Discovery update – September User Advisory Group Ongoing projects which are related to Discovery Finding Archives project – presented at last UAG, see link for details Website design project - being presented at September UAG Search replacement project – this is a project to move from current search platform to a new search platform (will provide update at a future UAG) Single sign on project – this is a project to create an integrated sign on across our web services (will provide update at a future UAG) Suggestions/Issues being worked on Date raised 01/04/2013 Category Description of issue Benefit of change / description of impact Improve filter functionality Comments Search There is no way for a user to „clear all filters‟ on the search results page without clearing them one-byone. 01/04/2013 Search There is no way for a user to „clear all fields‟ on the advanced search page without clearing them one-byone. Improve advanced search Part of Finding Archives implementation so will go live with this. 15/05/2013 Details Delivery option offsite doesn't make it clear if there is a 3 day wait to see a document (at Cheshire). Advises users onsite. User could come onsite to order a document which has a 3 day lead time and leave unhappy Delivery options update being implemented. 15/05/2013 Details Digital downloads email does not make it clear there is a 30 day limit on downloading items Poor user experience Email text review and update being implemented 01/10/2012 Details Hyperlinks in the details page performs a search instead of taking you to another records details page (when appropriate) Poor user experience Hyperlinks being updated to go direct to details page (where appropriate) Part of Finding Archives implementation so will go live with this. Suggestions/Issues under review Date raised 01/10/2012 Category Description of request / issue Search Some search options are not available in Discovery‟s „Advanced Search‟ (e.g. subseries, sub-sub-series, language, map designation). Benefit of change / description of impact Places some limitations on the precision of more expert searching. Comments Being discussed as part of Advanced search review, this work is needed for Finding Archives data too. 01/10/2012 Search Searching by „Former Reference‟ in Discovery‟s „Advanced Search‟ cannot be carried out without a „Keyword‟ value also being entered. Inability for users to find information using a logically valid search term. 01/10/2012 Authority files In the Catalogue, there is a resource for information about prominent people, places, record creators and corporate bodies (available in the Catalogue). There will be no such resource in Discovery until the new interface is made available. 01/10/2012 Search The 20 Century „date‟ filters are restricted to 1900-1925, 1925-1949 and 1950+. Users cannot access authoritative information about prominent people, places, record creators and corporate bodies as before. Also reputational impact within the wider archives sector as this resource disappears for the time being. Less helpful for researching contemporary history – there should be an option to refine at a more granular level beyond 1950. 01/10/2012 Browse The vertical scroll bars used on the „browse‟ page are very narrow. Some users may have difficulty in using the scroll functionality effectively. Mixed feedback on this and user interface meets accessability standards. 01/10/2012 Download The outputs of the „Download‟ options offered to the user when viewing search results in Discovery needs to be reviewed as some fields are confusing/missing. Some users are now struggling to understand the information they have downloaded. Download has been updated. Further requirements being looked into based on feedback since changes. System Consider using the "covering dates" on search results page - There are 2 sets of dates in the data. The document date is called “covering date” and “start/end date”. Discovery uses the "start/end date" for the date filter and for sorting due to the quality of data and how the data is formatted. Potentially confusing for users as different dates displayed on search results and details page and could lead to ordering wrong orginals/downloads. Also potentially confusing for users if data shown does not match sort order selected or filters selected. Agreed that it is important to display covering dates in search results. However, covering dates first need to be improved and corrected and applied to all records. The data will also need to be reloaded and indexed. Therefore, needs to wait for completion of Finding Archives project and data corrections. Also affected by move to new search engine. For these reasons no further direct work planned until 2014/15. th Being discussed as part of Advanced search review. Mixed views as user can enter former reference in basic search. Advanced search is a search and some think that all terms need keyword while others don't. Work to integrate this is being investigated currently. Finding Archives work will in part facilitate this. It is agreed that more granular refinements would be useful. Our first step is to clean up data to remove 'dates unknown', to find pre1000 records. Once this is achieved the UI needs to be considered. Will also need to be considered under Finding Archives project. Will test this in next round of user experience testing we undertake for Discovery. 