Bonded Design Le « bonded Revisited: Involving design ...technologies de visualisation de...

Bonded Design Le « bondedRevisited: Involving design » revu etChildren in corrigé : participa-Information tion des enfantsVisualization Design dans la conception

d'outils de visualisa-tion de l'information

Andrew Large, Valerie Nesset, Nahid Tabatabaei, and Jamshíd BeheshtiSchool of Information StudiesMcGill University3459 McTovishMontreal, Quebec H3A l Y l ,[email protected]

Résumé : Cet article présente le design développé par une équipeintergénération nelle formée de trois chercheurs adultes et de sept élèves duprimaire, pour créer, à l'aide des techniques de visualisation de l'information,une interface d'affichage d'une taxinomie utilisée dans un portail web destinéaux enfants. L'article décrit et explique l'application d'une méthodologie centréesur l'utilisateur, le « bonded design », qui permet d'accomplir cette tâche endouze séances. Les techniques de visualisation comprennent l'examen critiquedes interfaces de visualisation existantes, la génération de nouvelles idées par desséances de remue-méninge s, la conception, individuellement et en petits groupes,de prototypes papier, et fmalement la recherche d'un consensus sur un prototypefmal de base. Les auteurs concluent qu'en dépit du manque de familiaritépréalable des élèves avec la visualisation d'information, une telle équipe peut, enutilisant le « bonded design », parvenir à développer un prototype devisualisation de l'information d'une taxinomie, et qu'un tel prototype constitueune base solide pour entreprendre de nouvelles recherches sur le rôle destechnologies de visualisation de l'information ciblant les enfants.

Abstract: The article discusses the design process undertaken by an intergenera-tional team of three adult researchers and seven elementary school students tocreate, using information visualization techniques, a display of a taxonomy usedin a Web-based children's portal. It describes and discusses the application of auser-centred design methodology. Bonded Design, to accomplish this task over12 sessions. The techniques include viewing and critiquing existing visualiza-tions, brainstorming to generate new ideas, paper prototyping design ideas bothindividually and in small groups, and building a consensus on a final low-tech

© The Canadian Journal of Information and Library ScienceLa Revue canadienne des sciences de l'Information et de bibliothéconomie 32. no. 314 2008

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prototype. The article concludes that, despite students' prior lack of familiaritywith information visualization, such a design team using Bonded Design candevelop a prototype information visualization of a taxonomy, and that such aprototype provides a firm foundation for further research into the role of suchvisualizations in information technologies targeted at children.

Introduction " •

The idea of consulting adult users as part of software design is well estab-lished. For example, Rosenfeld and Morville (2002) stress the criticalimportance of users for information architects. The same cannot be said,however, of young users; there has been a reluctance to incorporate theirown ideas into the design process. As Hanna, Risden, and Alexander wrotein 1997, "Not until recently have publications begun to appear addressingthe need to include the user in the design process of children's computerproducts" (9). Yet as Kuhlthau and her colleagues (1990) argued, the factthat users are children rather than adults should not in any way mitigateagainst their opinions being voiced or heard. In particular, children arelikely to have important contributions to make to the way in which theirpeers will react affectively to any design. Hanna et al. (1999) concludefrom their own experience that the usability of a product is closely relatedto children's enjoyment of it, and therefore for this reason alone it is vitalto gain the users' perspectives. Scaife and Rogers (1999) remind us that"kids are aware of aspects of the use of technology that we [adults] are notsensitive to and that we need to be told o f (16). Large, Beheshti, andRahman (2002) found that children between the ages of 10 and 14 makeperceptive critics and were able to evaluate Web portal interfaces and sug-gest design improvements. Bilal (2000; 2001; 2002b) has studied childrenseeking information on the Web and on that basis argues the need forportals designed specifically for them. She suggests that designers shouldcapitalize on the recommendations children make to improve interfacedesign.

Druin and her colleagues, in their Cooperative Inquiry methodology,combined techniques from design methodologies that have proven usefulwhen working with children (Druin 1999; 2002). Cooperative Inquirytreats children as fiill design partners alongside professional adult desi-gners on the intergenerational team. Druin's work with SearchKids (Druin,Bederson, Hourcade et al. 2003) and the International Children's Digital

Bonded Design Revisited 109

Library (http://en.childrenslibrary.org/) is particularly noteworthy (Druin2005; Druin, Bederson, Weeks, et al. 2003; Hutchinson, Bederson, andDruin 2006). Bilal (2002a; 2003) has also explored interface design withchildren.

Large and his colleagues in 2003 developed Bonded Design as a methodo-logy for adults working alongside children in intergenerational teams todesign information technologies (Large, Nesset, et al. 2006; 2007). Theoutcomes were two Web-based portals for elementary school students tofind information on Canadian history (Large et al. 2004): one of theseportals. History Trek, is now operational (http://www.historytrek.ca). Theportals subsequently were positively evaluated by other elementary schoolstudents under both experimental and operational conditions (Large,Beheshti et al. 2006).

