Photographer | This is the name of the photographer | ||||
Subject 1 (who) | Who is in the photo, this should be an unlimited field. That is sveral names should be able to be added to this. | ||||
Subject 2 | Who is in the photo, this should be an unlimited field. That is sveral names should be able to be added to this. | ||||
Subject 3 | Who is in the photo, this should be an unlimited field. That is sveral names should be able to be added to this. | ||||
Subject 4 | Who is in the photo, this should be an unlimited field. That is sveral names should be able to be added to this. | ||||
Subject 5 | Who is in the photo, this should be an unlimited field. That is sveral names should be able to be added to this. | ||||
People group | This is the name of the people group meneined in the ISO 639-3 codes | ||||
ISO 639-3 Code | This is the ISO 639-3 code of the people group being photographed | ||||
When was the photo Taken? | The date the photo was taken | ||||
Country | The country in which the photo was taken | ||||
District/City | This is the City where the photo was taken | ||||
Exact Place | The exact place name where the photo was taken | ||||
What is in the Photo (what) | This is an item in the photo | ||||
What is in the Photo | Additional what is in the photo | ||||
What is in the Photo | Addtional what is in the photo | ||||
Why was the Photo Taken? | This is to help metadata providers think about how events get communicated | ||||
Description | This is a description of the photo’s contents | This is not a caption but could be used as a caption | |||
Who Provided This Meta-Data? And when? | We need to keep track of who is the source of certain metadata to understand its authority | ||||
Who Provided This Meta-Data? And when? | We need to keep track of who is the source of certain metadata to understand its authority | ||||
Who Provided This Meta-Data? And when? | We need to keep track of who is the source of certain metadata to understand its authority | ||||
Who Provided This Meta-Data? And when? | We need to keep track of who is the source of certain metadata to understand its authority | ||||
Who Provided This Meta-Data? And when? | We need to keep track of who is the source of certain metadata to understand its authority | ||||
I am in this photo and I approve it to be on the internet. Put in "yes" or "No" and write your name in the next column. | Permission to distribute | ||||
Name: | Name of the person releasing the photo | ||||
How was this photo digitized? | Method of digitization and the tools used in digitization | ||||
Who digitized This photo | This is the name of the person who did the digitization |
References
↑1 | Alia Haley. 31 August 2011. Tablet vs. Laptop. Church Mag. [Accessed: 11 September 2011] http://churchm.ag/tablet-vs-laptop. [<a href="http://churchm.ag/tablet-vs-laptop" title="Tablet vs Laptop">Link</a>] |
---|---|
↑2 | Alia Haley. 31 August 2011. Tablet vs. Laptop. Church Mag. [Accessed: 11 September 2011] http://churchm.ag/tablet-vs-laptop. [Link] |
↑3 | Hugh J. Paterson III. 29 June 2011. The Journeyler. [Accessed: 13 September 2011] https://hugh.thejourneyler.org/social-meta-data-collection. [Link] |
↑4 | Controlled Vocabulary. Caption and Keywording Guidelines. [Accessed: 13 September 2011] http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/metalogging/ck_guidelines.html. [Link] |
↑5 | Early Innovations, LLC. 2011. Photolinker Metadata Tags. [Accessed: 13 September 2011] http://www.earlyinnovations.com/photolinker/metadata-tags.html. [Link] |
↑6 | David Riecks. 2010. IPTC Standard Photo Metadata (July 2010). International Press Telecommunications Council. [Accessed: 13 September 2011] http://www.iptc.org/std/photometadata/documentation/IPTC-PLUS-Metadata-Panel-UserGuide_6.pdf [Link] |
Many Facets to Planning a Website
I found this image which I think explains many of the kinds of things that Website builders need to think through. For some in the industry this is like.. Duh! but for others this kind of layout really helps us see the complexity and the parts we need to be thinking through to implement the website.