Mr and Mrs Fonds...?

Notes from an article by W. Duff and P Stoyanova: Transforming the Crazy Quilt: Archival Displays from a Users' Point of view. Archivaria 45 (Spring 1998)

Although this study is quite old now, I think it provides very useful information that I thought was worth writing about in case people hadn't come across it before. This is a summary written mainly from our point of view as the Hub Team, so thinking really about what we can learn from the study and apply to display on the Archives Hub.

If anyone has any pointers to other useful information about user testing and users' opinions on archival display we'd be very interested to hear from you!

This study used focus groups to obtain users’ opinions on the content and format of displays in archival information systems. It used six sample displays of fonds level descriptions, all based on the Canadian Rules for Archival Description (RAD). So, the elements were not necessarily those used in ISAD(G) and therefore not entirely as we might use them in the UK, or more specifically for the Archives Hub. However, there is a great deal of similarity and the findings are very useful for us in terms of thinking about how we display descriptions. The study did not focus on multi-level descriptions, and certainly this is an area where more research is needed.

The study used a group of 27 participants, divided into 5 focus groups. All but two of the participants had university degrees, seven had a masters degree and 8 were enrolled on a PhD. Most were frequent users of a variety of archives for a variety of different research purposes.

Each group discussed the six different displays of a fonds level description, completed a questionnaire asking them to evaluate the displays and rank 32 data elements and discussed the design of an ideal description. I don't think the specific software used was so important - the thing was to have six different displays that used different formatting and layout.

Four of the six displays were created by different archives from different systems, one came from an EAD project and one was created specially and based on a prototype display that was constructed according to design guidelines (following on from a study by Annie Luk that looked at the bibliographic elements that users find more or less useful in a bibliographic display). The evaluation was undoubtedly influenced by the fact that participants looked at printouts of the displays rather than actual computer screens, and also by the particular content of the description that was used, which was for the well-known Canadian writer Margaret Laurence. The particular font type used and size of type may also have influenced the preferences of the participants. However, the finding are certainly useful and provide valuable feedback from real users of archives that we can take and feed into our own user evaluation work.

The findings

Whilst full consensus was inevitably not achieved, a number of preferences were generally agreed and they are reflected in this summary.

General points on the text

It was felt that abbreviations, repetition and excessive information can make displays difficult to read.

For some participants, too much information was felt to interfere with the reading of the description, but views on this seemed to vary and partly depend on the research being undertaken. It seems that the layout was more important than the length of the record in terms of usability.

Formatting and Layout

There was a general preference for element headings to be right justified with bolded labels as this is easy on the eye and helps with quickly browsing displays to find relevant information.

White space and extra lines were felt to make displays easier and faster to read. Lists were considered essential as a means to locate information quickly and efficiently and improve understanding of the content of the collection.

Use of bold typefaces, labels, white space and justification were felt to be very useful means to improve the readability of display.

Terminology

Some of the labels were felt to be confusing. Preferred terms included ‘scope and content’ over ‘abstract’, ‘additional materials’ over ‘associated materials’ and ‘access conditions’ over ‘access restrictions’. Some of the other terms mentioned are generally not used in ISAD(G) displays.

The term ‘fonds’ caused greatest confusion. It seems that in this example it was used in the title: ‘Margaret Laurence Fonds’ (presumably this is a RAD thing). Some people thought that ‘fonds’ was part of the name. The article includes some funny commentary on this, and one participant had enquired at an archive repository as to why so many people had the same last name!

Help

Glossaries, online help functions, electronic finding aids and indexes were suggested as useful additions to the descriptions.

Order of elements

When ranking the elements, the title, reference number and scope and content were considered to be the most important elements. Name of creator was not ranked very highly but this may be because the name of creator was included in the title for the example description. The majority of participants ranked the title as most important, but some ranked the reference number (call number) as most important. Many participants wanted the reference number right at the beginning of the display.

In general, participants seemed to prefer the order of elements resembling that prescribed by ISAD(G). The only major difference was that some participants wanted scope and content to be part of a ‘what is it about’ section in the display (sections suggested by one group were: what is it about? who is it about? how do I access it? where do I go from here?).

Element headings (labels) and content

The authors of the study felt that more research is probably needed on this area, as there has been very little analysis of archival terminology (much more on library terminology).

Access: More detailed information on how to get the archives themselves was considered to be very important and should be displayed near the beginning of the record.

Scope and Content: Rated as the third most important element in the display. Some participants wanted the dates of creation to be in the Scope and Content. Some liked the narrative approach and felt this could provide more useful information than would be given within a succinct list. Other participants preferred to just have a list of contents. Literary scholars wanted more complete information under scope and content than some other types of researchers (possibly this was partly because the example was for a writer). The conclusion seemed to be that a short narrative overview with a list of the content (series) would be the best option. Some users wanted the content list to link to more detailed information about each series.

Biographical information: Participants felt that it was odd to have a much longer biographical entry than scope and content and some found it too lengthy. Others commented that this section could contain information that was hard to find elsewhere and may therefore be very valuable. Some did not feel the biographical section was important at all as they could find the information elsewhere.

There seemed to be a difference of opinion about this section, although most did want the information included but did not want the display cluttered up with long biographical descriptions. It seemed that many participants wanted the biographical information to be at the end of the description so that people who wanted this additional information could scroll down to it, but the key information about the actual archive was at the top. A further option suggested was to have a short biographical section that linked to a longer text.

Finding aids: information on the availability of finding aids was rated very highly and participants wanted more detailed information on the type of finding aids that existed. If they have to travel some distance to the repository, they want to know exactly how useful the finding aids would be.

Extent: this was rated the fifth highest element in importance. Many participants were confused by linear metres and liked the use of the number of boxes.

Physical description: this was particularly important for those using special media (maps, drawings, etc.). Participants preferred information about extent and physical description to be together in the display.

Dates of creation: were felt to be very important, but some were unsure what they meant. Some thought the dates meant when the papers were assembled rather than when they were created, others thought they were the creator’s birth and death dates. The Splinder Pearce-Moses study found that only one third of users were able to interpret date information correctly, so we need to give a good deal of thought as to how to convey what the dates of creation are.

Ideal Display

The results indicated that the display created according to design guidelines was the preferred option. This display used right-justified labels, lists, white space and bold to facilitate readability. Whilst this type of layout might make the description longer, it was felt that this was not a problem as it actually made the description much easier to skim read.

References

Annie T Luk, Evaluating bibliographic displays from the users' point of view: a focus group study. University of Toronto Faculty of Information Studies. Available at http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=733&Itemid=379

Robert P. Spindler and Richard Pearce-Moses, Does AMC Mean Archives Made Confusing? Patron understanding of US MARC AMC catalog records. American Archivist 56 (Spring 1993)