The challenges, then, of using Bonded Design with two groups of elemen-tary school students, one from Grade 6 (aged 11 and 12 years) and onefrom Grade 3 (aged 8 and 9 years) had been overcome in portal design,despite researchers' initial trepidation. However, the students were alreadyfamiliar with the concept of Web search engines, and even the youngerones had used them in school and elsewhere to fmd information. In 2008a new intergenerational team was established with seven students fromGrade 6 and three researchers, but this time the task was to design a low-level prototype of an information visualization. The students were unfami-liar with the concept of information visualization and had no practicalexperience in using information visualization tools. Would they be able tocollaborate fully with the researchers using Bonded Design to achieve theobjective? This article discusses the ensuing design process in order todetermine whether Bonded Design has a more general applicability thansimply designing Web portals, and in particular whether children can stillcontribute meaningfully to design, even though they are initially unfamiliarwith the product to be created. Bonded Design can truly be upheld as anintergenerational design methodology only if it can meet such challenges.

This article is based on the first stage of a three-stage project. The objec-tive of this first stage was to design a low-tech prototype visualization of aWeb-based taxonomy. In the second stage, the prototype design is beingincorporated into a Web portal. History Trek, and in stage three it will beevaluated by elementary school students in experimental and operationalconditions.

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Taxonomies, chiidren, and information visuaiizatíon *

Children frequently use the Web to find information, but can encounter avariety of problems in employing keyword searching, such as selecting andcorrectly spelling appropriate keywords with which to encapsulate theirinformation needs, and combining them in Boolean statements. One wayto address these problems has been to offer a taxonomy that can be browsed.Web-based taxonomies (also called subject directories or Web directories)are commonly used and, as Gilchrist (2003) says, are a type of classifica-tion. A menu of top-level terms is offered to the user; clicking on a termdisplays a second level, and so on, until the last term selected leads via theportal's database and search engine to Web pages indexed by that term.Such a taxonomy allows children to recognize concepts embedded in thetaxonomy that are relevant to their information needs, potentially involv-ing less cognitive effort than retrieving from memory terms to be used fora keyword search. However, taxonomies in children's Web portals such asYahooligans! (httpi/Zv '̂ww. squirrelnet.com/search/yk/ya hooligans, asp),KidsClick! (http://wvi'w.lddscUck.org/), and History Trek can in practiceimpose heavier cognitive loads than keyword searching. First, the childmust recognize a suitable entry point into the taxonomy. This should nor-mally be a straightforward task if a relevant term in the displayed taxonomymatches the concept that best encapsulates the information need. Whenthis does not occur (and in many cases only the very top level of the tax-onomy will initially be displayed) the child may well be at a loss as towhich term to choose. The greater the depth of the taxonomy, the greaterthe potential for failure. One way to counter this problem is to increase thebreadth of the taxonomy and reduce its depth, resulting in longer lists ofterms to be browsed at any particular level; unfortunately, children fre-quently find browsing such alphabetically organized terms to be slow anderror-prone (Shenton and Dixon 2004). One solution to such problemswith traditional taxonomy displays is to consider information visualizationtechniques as a way of efficiently and effectively displaying collections ofterms within a taxonomy.

Information visualization

As Chen (2006,1) says, "Information visualization represents one of the lateststreams in a long-established trend in modem user interface design." Ware(2004,1) defines visualization as the graphical representation of data or con-cepts to support decision making. Information visualization is a specific area


within this broader field; Koshman (2006) discusses several informationretrieval systems that rely upon visualization at one stage or another of theretrieval. Interest in this approach began in the 1990s, an early examplebeing the semantic map of Lin, Soergel, and Marchionini (1991 ). Bedersonand Shneiderman (2003) identify a basic and recurring problem for inter-face designers: "Users lose context as they navigate to specific pages ofinformation" (83) because typically information sets extend beyond onescreen. Korthage (1991) suggested that visualization tools can offer theuser enhanced control over information retrieval by allowing users, amongother things, to view interrelationships for browsing purposes. These toolsrely heavily upon interface designs to facilitate representations that in turncapitalize upon human visual perception; they appeal to users because theydraw upon the efficiency of human visual processing (Koshman 2006).Kandogan and Shneiderman (2003) believe that current Web browsers donot provide an overview of and a sense of location within an informationstructure. Bederson and Shneiderman (2003) argue that information visu-alization tools allow users to see phenomena that were previously hidden.Desclefs and Soto (1999) emphasize that information visualization can beused both to represent hierarchies—providing users with an overview ofthe hierarchy and enabling them to visualize a specific node within theoverall context—and to facilitate navigation—providing users with ameans to manipulate data in order to organize them as they want, and tofind a specific node and visualize it within the global environment. Theyterm this latter function "dynamic visualization."