03/07/2013 System Using social media tools for users to share, bookmark, email and like pages/images More integrated with online tools, wider reach, improved user experience Idea approved for 201415 03/07/2013 Search, details Improving how we flag digitised content - adding LIA content to online tab, icon on search results page to show when result is digitised Clearer for user what is online and available right now Paper for Discovery Enhancements board about integration with online services being drafted. Suggestions/Issues closed Date raised 01/09/2012 01/09/2012 01/09/2012 Category Description of issue Search The way in which search results are presented in Discovery is different to the way search results are presented in the Catalogue. In the Catalogue, the order in which search results are presented by catalogue reference. In Discovery, the order in which search results are presented by relevance. Search Search In addition, when viewing a list of search results in the Catalogue, users can change the order in which they are displayed from a limited set of options (e.g. by date). This cannot be done in Discovery. There are separate search boxes in the Catalogue for word/phrase, date range and Department/Series code; this is not replicated exactly in Discovery, which has one search box presented to the user „up front‟. Similar functionality is available via different routes in Discovery and although though there has been negative feedback on this, there is positive feedback evidenced through user testing and the user feedback log which show that users see the single search box as a positive step. Users are used to using the search box in the Catalogue as a direct „go to‟ for departments (e.g. WO); similar functionality is available in Discovery but requires extra steps as the user needs to scroll down the page and use the various „Refine‟ options. User experience testing showed many users did not understand/use the "go to" box Benefit of change / description of impact There is no clear consensus as to the preferred way of presenting search results; some users have said that they prefer the reference order, some expect results to be presented by digital category, some have suggested ordering the results by date and others have said that they are happy with the relevance order. Comments Relates to personal preference rather than a problem in finding information in Discovery. Closed as functionality available via different routes. 12/10/2012 Increased number of „click-throughs‟ Closed as functionality available via different routes. 12/11/2012 Following discussions and based on feedback, relevance order was agreed as default. Sort by Reference and Date have been added so users can order as they prefer. All implemented. Date closed 28/02/2013 01/09/2012 Browse 01/09/2012 Details 01/04/2013 Guidance 01/06/2013 Details 01/04/2013 Guidance 01/04/2013 Search 01/09/2013 Search 04/12/2012 Search 01/05/2013 Search When browsing well catalogued correspondence series (e.g. HO 52, HO 42, MH 12) in Discovery, the user can see only one line of text. In the Catalogue, more text can be seen. The „hierarchy‟ details text on the right hand side of the screen does not include references. This reference information is displayed in the Catalogue. Search help is not accessible from anywhere but the homepage. If a record is out to a government department, the offsite delivery options do not indicate that the user may not see it if they visit Users cannot browse efficiently our most comprehensively described material without „clicking into‟ each entry. 4 lines of text now visible implemented 17/04/2013 Could make it harder for new users to grasp what the hierarchy display is for and how the referencing system works. Users can‟t find help pages. Implemented 17/04/2013 Link implemented across system 02/05/2013 Users come onsite and can't see the documents they want 04/07/2013 The wording of the „help‟ text on the advanced search page is not always as clear as it could be. There is duplication of the description in the expanded view - should be removed Improve user understanding of advanced search This is a very rare situation and solving it via an update to the online system will be very difficult and could lead to user confusion. We have a manual process which is a sufficiently good „work around‟ for the number of instances under consideration and have closed the issue. Help text reviewed and updated Can lead to distrust in the quality of data. Removal of duplication implemented 04/07/2013 Make sort "sticky" so sort settings selected are retained where possible Integrate series further into the Collection filter Reduce usefulness of sort Stickiness implemented 04/07/2013 Improve filters usage for finding series 04/07/2013 Ability to add custom date within date filter Allow user to narrow down date search further As we extend the system, this becomes less viable as part of an integrated user experience. Advanced search is considering how to promote this function elsewhere rather than doing this via the filters. Finding Archives interface which promotes date search on home page will help resolve this. 04/07/2013 04/07/2013 01/07/2013 Search Ability to sort by former reference Allow users to sort when searching by former reference 04/07/2013 Details Improve description where it says "description at other level" Poor user experience 03/07/2013 Search Ability to filter on free digitised content Users can find free content 19/12/2012 Search Hide icon on the filters so results can expand Once finished with filtering, will give more room for reviewing results This is a very specialist requirement which can be met by download results for those who specifically need it, therefore the issue has been closed Passed over to Catalogue team as BAU work (not related to Discovery functionality) 20/08/2013 This would be confusing and challenging to implement due to free access to all onsite. We are looking into how we can provide better information about what records are available online (from our site and commercial partner sites) which may include an overview of what is free / chargable. Reviewed and closed as filters are core to experience of Discovery so we would like to encourage use rather than hide this function. 20/08/2013 20/08/2013 20/08/2013