The Project

Executive Summary: Recommendations

Recommendations: top | for BNHM | for MVZ and MaNIS

Recommendations for the Berkeley Natural History Museums

Relevant Reports:

A) Position BNHM as a resource for teachers to use natural history in their classroom.

The association of museums and reserves that comprise BNHM is truly astounding, and BNHM's natural role is to facilitate a translation of the research focus of these institutions into the curiousity/learning focus of teachers and the public. Start with California, using the keys & resources the GK-12 project can bring in, content from U. C. Press, and perhaps what the CalBugs can contribute. Hire a curriculum and educational programs developer with solid teaching experience. In five years, people should think of BNHM's website as the resource for learning, teaching, and discovering California's natural history.

The next several recommendations describe specific steps to build towards that goal. They start with the immediately feasible and grade towards longer-term projects.

In the short term:

Improve the usability & friendliness of the BNHM browse & query functions as recommended in the review.

Feature-a-researcher from the BNHM community each month. Develop both the willing and the technology for this. That's 2 times per year for each institution. Tie the work of these scientists into California & National science education standards where possible.

Visualize where researchers work. Mapping is good. Tying to the familiar is critical. Have the featured research show up on a map, and a map as a way of searching for previous featured research articles.

Show people that research happens near them. Develop an online map gizmo where people can explore & zoom on a map, but also type in their zip code (even address), or a name of a town or protected area, and get a map of the research that has been done there. Use cute icons - birds, bones, frogs, etc. - to represent the specimen collection localities. If a featured researcher has done research in this area, show that with another blob of color on the background of the map. Precision isn't important, but something showing up is, so expand the search area until it includes something. Think simple! and check it with children for the "Oh cool!" factor.

In the medium term:

Develop a California biome-specific field guide. Collaborate with eNature.com, with FOSS, or make your own. The educators & students are the primary audience for this.

Develop GOOD browsing or multi-access keys for people to use for identifying things they've seen. These are currently missing from the CNHO content, and eNature. Have it be time-sensitive - what are they likely to see NOW?

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In the long term:

Be a website that is specifc and successful at addressing the need - "What is this that I saw/found?" and "Where can I go to see interesting things?" Good pictures, good interface design, and timely information are keys to this. Consider making a dynamic community with contributions - perhaps people can post a picture to the site & other visitors can suggest identifications. Good picture submissions can add to the site's visual content. Don't forget about bugs - insects & flowers are really good for this stuff. Perhaps the site sends messages about natural history events to a e-mail list (buckeyes blooming, elephant seals at Ana Nuevo, wildflower season starting in the sierras at #### ft, go here to see bats emerging at night, warbler migration noticed in South Bay, see the whooping cranes in the valley west of Sacramento, also include events from the UC Botanic gardens, etc). Such a site would need a suite of online applications to manage the content, submissions, e-mails, etc., and a part-time moderator to generate postings, facilitate identifications, and identify & get the rights to photos.

B) Incorporate usability and user interface design time/expertise into every online project.

Plan to do iterative usability testing with the public for any of these applications, and for every online website and internal software. It doesn't take much... just catch 3 people who haven't seen it before, describe in general terms what they'd be trying to do at the application, and then watch - see if they figure it out. Watch what comes easily and what doesn't. This can be done by programmers, a grad student, or by a project lead - either way, it's critical to understanding what's obvious to the developers, and what's NOT obvious to users (or what should be easier, to save staff time & serve the public better).

As budgets for new projects are developed, include a GSR for a SIMS student, or set aside some money to hire one on an hourly basis. A little bit of attention to usability helps to put a human, rather than technical, face on things!

Recommendations: top | for BNHM | for MVZ and MaNIS

Recommendations for the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and MaNIS project

Relevant Reports:

A) Reduce the need to "learn" the MVZ data access application

MVZ users have learned the application through frequent use; however, the MVZ seeks to serve a wider audience of infrequent users, for which the application must be straightforward to use the first time.

A brief evaluation and suggested changes for the current search interface is included among the reports for this project. When the opportunity arises to overhaul the interface, I recommend implementing a modified version of the MaNIS Interface Project's design. Design principles embodied in the MaNIS Interface Project's design address and eliminate the frustrations users have found with the current interface, while easily providing all the same functionality of the current search interface. Additionally, it provides a good framework for incorporating additional functionality such as preview numbers, summary tables and a map as a query interface.

B) Keep the Field Notebook pages as the focus of the project's applications

In contrast to specimen data records, the field notebook scans can actually be present on the webpage as people work to enter data about them. This places the page itself as the central focus of the work, rather than filling in a form about the page, and is a good practice that will pay off in less confusion in the long run. Support the development efforts by the programmers and curators that keep the scan of the field notebook pages themselves as the foundation of the user interface.

C) Make small changes to current MaNIS search interface; plan on larger changes to interface for future DiGIR projects, ORNIS and HerpNet.

Knowing that the design suggested for the MaNIS interface by the MaNIS Interface Design project is out of scope for the MaNIS project's September deadline, I pulled together a list of suggestions for improving the search interface within the current interaction paradigm. John W. can make such changes if time permits. For ORNIS and HerpNet, I hope the interaction paradigm designed in the MaNIS Interface Design project will be within scope.

Interviews with curators and answers to the survey questions will help to inform the DiGIR portal query logging application. A key insight is to include, in every line of the log, something about what happened in the last query, so that the user paths through the application can be re-created.

D) Incorporate usability and user interface design time/expertise into every online project.

Plan to do iterative usability testing with the public for any of these applications, and for every online website and internal software. It doesn't take much... just catch 3 people who haven't seen it before, describe in general terms what they'd be trying to do at the application, and then watch - see if they figure it out. Watch what comes easily and what doesn't. This can be done by programmers, a grad student, or by a project lead - either way, it's critical to understanding what's obvious to the developers, and what's NOT obvious to users (or what should be easier, to save staff time & serve the public better).

As budgets for new projects are developed, include a GSR for a SIMS student, or set aside some money to hire one on an hourly basis. A little bit of attention to usability helps to put a human, rather than technical, face on things!

Recommendations: top | for BNHM | for MVZ and MaNIS