[Myexperiment-discuss] An experimental user interface to MyExperiment

[Ross Gardler]

As part of the Rave in Context project (funded by the JISC) we will be
building an experimental user interface for MyExperiment and a couple
of other useful research tools. With this mail I want to ask for your
input on the project.

This work is not designed to replace the existing UIs, it is intended
to make MyExperiment usable in different ways. The premise is that
whilst the web UI does a perfectly good job of providing feature rich
interactions with the MyExperiment system it is not ideally suited to
working with MyExperiment data in other ways and via mobile devices
with small screens.

The Rave in Context project is building an experimental widget based
user interface to MyExperiment, OpenDOAR listed repositories and the
Simal project registry. The goal is to demonstrate that it is possible
to build a simple and accessible user interface to multiple systems
that can adapt to the changing needs of a researcher accessing the
system in different ways.

Widgets are HTML+Javascript+CSS applications that are packaged using a
W3C specification so that they can be deployed in different
environments. The widgets we build will be deployable on many
platforms such as Wordpress, Drupal, Elgg etc.
A key focus of this project is to ensure that the widgets are usable,
learnable and accessible.

One way we will be enhancing the usability of the three systems
together is by providing a single web based portal that will provide a
unified user interface to each of the three systems (MyExperiment,
OpenDOAR and Simal).

Let me repeat, we are not seeking to replace the existing MyExperiment
 interface. We are only building widgets for a few key features that
might be useful if exposed in other systems. We intend to work through
the published api and SPARQL endpoint.

In many ways widgets are similar to Google Gadgets (indeed in the
final application Google Gadgets will be deployable alongside
widgets). Of course MyExperiement has already done some experiments
with Google Gadgets [1].

So, how can you help. We are looking for a handful of users willing
and able to take part in some initial user testing of paper mockups of
the initial feature set. This will give the MyExperiment community an
opportunity to feedback on what and how we implement these features
and hopefully help create an new way of exposing your workflows in
MyExperiment.

Naturally we'll be paying expenses.

Any takers? (or any questions?)

Ross

[1] http://wiki.myexperiment.org/index.php/Developer:Google_Gadgets

-- 
Ross Gardler (@rgardler)
Programme Leader (Open Development)
OpenDirective http://opendirective.com