Week 27

Summary

This week, we focused on analyzing the basic usage logs that resulted from two weeks of touch table use, in combination with the “Hidden Figures” application. This provided a better understanding of how the touch table is used in the physical library setting, but also of how we could improve the current application. We carried out these actual improvements, and documented the analysis in a new post in the “exploratory studies” section of this website.

Specific activities, including

1. Creating summaries of the CHIIR conference (Hugo, 13.03.2017). (see weekly report of last week, more to follow).
    
2. Analyzing usage logs (Hugo, Dan Michael, 14 to 16.03.17)
    
3. Creating scripts for processing and analyzing touch table usage logs, in the Python programming language. E.g. time distribution of touch table use, heatmaps of clicks on different application elements, depth of exploration
    
4. Improving Hidden Figures touch table application based on usage log analysis (Dan Michael, Hugo, 14 and 17.03.17)
   -Fix missing page destinations of “tap me” icons shown in home screen of the interface (to encourage people to use the application)
   -Move physical book representations to deeper application pages, and putting only e-books on the home screen. This was done because the generated “heatmaps” showed that users appeared to be confused about the distinction between physical and full-text ebook representations in the application
   -Improve the logging for e-book use. Right now, only opening or closing an e-book is registered. We updated the application to also register when users swipe to turn a page, use the page turning buttons, and the table of contents (if available in the e-book). This will give more insights into actual e-book use and application usability.
    
5. Creating a new “explorative study” for the website (Hugo, 17.03.17)
   -Showing and visualizing statistics gathered during the first two weeks:

Revealing Invisible Interactions: Studying Usage of a Touch Table Application related to "Hidden Figures" (this page may still be refined further in the coming days)

1. Updating accepted paper abstract for VIRAK 2017 (Mikaela, 15.03.17)
   -Paper title: “More than Meets the Eye” - Analyzing the Success of User Queries in the University of Oslo’s Oria Catalog (Hugo, Mikaela, Dan Michael)