Researchers have investigated a variety of specific tools to support explo-ratory browsing, find patterns, map concepts (Carnot et al. n.d.; Carvalho,Hewett, and Cañas 2001) and "even make browsing fun" (Ahlberg andShneiderman 2003, 450). These include colour coding (Gevers 2001),dynamic query filters and starfield displays (Ahlberg and Shneiderman2003), zooming (Bederson and Shneiderman 2003; Sacco 2006), tree maps(Heer and Card 2004; Nation et al. 2003), scroll bars (Asahi, Turo, andShneiderman 2003), animations (Bederson and Boltman 2003; Hearstand Karadi 1997), and metaphors (Kandogan and Shneiderman 2003;Koshman 2006) often based on the metaphor of the cartographic map.

The literature on children as users of information visualization is sparse.Nevertheless, a few examples can be cited. Druin and her colleagues at theUniversity of Maryland (Druin, Bederson, Hourcade, et al. 2003) develo-ped SearchKids, a graphical direct-manipulation interface that allows chil-dren to browse the contents of a digital library using zooming techniques.

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Schneider (1996) discusses several types of visualization tools, includingcone trees and fisheye views, which might be modified for young users.She points out that "the greatest obstacles to employing such tools are . . .that commercial software for children is designed to be sold to adults" andthat "institutional software is designed by teachers and others who focuson formal learning more than exploration and discovery" (73). Nakaoka,Tezuka, and Tanaka (2006) developed a Web browser that enableschildren to visualize the information on a webpage in a way that tries toexploit their curiosity and inclination to "look around resdessly" (499).Children are able to drive through a 3D space and view information asthey do so.

Visualization is proposed typically as a solution to information retrievalproblems involving large volumes of data (Card, Mackinlay, andShneiderman 1999; Chen 1999; Spence 2001). The visualization proposedin this study, even when fully operational, will not work with large datasets. Children, however, encounter problems even when navigating relati-vely small-scale data sets: when they try to browse alphabetically arrangedvertical term lists, typically they begin at the top of the list and laboriouslywork term by term down it until (with persistence and luck) they fmd thesought term (Nesset 2007; Shenton and Dixon 2003). This realitystrengthens the argument for using visualization techniques for children'sretrieval systems even when the data sets, by adult standards, would not beconsidered, by any stretch of the imagination, to be large-scale.

Children's information-seeking behaviour

Growing numbers of studies have found that primary and middle schoolstudents typically encounter problems in formulating search queries whenusing digital information systems (Borgman et al. 1995; Druin 2005; Hirsh1997; 1999; Nakaoka, Tezuka, and Tanaka 2006; Schacter, Chung, andDorr 1998; Wallace, Kupperman, and Krajcik 2000). Large, Beheshti, andBreuleux (1998) found that, in comparison to adults, children lack sophis-tication in language manipulation and search strategy formulation. Forthis reason, browsing, in which children rely upon recognition of appropri-ate terms within a taxonomy (hierarchically arranged categories or nodes)that progress from general to specific, and where each node is a subset ofthe higher level node (Blackburn 2006) is likely to prove more popular andpotentially more successful than keyword searching, where they must recallappropriate keywords to find relevant information (Bilal 2000; 2001;


2002b; Large and Beheshti 2000; Large, Beheshti, and Moukdad 1999;Schachter, Chung, and Dorr 1998; Watson 1998). Large, Beheshti, Nesset,and Bowler (2006), for example, found that browsing is the preferred stu-dent strategy only when it is straightforward to select the top-level entrypoint in the taxonomic structure, and then at each succeeding level throughthe hierarchy to identify the appropriate entry (see also Rosch et al. 1976).The ease of selection is determined in part by the structure ofthe taxon-omy (Bar-Uan and Belous 2007; Bilal and Wang 2005; Borgman, Chignell,and Valdez 1989; Cooper 1996; 2002; Large, Beheshti, Nesset, and Bowler2007), but it is also determined by the way in which the taxonomy is dis-played within the interface. For example, Borgman et al. (1995) found thatas the depth of hierarchies increased, children were more likely to becomelost. Hutchinson (2003) noted that children encounter problems when theinterface does not provide both a view ofthe current location in the hier-archy and the overall hierarchy. Bilal and Wang (2005) conclude that "thedesign of an optimal visual interface that displays the hierarchical structureof concepts in navigational maps of some form would certainly facilitatechildren's browsing" (1311) (see also Druin 2005). The InternationalChildren's Digital Library (ICDL) provides alongside keyword searchinga hierarchical topic structure and the means to combine terms selectedfrom within it. Its creators have noted, however, the problems childrenencountered when trying to combine terms; users had to navigate through1 ofthe 14 top-level topics, select one term, then backtrack to the top ofthat hierarchy, and then na\ágate to a second term in a different hierarchy(Hutchinson, Bederson, and Druin 2006). They found that Boolean que-ries were more effectively supported when the hierarchies were flattened(broadened). Shenton and Dixon (2004) noted, however, that childrenfmd it challenging to scan long lists of terms arranged alphabetically (asare produced when topic structures replace depth by breadth) in order toidentify particular terms.

