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The user interface is defined as the link between the computer and the user. With organizations striving to increase productivity, focus must be shifted from the capabilities of the machine to the ability of the user. Research has shown that the use of the graphic user interface leads to a reduced learning curve for the user as well as a resulting efficiency increase. Provides an overview of research findings which support the use of the graphic interface to increase user productivity.

The MacNOTIS interface development and test used the Apple Macintosh, HyperCard, and MitemView communications software to develop and test an intuitive interface to NOTIS systems. While the concept and design were viewed favorably by the users, technical and speed issues made the interface too slow for widespread use. MacNOTIS pointed the way to several interface enhancements that should be incorporated in future NOTIS user interfaces.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usability of a web‐based OPAC (WebPAC) user interface at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). It also looks at the applicability of heuristic evaluation in designing a user‐centered WebPAC interface.

Based on Nielsen's ten usability heuristic principles, the study focuses on three heuristics only, i.e. aesthetic and minimalist design, match between interface and the real world, and visibility of interface status.

Results of the study found that the WebPAC interface conforms to at least 70 percent usability properties prescribed. Usability problems violated in the interface were identified.

The study suggests that heuristic evaluation is applicable in libraries to asses the usability of user interface for online catalogs.

Heuristic evaluation could assist libraries in designing user‐centered interface for online catalogs.

This paper aims to describe the results of a usability test performed at Western Washington University to determine whether users were as successful performing common catalog‐related tasks in WorldCat Local as they are in the library's current catalog, Innovative Interfaces' WebPAC.

A usability team developed a test based on tasks commonly performed in the library catalog. They then tested 24 participants of varying levels of experience and asked each to perform 20 common catalog tasks in either the WebPAC interface currently in use or the WorldCat Local interface. The WorldCat Local interface was a test version which reflected Western Washington University's library holdings, in addition to the Orbis Cascade Alliance consortial holdings and all WorldCat holdings.

While the results found that there were tasks in which participants were more successful in WorldCat Local than in the WebPAC, they also identified common tasks in which users were far less successful in WorldCat Local than in the WebPAC.

WorldCat Local is one example of a new generation of discovery interfaces that is being considered by a number of academic institutions. This paper provides some insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the product.

The authors introduce two semantics-based navigation applications that facilitate information-seeking activities in internal link-based web sites in Wikipedia. These applications aim to help users find concepts within a topic and related articles on a given topic quickly and then gain topical knowledge from internal link-based encyclopedia web sites. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The WNavi s application consists of three information visualization (IV) tools which are a topic network, a hierarchy topic tree and summaries for topics. The WikiMap application consists of a topic network. The goal of the topic network and topic tree tools is to help users to find the major concepts of a topic and identify relationships between these major concepts easily. In addition, in order to locate specific information and enable users to explore and read topic-related articles quickly, the topic tree and summaries for topics tools support users to gain topical knowledge quickly. The authors then apply the k-clique of cohesive indicator to analyze the sub topics of the seed query and find out the best clustering results via the cosine measure. The authors utilize four metrics, which are correctness, time cost, usage behaviors, and satisfaction, to evaluate the three interfaces. These metrics measure both the outputs and outcomes of applications. As a baseline system for evaluation the authors used a traditional Wikipedia interface. For the evaluation, the authors used an experimental user study with 30 participants.

The results indicate that both WikiMap and WNavi s supported users to identify concepts and their relations better compared to the baseline. In topical tasks WNavi s over performed both WikiMap and the baseline system. Although there were no time differences in finding concepts or answering topical questions, the test systems provided users with a greater gain per time unit. The users of WNavi s leaned on the hierarchy tree instead of other tools, whereas WikiMap users used the topic map.

The findings have implications for the design of IR support tools in knowledge-intensive web sites that help users to explore topics and concepts.

The authors explored to what extent the use of each IV support tool contributed to successful exploration of topics in search tasks. The authors propose extended task-based evaluation measures to understand how each application provides useful context for users to accomplish the tasks and attain the search goals. That is, the authors not only evaluate the output of the search results, e.g. the number of relevant items retrieved, but also the outcome provided by the system for assisting users to attain the search goal.

This paper seeks to report an investigation into the ways in which end‐users perceive a thesaurus‐enhanced search interface, in particular thesaurus and search interface usability.

Thirty academic users, split between staff and postgraduate students, carrying out real search requests were observed during this study. Users were asked to comment on a range of thesaurus and interface characteristics including: ease of use, ease of learning, ease of browsing and navigation, problems and difficulties encountered while interacting with the system, and the effect of browsing on search term selection.

