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ARTICLE Providing a Free Web Service: How to Do It and Why Gary Perlman, perlman@acm.org, www.acm.org/~perlman/ Abstract These days, if you're not on the Web, you don't exist. While you're putting up your Web site, you might consider what you can offer people to make them come to your site and what can be gained by offering a free service as part of your site. The HCI Bibliography (HCIBIB) is a free-access online bibliography on Human-Computer Interaction. It has over 18,000 entries, most with abstracts, and with over 4000 links to full text. It is browsable and searchable from its web site: http://www.hcibib.org/ This article covers: The HCI Bibliography as a resource for practitioners Design and maintenance of the hcibib.org website Evaluation of the HCIBIB search service Benefits from offering a free web service HCI Bibliography as a Resource for Practitioners Contents of the Database 18K Records The HCI Bibliography is the largest free-access online bibliography on Human-Computer Interaction. It includes entries on most major conferences, journals, and books in the field. 18,000+ records of publications on HCI Conference papers Journal articles Books and Reports (~400) Internet Resources (800+) Records contains basic citation and often: keywords - uncontrolled vocabulary from publications abstract - OCR scanned and validated URL - link to full text, related web page, ... contents - especially for books Project is Budget-Free The HCI Bibliography is a free service (although its materials are copyrighted). To be a free service, publishers, volunteers, and organizations have contributed. permissions granted / materials donated by publishers volunteer data: entry / validation contributed hardware / software / server Data Accessed on Web, via FTP The HCI Bibliography has its own domain on the Internet and allows both Web and FTP access. Web site (www.hcibib.org) Web directory (www.hcibib.org/ftp) FTP site (ftp.hcibib.org) email service discontinued in 1996 without complaint Web Site Features Overviews of Data Special files have been generated from databases about journals, conferences, and books, to provide various views of the structure of the database. most recent releases publication date (with histogram of pubs per year) publication type (books, journals, conferences, internet) most frequent authors (Shneiderman, Nielsen, Carroll, ...) 10+ journals covered, by year 15+ conferences covered, by year Link Indexes Generated from Internet Resources In 1998, the HCI Bibliography began cataloging Internet resources and now describes over 800. SIGCHI and SIGCAPH indexes, (with links to forms to suggest new resources). HCI-Sites (499 links in 13 categories) www.acm.org/sigchi/hci-sites/ Publications (71 links in 5 categories) www.acm.org/sigchi/publications/ Education (56 links in 3 categories) www.acm.org/sigchi/education/ Intercultural (112 links in 12 categories) www.acm.org/sigchi/intercultural/ Kids and Computers (62 links in 6 categories) www.acm.org/sigchi/kids/ Accessibility (64 links in 5 categories) www.acm.org/sigcaph/links/ HCIBIB Search Service The HCI Bibliography search service allows users around the world to find records via a Web form. Web-based simple form with options Based on the glimpse search engine Supports AND/OR search, Whole-word, Case-sensitive, Approximate options Variety of display options Example: internationalization Example: internationalization books = internationalization; ISBN Example: internationalization full text = internationalization; http Canonical searches stored in database Design and Maintenance of the hcibib.org Website The HCI Bibliography began as an FTP site with an email file delivery service but is now primarily a Web site with FTP access. Original Site @ cis.ohio-state.edu site originally at OSU ftp and email server (pre-Web) no search service New Site @ hcibib.org new site supported and hosted by ACM SIGCHI Ultrix OSF development machine UNIX AIX web server with CGI/SSI minimal standard set of software (perl, glimpse) no access to web server logs Site Redesign April 1998 perl/ksh page generators standard header/footer, access counters summary pages based on metadata (proceedings, journal volumes) logical/temporal dependencies of generators on databases to update (make) Typical Update to the Site Getting high-quality bibliographic records online has always been the primary focus of the Project. The HCI Bibliography procedures are summarized below. new "module": conference proceedings / journal volume begin tracking in conference/journal database obtain copy of module by: donation by publisher available online personal libraries interlibrary loan (final resort) get module online human data entry (seldom used now) available online (sometimes uncorrected) OCR scan (excellent with high quality text and new systems) hundreds of automatic error detection cases data quality control insertion of representative "bugs" into file volunteer validation via email calculate validator error detection rate estimate number of remaining errors in file release data (through filter) if "correct enough" update database Update of Site (1-5 minutes) automated update of web pages update of search index Search Service Started April 1998 search service based on glimpse search engine installed on service provider, free, reasonably fast full text search, limited ability to search on fields obscure query language {dog,canine};{cat;feline} some bugs for complex searches maintaining query + options log (6000 / month) Evaluation of the HCIBIB Search Service It's ironic that the HCI Bibliography should have a search service that is anything but usable, but the constraints of budget and availability of software has resulted in some compromises. This makes for some interesting observation of system usage, and some opportunities to evaluate ways to make the system more usable. Expert System for Feedback Users do not plan searches, so an expert system provides feedback. catches search syntax from other services (and, &, +) reports terms (not) in index catches commonly misspelled author names catches words with British/American spelling how to expand/narrow a search with options based on #matches ... Making Users Use Feedback Users do not make good use of feedback. users may not understand the feedback (perhaps especially because of the obscure glimpse syntax) many users write worse and worse queries (e.g., they add terms to a search with no hits) respond better to suggestions in the form of a button (instead of "use Approximate Match to get more matches", show button "[Approximate Match]" (get more matches)) canned searches popular (carefully planned and tuned searches on specific topics) Most Used/Effective Features buttons to turn on a single option (see example) highlight terms in query to show why record matched (see example) bookmarks: query that gets single full record (see example) Coolest Features hot links to full text (from URLs) (see example) hot links to amazon.com (from ISBN) top terms in results / term frequencies Features Under Consideration field searching sorting records by fields values email of results annotation search history hiding more glimpse syntax with forms Example Analysis of Logged Data Most interesting analysis is informal, of "sessions". Schneiderman visualisation -i DATA FMT FULL Ben's last name spelled incorrectly Shneiderman visualisation -i DATA FMT FULL terms need not be adjacent Shneiderman;visualisation -i DATA FMT FULL British spelling did not match Shneiderman;visualization -i DATA FMT FULL highlight the terms Shneiderman;visualization -i DATA FMT FULL HIGHLIGHT show top terms Shneiderman;visualization -i SUMMARY FMT FULL TOKENS HIGHLIGHT New initiative: Ask an Expert Benefits from Offering a Free Web Service Why Work on the HCIBIB? sublimates obvious compulsive disorder satisfaction of helping a worthwhile community work has lasting value (once online, forever online) Why Offer a Free Web Service? a laboratory for evaluating ideas learn new ways to implement new ideas monitor how features are used, how often gather ideas, skills, tools for use in "real" website/service (see example, see source) a place to advertise other goods & services positive perception from user community (altruism / expertise) Few Reasons Why Not low expectations from users (neutral hcibib.org domain) few requirements on performance, control of release try out new features on a daily basis, unannounced What free service can you provide? © Internet Technical Group Last update: December 10, 1998 URL: http://www.sandia.gov/itg/newsletter/dec98/freeweb.html hosted by Sandia National Labs Disclaimer: Neither Sandia Corporation, the United States Government, nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately-owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by Sandia Corporation, the United States Government, or any agency thereof. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of Sandia Corporation, the United States Government or any agency thereof.