The problem :

The research was prompted by the problems that children were observedto encounter when using the taxonomy that had been incorporated intoHistory Trek, a Web-based portal for children that the researchers haddesigned using Bonded Design (Large, Beheshti, Nesset, and Bowler2004). History Trek provided several retrieval approaches: keyword search-ing, searching by selecting from a list of terms beginning with a speci-fied letter ofthe alphabet, scrolling a chronological timeline, and choosing

114 CJILS I RCSIB 32, no. 314 2008

a term from a taxonomy (figure 1 shows these options on the portal'shome page). The taxonomy obviated the users requirement to think of arelevant search term, but nevertheless was not necessarily straightforwardto employ. It posed two main problems: did the structure and subject termsof the taxonomy match those that young children themselves wouldemploy, and did the display of the taxonomy enable children to locatewithin it the most appropriate term to represent the concept for whichthey were searching? The first problem is worthy of ftirther exploration infuture research. As regards the second problem, can visualization tech-niques be used to enhance the visibility of the taxonomy by opening it outfrom its current hierarchical structure distributed over multiple screensinto a two-dimensional or three-dimensional display?

The History Trek taxonomy had been constructed by the researchers, inthe absence ot a suitable existing taxonomy, in order to classify Web pageson Canadian history from the perspective of a child studying this topicwithin the curriculum of a Canadian elementary school. It comprisesapproximately 1,200 terms hierarchically structured under eight top-leveltopics: "Places," "People," "Aboriginal Peoples" "Everyday Life," "Scienceand Technology," "Transport," "Government," and "War" (see the topicmenu on the left of the interface in figure 1). The taxonomy has a maxi-mum depth of four levels. At any level all relevant terms are displayedvertically in an alphabetical sequence. Figure 2 shows the second-level

Tr«k

Figure 1; History Trek home page


terms within the top level topic, "Transport." The terms themselves hadbeen derived from a subject analysis by the researchers of around 1,000websites retrieved after searching on concepts taken from the Grade 6curricula in Quebec and Ontario, as well as an examination of print-basedinformation resources designed for student use in elementary grades(Bowler et al. 2004). The terms were subsequently assigned to the subjectfields of 2,500 or so records in the portal's database, each record beinglinked to a webpage on Canadian history that is appropriate in contentand style for young readers. An average of eight terms was assigned to eachrecord. Figure 3 shows one such record as it is displayed to users, with nineterms in the subject field.

In order to utilize the taxonomy it is necessary for the user to identifywithin it the most appropriate term to represent the sought concept. Thisapproach is straightforward if the user is looking for a concept that isrepresented at the top level within the taxonomy—for example, "I wanteverything on transport." However, if the user is searching for a conceptthat is best represented by a term in one of the lower levels, it may be muchless obvious where to enter the taxonomy and how to drill down throughits levels—the user must not only know something about the actual

Trek• A Ciirtiliiin History Stil

Figure 2: Extract from the second-level of ihe taxonomy in History Trek

116 CJILS I RCSIB 32. no. 3/4 2008

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Figure 3: Indexing terms

subject, but also know or guess its location within the taxonomy. This obs-tacle can impose a cognitive load upon a child that is as great as—or isgreater than—that of generating one or more keywords.

The Bonded Design methodology

In essence. Bonded Design assumes an intergenerational team comprisingadult designers and young students who collaborate over a limited numberof session to create a low-tech prototype. The students are an integral andessential part of the team, as they provide the perspective of the target useraudience—children. The elements within Bonded Design are shown infigure 4. In this instance the objective of the team was to create a low-techprototype information visualization of a taxonomy including terms relatedto Canadian history.

• ' • ' T -The design team i*fv

The intergenerational team comprised three adult researchers (one maleand two females) alongside seven volunteer Grade 6 students aged 11 to12 years (five boys and two girls) from an English-language elementary


Figure A: Bonded Design

school in Montreal. The volunteers were solicited from a class ot 28students after a brief presentation of the research objectives by the researchteam. Two of the three adults had previous experience of using the BondedDesign methodology.

As can be seen from the results of a biographical questionnaire (see table 1),all seven students were very familiar with computers and used them mostdays or every day at school and/or home for both school work and enter-tainment. When asked to list their favourite search engines, all seven citedGoogle, two also cited Yahoo, and one each for MSN and Alta Vista. Allthe students were avid computer game players, four claiming daily use.The five boys cited among them 19 games as being among their favourites,and the two girls cited seven games, but only "MinicUp" was cited by bothboys and girls. The students on the design team, then, were computersavvy, and very familiar with computer games and the visual effects typi-cally found in them. For example, when discussing one of the visualizationtools examined on the Web (Mnemo), one boy was sufficiently knowled-geable to comment that its interface "looks like Windows 95, like the old,old one." None, however, had been familiar with either History Trek or anyWeb-based visuaUzation tools.

A critical component within Bonded Design is the stipulation that the twoparticipant groups—adult researchers and student users—should coalesceinto a working team as soon as possible. The three researchers dressedcasually, all team members had name tags (only first names were used byadults and children alike), and the team chose a name ("The VisualTrekkers") and a logo that were reproduced on T-shirts and baseball capsworn during all subsequent sessions by all team members. Team-building

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was also facilitated by the knowledge that a real task—the design of a low-tech visualization prototype—had to be completed in a relatively shorttime. This deadline engendered a sense of urgency and significance to thework, and distinguished it from merely an academic exercise.

