User-centered design and evaluation of the neotoma paleoecology open software ecosystem
| Autor: | Jonathan K. Nelson, Jessica Blois, Simon Goring, John W. Williams, Socorro Dominguez |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2024 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | International Journal of Digital Earth, Vol 17, Iss 1 (2024) |
| Druh dokumentu: | article |
| ISSN: | 17538947 1753-8955 1753-8947 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/17538947.2024.2378822 |
| Popis: | Making paleoecological data accessible, usable, and useful to a global and diverse community of researchers, educators, and students across Earth sciences is an essential yet challenging task. Multiple data access and discovery tools must co-evolve with ever-changing user needs through an iterative, open-ecosystem software development approach. We employ a user-centered design study to evaluate one such ecosystem, the Neotoma Paleoecology Database, whose mission is to advance understanding of global-change processes by providing an expert-curated data resource. Neotoma contains over 11 million observations from 30,000 + datasets across 20,000 + sites, representing proxies of environmental and ecological conditions of the past. Neotoma comprises three interrelated software components – an interactive web mapping application, statistical programming package, and API – that provide different levels of functionality to different audiences. Although development efforts of these software components have involved the user community, Neotoma lacks a systematic evaluation process, which is important for informing the gap between perceived potential and actual utility. We address this knowledge gap using scenario-based design exercises and a usability/utility assessment. Major contributions include actionable insights for enhancing Neotoma's user experience and a user-centered design model that can be adapted to advance the development of other Earth and environmental science software ecosystems. |
| Databáze: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
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