Tom Heath, John Domingue, Paul Shabajee Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University and ILRT, University of Bristol to be presented at The 3rd International

Tom Heath, John Domingue, Paul ShabajeeKnowledge Media Institute, The Open University

and ILRT, University of Bristol

to be presented atThe 3rd International Semantic Web User Interaction Workshop

5th International Semantic Web Conference, November 2006, Athens, GA

User Interaction and Uptake Challengesto Successfully Deploying Semantic Web

Technologies

User Interaction and Uptake Challenges to Successfully Deploying Semantic Web Technologies

Tom Heath, John Domingue, Paul Shabajee2

the premise



premise



how much do we know about how users will take up and interact with semantic web

technologies?



in this paper…



7 user interaction and uptake challenges

to successfully deploying

semantic web technologies



overview

→ deployment of Semantic Web technologies at ESWC2006

→ evaluation: delegates’ experiences of these technologies

→ user interaction and uptake challenges



deployment of semantic web technologies at ESWC2006

• aims– enhance the conference experience– showcase the state of the art– allow us to eat our own dog food

=> stimulate future research





deployment of semantic web technologies at ESWC2006

• pre-generated semantic descriptions

• annotation tools(e.g. semantic wiki, photo annotation application)

• tools that could use the annotations(e.g. semantic search engine, semantic browser/desktop)









evaluation of ESWC2006 technologies

• aim– capture experiences and impressions of the

technologies from the user’s perspective

• method– online questionnaire, scaled and free response

questions– 48 (voluntary) responses (16% of delegates)– qualitative (thematic) analysis



7 user interaction and uptake challenges

to successfully deploying

semantic web technologies



1. increased awareness

• people need to know about it to use it (!)

• may encourage more people to take a look…

• …but is not enough by itself



2. clearer benefits

• describe functionality in terms of benefits not technology…

• …even for the semantic web community!

• how do we convey clear benefits of semantic web technologies to a lay audience(without having to explain the semantic web)?



3. appropriate functionality

• give the people what they want

• did the applications meet clearly defined and well evidenced user needs?

• are wishlists and motivating scenarios adequate and appropriate?



4. guidance to users

• provide more hand-holding for novel functionality

• which mental models can people use to understand novel functionality?

• how do we support users in developing new mental models?



5. improved usability

• attend to basic usability needs

• does existing usability literature provide sufficient guidance on designing usable semantic web experiences?



6. coherence

• ensure a coherent user experience

• …in use and reuse of data

• …in the navigation experience



7. critical mass of participation

• understand how to reach critical mass

• not limited to ‘social’ applications

• need to take guidance from generic literature



• generalisability of the findings• non-systematic sampling• can’t claim generality

– but…• some commonality with existing models• if we have these problems, then…

• further evaluations required

conclusions



thankyou

• [email protected]

• http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/tom

• http://eprints.aktors.org/532/

• http://www.eswc2006.org/technologies

• http://www.eswc2006.org/rdf/

Documents

Tom Heath, John Domingue, Paul Shabajee Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University and ILRT, University of Bristol to be presented at The 3rd International