Designsessions •-•- • •.

Twelve design sessions were held in total, each one lasting for about75 minutes. The sessions took place over 11 weeks in early 2008. The firsteight sessions were held twice weekly to generate and maintain the activeinvolvement of the students; the last four were spaced further apart(intervals of one to two weeks) to enable the progressive development of avisualization prototype building upon feedback from the team. All sessionstook place during the lunch break in the schools science classroom.The session-by-session activities are summarized in table 1.

Table 1 : Design session activities

Session Activity

1 Tea m-build ing aclivitiei

Completion of student biographical questionnair«

Introductian \o the purpose of the project

Introduction to History Trek through hands-on searching tasks

Discussion of differences between keyword seorching ond topic browsing

2 Intraduction lo Web-based visualization loals

Selection of team name and laga

3 Practical construction of a taxonomy [graups of three]

4 Presentation and discussian af constructed toxonomies

j Consensus-building ta develap one taxonomy

i4> Examination ond critique af visualization tools on the Web

Practical construction of visualizatian preliminary plans os simplified drawings onthe paper (individually)

7 Practical construction of three pratatype visualization models (groups of three)

% Practical construction af three prototype visualization models (graups of three),

continued

9 Consensus-building ta develop the first visuolizatian model on the paper

10 Critique of prototype developed in PowerPoint

In Critique of first iteration of operotional low-tech prototype

IS' fleviewoffinalvisualizatian pratatype

Completion of questionnaire evaluating the students' Banded Design experience


Procedure

The procedure used in the design sessions followed that outlined in theBonded Design methodology (see figure 4), with the exception of theneeds assessment stage. In the 2003 applications of Bonded Design, aneeds assessment questionnaire had been administered by the studentteam members to their peers during the school lunch breaks. This hadbeen considered a useful way of collecting data on students* use of andopinions about Web portals that might be drawn upon in later design ses-sions to help in decision making. It was also a way of integrating the stu-dent team members into the design process at an early stage (immediatelyafter session 1) and demonstrating to them that their presence was not"decorative" but that they had a crucial role to play in the design process(Large et al. 2004). In the current application of Bonded Design, however,the student team members at the outset themselves knew nothing aboutinformation visualization—indeed, the early sessions focused upon intro-ducing them to the concept and its Web-based applications. In such anenvironment it did not make sense to ask them to gather opinions fromtheir fellow students about information visualization, as there was noreason to believe that the student body at large would be any more conver-sant with this topic than the team members themselves.

The first two sessions were dedicated to team-building activities, inclu-ding the choice of a team name and a team logo that were reproduced onteam T-shirts and baseball caps, and to the presentation of the projectobjective, including an introduction to History Trek and to the concept ofinformation visualization. The students also completed a brief biographi-cal questionnaire in the first session.

In session 3 the students in the team were introduced to the concept of ataxonomy by having them use the card-sorting technique to assembleterms into categories and subcategories. The 60 terms had been randomlyselected from the History Trek taxonomy, 15 from each of four (out ofeight) top-level topics: "People," "Places," "Transportation," and "Scienceand Technology." Each term was typed on a small card. The team wasdivided into three subgroups (each with one adult) and an identical set ofthe 60 shuffled terms was given to each group. The task for each group wasto assign these terms to hierarchical categories. The groups were also pro-vided with blank cards on which to write any top and subordinate levelheadings for their terms that they thought appropriate. Some extra dupli-cate cards were also accessible to each group in case that they wanted to

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place a term in more than one place. A photograph of one group at workis shown in figure 5. In session 4 the team discussed the three resultingtaxonomies and tested each other's taxonomies by seeing how easy it wasto find a specific term within the hierarchical structure. Following thisevaluation, in session 5 the whole team collaborated to build one consen-sus taxonomy.

In session 6 the team used, discussed, and critiqued a variety of visualiza-tion tools accessible on the Web, whether or not they were explicitly inten-ded for information retrieval. These tools included Kartoo, VisuWords,Quintura Kids, Webbrain, GNod, mnemomap, Mooter,Thinkmap VisualThesaurus, Touchgraph Google Browser, Grokker, Marumushi, theGapminder World 2006, LivePlasma, Kooltorch, and Next GenerationFoundation's Map of Creativity.

At this point in the design process (session 6) the student members of theteam were invited individually to begin formulating their own ideas onhow a taxonomy might be visualized; they did this by creating coloureddrawings on paper. In the next two sessions the team members, on thebasis of their examination of Web-based visualization tools as well as theirown drawings, brainstormed design ideas, and in three groups (each inclu-ding one researcher and two or three students) began to construct models

Figure 5: Card sorting by one group


using media such as paper, clay, pipe cleaners, markers, and three-dimen-sional fabric shapes to represent their visualization ideas. Session 9 wasdevoted to consensus-building, with the objective of constructing a singlevisualization model that would satisfy the entire team.