The results suggest that interface usability is a factor affecting thesaurus browsing/navigation and other information‐searching behaviours. Academic staff viewed the function of a thesaurus as being useful for narrowing down a search and providing alternative search terms, while postgraduates stressed the role of the thesaurus for broadening searches and providing new terms.

The paper provides an insight into the ways in which end‐users make use of and interact with a thesaurus‐enhanced search interface. This area is new since previous research has particularly focused on how professional searchers and librarians make use of thesauri and thesaurus‐enhanced search interfaces. The research reported here suggests that end‐users with varying levels of domain knowledge are able to use thesauri that are integrated into search interfaces. It also provides design implications for search interface developers as well as information professionals who are involved in teaching online searching.

Many features constitute an adaptive system such as user model, interface specification, business functionalities and service implementation. Context awareness is an important facet of service oriented application creation dealing with the gathering, use and representation of context information. Generally, user interfaces and services communities work separately on the adaptation process and do not converge. The aim of this work is to manage the system’s functionalities and the user interface that delivers data to the relevant consumer early since the design phase until the code generation.

The authors discuss how a unified method based on a model-driven architecture for adaptive user interface and pervasive service creation eases the work of designers and developers, limits incompatibility issues and supports dynamic generation of systems adapted to different contexts of use.

The proposed approach is able to support a semi-automatic ubiquitous application generation with service, behavior, presentation and content adaptation.

In this paper, the authors tackle context-awareness at two levels: system functionalities and user interface generation. The authors also tackle adaptation at the specification and implementation levels.

This paper aims to introduce a prototype system called SAFQuery (Simple And Flexible Query interface). In many existing Web search interfaces, simple and advanced query processes are treated separately that cannot be issued interchangeably. In addition, after several rounds of queries for specific information need(s), it is possible that users might wish to re-examine the retrieval results corresponding to some previous queries or to slightly modify some of the specific queries issued before. However, it is often hard to remember what queries have been issued. These factors make the current Web search process not very simple or flexible.

In SAFQuery, the simple and advanced query strategies are integrated into a single interface, which can easily formulate query specifications when needed in the same interface. Moreover, query history information is provided that displays the past query specifications, which can help with the memory load.

The authors' experiments by user evaluation show that most users had a positive experience when using SAFQuery. Specifically, it is easy to use and can simplify the Web search task.

The proposed prototype system provides simple and flexible Web search strategies. Particularly, it allows users to easily issue simple and advanced queries based on one single query interface, interchangeably. In addition, users can easily input previously issued queries without spending time to recall what the queries are and/or to re-type previous queries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate user experiences with a touch-wall interface featuring both clustering and categorization representations of available e-books in a public library to understand human information interactions under work-focused and recreational contexts.

Researchers collected questionnaires from 251 New Taipei City Library visitors who used the touch-wall interface to search for new titles. The authors applied structural equation modelling to examine relationships among hedonic/utilitarian needs, clustering and categorization representations, perceived ease of use (EU) and the extent to which users experienced anxiety and uncertainty (AU) while interacting with the interface.

Utilitarian users who have an explicit idea of what they intend to find tend to prefer the categorization interface. A hedonic-oriented user tends to prefer clustering interfaces. Users reported EU regardless of which interface they engaged with. Results revealed that use of the clustering interface had a negative correlation with AU. Users that seek to satisfy utilitarian needs tended to emphasize the importance of perceived EU, whilst pleasure-seeking users were a little more tolerant of anxiety or uncertainty.

The Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) encourages library visitors to borrow digital books through the implementation of an information visualization system. This situation poses an opportunity to validate uses and gratification theory. People with hedonic/utilitarian needs displayed different risk-control attitudes and affected uncertainty using the interface. Knowledge about user interaction with such interfaces is vital when launching the development of a new OPAC.

The purpose of this paper is to explore children’s spatial cognitive abilities as they engaged in information-seeking behaviors on two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) digital interfaces.

Children between the ages of seven and 11 were observed as they browsed either a 2D or 3D navigation interface for a children’s digital library. Data regarding their use of the overview function and depth cues were analyzed to reveal the relationships between search performance efficiency, precision, and effectiveness and the associative memory, visualization memory, and spatial visualization abilities of the user.

Children spent less time using the 2D interface when compared to time spent using the 3D interface. Children exhibited better performance precision when using the 3D interface. Children applied exhaustive strategies and more varied cognitive skills across different tasks when using the 2D interface, and applied a more focussed approach when using the 3D interface.

The cognitive abilities of children are not yet fully developed, so they require a unique user interface when browsing digital libraries. This study served the practical purpose of developing a game-like user interface for ease of use. Providing an effective overview function allows young users with less developed cognitive abilities to navigate informational cues. They can then build an effective mind map and implement efficient way-finding strategies.