Tliis consensus model was then replicated by one of the researchers in aPowerPoint dynamic mock-up and shown to the entire team in session 10for critical feedback. On the basis of this feedback a low-tech working pro-totype was created by the researchers, using JavaScript, which showed morerealistically the envisioned movement and also retrieved records and theactual websites linked to them in the History Trek database. This prototypein turn was critiqued by the team and then modified by the researchersbefore a final low-tech version was demonstrated in the final session 12.

The methodology was completed by asking the students in session 12 toprovide through a questionnaire their impressions of being technologydesigners. *

Data collection ,

The discussions in all sessions were audio-taped and later transcribedand analyzed. All the computer activity on History Trek and the variousWeb-based visualization tools were captured using Camtasia software andsubsequently transcribed and analyzed. The two questionnaires completedby the students were analysed. The paper-based drawings, taxonomicstructures built by the team, and prototype visualization models werephotographed and/or scanned.

Exploring the History Trek taxonomy

The primary reason for undertaking this research was to explore alterna-tive ways of displaying a taxonomy within a children's Web portal. Thiswas motivated by our preliminary analysis of the data obtained during theevaluation phase of the History Trek Web portal (Large, Beheshti, et al.2006). These data did not entirely support previous research findings(including our own), suggesting that children prefer to browse a taxonomyrather than use keyword searching (Borgman et al. 1995; Hirsh 1999;Large and Beheshti 2000). This in fact may be too simplistic a conclusion.In the case of History Trek, users did opt to browse the taxonomy but only

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when their information need could readily be matched against it, and inpractice this often meant a direct match with the very top-level term. So,for example, children's searches for information about Aboriginal peoplesand their lifestyles would almost always be conducted through the taxon-omy, because History Trek included "Aboriginal Peoples" as one of its eighttop-level topics. In contrast, a search on the sixteenth-century explorerJacques Cartier almost always prompted a keyword search; in this case, inorder to use the taxonomy it would be necessary for the child to know orto discover through trial and error navigation that the third-level term"Jacques Cartier"can be found only under the second-level term "Ebiplorers,"which, in turn, is located under the main topic "People."

This dilemma was explored within the intergenerational visualization teamat the outset of the design process, in session 1. Through their own sear-ches on History Trek, the seven students readily grasped the advantages ofusing the taxonomy rather than keyword searching, when appropriateterms could readily be identified in the taxonomy, but also the problems inso doing when such terms are concealed within the taxonomy's hierarchi-cal structure. As one boy put it, "When you click on something, there isanother selection of another thing, and when you click on that, you mayend up with what you were looking for." Searching History Trek for termsembedded within the lower levels of the taxonomy provided the take-offpoint for an exploration by the design team members of visualization toolsas a possible way to enhance the transparency of the taxonomy.

Card sorting

The students readily grasped the idea of sorting terms into categories andsubcategories (see also Large, Beheshti, et al. 2007; see also Bar-IIan andBelous 2007; Bilal and Wang, 2005). The taxonomies created by the threegroups differed in detail, but all three groups readily grasped the principleunderlying the construction of a taxonomy and how this could be used toretrieve Web pages. They also reached agreement on one team taxonomy(see below for further discussion of consensus-building): the section on"Transportation" is shown in figure 6. It includes the original 15 termsrandomly selected from the "Transportation" section of the History Trektaxonomy, as well as six new terms (in bold italics) that had been added bythe team in order to assemble the hierarchical structure.

The team used, discussed, and critiqued a variety of visualization toolsaccessible on the Web, whether or not they were explicitly intended for


I Lind 1

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TRANSPORTATION(15 terms)

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1

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Figure 6; Consensus taxonomy

information retrieval. Viewing exemplars such as these is an integral partoí' the Bonded Design methodology. This step is undertaken in order tofamiliarize the student members ofthe team with potential design approa-ches that might be considered for the task at hand, lt should not be assu-med, however, that these examples limit the team's creativity. In our earliestdays of applying Bonded Design we had been concerned that the youngmembers of a design team might simply copy ideas that they had seenbefore, but in practice we found this not to be the case (Large et al.2003).

A wide variety of techniques have been developed for use in informationvisualization. These include dynamic query filters, starfield displays, zoom-ing, tree maps, scroll bars, animations, and metaphors (especially that ofthe cartographic map). As the objective in our project was to enhance termselection from a taxonomy, techniques were favoured that presented asmuch information as possible to the viewer—a flat classification—ratherthan ones that allow navigation between different levels but display onlyone level at a time or display only parts ofthe taxonomy at any one time.Alongside this requirement, however, was the desire to design an interfacewith lots of movement and colour—these two characteristics wereespecially important to the students. For this reason they found, for exam-ple, Mnemomap (http://www.mnemo.org^ uninteresting (see figure 7),

124 CJILS I RCSIB 32, no. 314 2008

because it was "boring." As one boy said, "It's not, like, colouriul enough,and if you make it exploding, it would make it cooler." (They also criticizedthe name, which they found impossible to pronounce.)

The students liked Visuwords (http://www.visuwords.com) (figure 8). It isnot a Web portal but an online graphical dictionary in which words can belooked up to find their meanings and associations with other words andconcepts; nevertheless, the students liked how it produces exploding dia-grams reminiscent of a neural net and could see how its design approachmight be used for a Web taxonomy. Visuwords uses colours to indicateparts of speech, and facilitates exploration by a zoom feature as well as amouse drag to move the entire model around. The student team membersfound expressed comments such as "I love this one, I love that idea, it's socreative," "It s awesome, the most attractive one," and "I like it, it explodes."

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Figure 8: Visuwords

The Map of Creativity (http://www.ngforg.uk/map/map.html) containshundreds of projects recommended by educators around the world. Thestudents really liked this visualization because it was dynamic: when thecursor is moved over a sector on the circle circumference, the sector explo-des outwards in a series ofballoons (see figure 9). As one exclaimed,"That'sso good; wow; really good; what is that? So good." This, in fact, was theirfavourite of the visualizations examined on the Web.

Discussing and brainstorming

After taxonomy construction, examining, and critiquing existing visualiza-tion tools, the team members were ready to begin formulating ideas fortheir own visualization tool to be employed with the History Trek taxon-omy. The first stage was for the seven students to represent their individual

126 CJILS I RCSIB 32. no. 314 2008

Figure 9: Map of Creativity

preliminary plans as simplified drawings on paper (see figure 10). In threegroups, these individual drawings then formed the basis for a second-levelexercise in which three prototype visualization models were created usingmedia such as paper, modelling clay, pipe cleaners, markers, and three-di-mensional fabric shapes (see figure 11 for one example). The use of differ-ent media to construct the models encouraged the groups to experimentwith three-dimensional as well as two-dimensional concepts. This processalso began to advance the team fi-om individual concepts towards a con-sensus design.

Once the three models were completed, the team as a whole reconvened inorder to discuss them with the goal of achieving consensus on a singlepaper design. The three models contained many similar elements, soconsensus proved relatively straightforward to achieve, and a team designwas created within a single session (see figure 12).

This consensus model in simplified form incorporates a number of featu-res that are to be found in the final prototype (see figure 13). At its centreis one of the main topics, "Transport." Branching out from this central


Figure 10: Girl's drawing

Figure 11: Visualization model

128 CJILS I RCStB 32, no. 314 2008

Figure 12: Consensus model

BtMrimilt

Figure 13: Taxonomy

node are second and third levels within the taxonomy. On the left-handside ofthe model are several other top-level topics, any one of which canbe clicked in order to move it to the central node. The model also includesa navigational Home button.


Prototype stage

After the team had agreed upon the final visualization design, one adultresearcher converted the ideas into a dynamic PowerPoint presentation,which was then discussed and critiqued by the entire team in session 10.Figure 13 shows a part of the exploded taxonomy for "Transport."

The student members of the team were enthusiastic about the overalldesign, but some modifications were suggested. Taking into account thesemodifications, the final stage in the Bonded Design process could now beundertaken using JavaScript—the creation of a low-tech operational pro-totype that would show more realistically the envisioned motion in thevisualization and would also actually retrieve records (and through themthe actual websites) from the original History Trek database.

The low-tech prototype—although operational in the sense that it func-uons to retrieve information from the Web in response to specific que-ries—has been designed to operate in a micro environment only: it onlygoes as far as a few examples from the second level of three of the eightmain topics (figure 14). For the time being, a mascot in the form of amaple leaf found throughout the original History Trek portal has beenretained in the centre of the display, but it consumes considerable spaceand may have to be modified (this mascot has always proven popular withyoung users, both in the original version of History Trek and with themembers of the visualization design team). By clicking on any displayedterm, the entire topic, with aU its subordinate levels, will be displayed;figure 15 shows an abridged version of the "Places" topic (in this represen-tation, only the number of hits (560) for the top topic level "Places" isprovided).

A potential problem when navigating such a visual taxonomy is gettinglost in a network of interrelated terms. The team brainstormed severalideas in order to address this potential difficulty: the oval surrounding eachterm belonging to a main topic is the same colour, the colour of the terms'font changes at the second or subsequent time that it is selected to indicatethat the user has already traversed that path, and, as a further navigationalaid, a homepage link is available on all screens. There is also the option toshow or hide the eight main topics found on the left side of the screen.Their availability on demand reminds users when navigating throughone topic of the remaining seven; the ability to conceal them offers morevaluable display space for the visualization. In addition to this utilitarian

130 CJILS I RCSIB 32. no. 3/4 2008

a.O


Figure 15: One main topic exploded to four levels

justification, the children in the design team undoubtedly appreciated theability to hide or display this topic menu in this way.

Discussion

An intergenerational team had embarked upon the challenge of usinginformation visualization techniques to add value to a taxonomy as aretrieval tool within a children's Web portal. Notwithstanding the age ofseven of the ten team members as well as their unfamiliarity with informa-tion visualization as a concept, the team created a low-tech prototype visu-alization after just 12 design sessions, each lasting little more than an hour.Our initial reservations about the practicality of designing visualizationmodels with children who knew little or nothing at the outset about visu-alization processes proved unfounded. The combination of viewing andcritiquing existing Web visualizations, expressing preliminary ideasthrough simple drawings and subsequently 3D representations, reaching aconsensus on a team design, and realizing that design in a small-scaledynamic Web-based low-tech visualization model worked. Furthermore,

132 CJILS / RCSIB 32. no. 3/4 2008

as on the previous occasions when Bonded Design had been used, thechildren enjoyed the experience.

One question has to be whether, in their fascination with the visual aspectsof visualization, children are capable of assessing its actual utility in efficientretrieval of information. In the design team it was more difficult to engagethe children in discussions of retrieval effectiveness tlian visual attractive-ness. Is visualization in fact a faster and more reliable method of traversinga hierarchical taxonomy in order to locate needed information? Nakaoka,Tezuka, and Tanaka (2006) found that when driving through a 3D infor-mation space children sometimes focused too much on the act of drivingand forgot their objective—to fmd relevant information. At the same time,Thiele and Mau (2005) argue that enjoyment is "a very important factor" inthe acceptance of any interface, and that when evaluating visual interfacesthe "joy factor" should be included alongside such criteria as ease of use andusefulness—a point of \àew shared by the authors of this article. Chen(2005) identifies as one of the ten unsolved problems posed by informationvisualization that of aesthetics: as he puts it, the purpose of informationvisualization is the insights into data that it provides, not just a pretty pic-ture (15). But what makes a picture pretty? In this context, any light thatchildren can shed upon what characterizes prettiness has to be valuable.

The exit questionnaire completed by the seven children in the twelfth andfmal session confirms the adults' observations that they very much enjoyedthe Bonded Design experience. When asked what they had enjoyed most,two boys said looking at different visualization tools on the Web, two boyssaid constructing a taxonomy, and one boy and both girls said buildingtheir own visualization models. As to what they least enjoyed, two boysand both girls said constructing the taxonomy, two boys said brainstor-ming ideas within the team, and one said looking at visualizations on theWeb. All but one boy thought such a design team should include six toeight students (the exception suggested eight to ten students). They weredivided on whether they worked better in small groups or as a completeteam, but none thought it best to work alone. With the exception of twosessions, when in each case one child was absent through illness, atten-dance was 100 per cent, and all the students answered that 12 sessionswere just enough for the task in hand. Perhaps most tellingly, all sevenstudents said that they would recommend their friends to volunteer for anyother design teams we niight propose, and all five who answered the ques-tion said that there was nothing they would change in the sessions: as theyexpressed it, "Everything was good," and "It was fun."


When applying Bonded Design in the potentially more demanding arenaof information visualization design, compared with the earlier portal designobjectives it had tackled, did the methodology require adaptation? Mentionhas already been made above to the problems of conducting a survey amongthe students in the school at large to gather their opinions and ideas aboutinformation visualization techniques when they knew nothing about suchtechniques. This step, useful in the earlier applications of Bonded Design asa means of gathering data that might be later used to resolve design issues,could not be used in the present application. Its absence, however, did notprove a major problem in brainstorming or consensus-building.

The design work was accomplished in 12 sessions, one fewer than neededby the History Trek team in 2003. This difference is perhaps surprising,given the potentially greater challenge for the 2008 team. One differencemay have been that, although the students in the latter team were unfami-liar specifically with information visualization, they were more familiarthan their 2003 counterparts with information technology in general andthe Web in particular. A second explanation may be that the adults by2008 were more experienced at working alongside young people in a designteam.

In 2003 the initial prototyping had been undertaken only through paper-based drawings. In 2008 the team experimented with additional techni-ques such as clay and pipe cleaners to capture, albeit rather unsuccessfully,a third dimension to the designs. It was also considered important with thevisualization team to advance the low-tech prototype to a stage at which itdid function, albeit only on a very small scale. In 2003 it had been disap-pointing for the adults and especially the students that by the final sessionthey would not be able to see their portal at work—this was possible onlysome months later when the design had been converted into an operatio-nal version. In the case of the visualization it seemed important that asmall-scale model be implemented to really give the students a sense ofwhat had been achieved (ironically it also proved simpler to achieve thistechnically than had been the case with the portal).

Bonded Design has now been tried successfxilly in three Instances by thisresearch group (as well as being used in an unpublished project in aSingapore elementary school to design a Web portal to find informationon that country's history). It remains to explore its application in otherdesign contexts and with other intergenerational compositions (such assenior citizens).

134 CJILS / RCSIB 32. no. 3/4 2008

Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to the seven anonymous students whowere members of the intergenerational design team as well as to the staffof the Montreal school where the team carried out its work. Ian Clementcontributed enormously to the project by writing the programs for thefmal visualization designs. This work comprises the first stage of a researchproject flinded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council(SSHRC) of Canada.

Note

1- Valerie Nessef is now in the Department of Library and Information Studies,the University at Buffalo.

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