Designing User Interaction with Linked Data in Historical Archives

Abstract

In this article, we present solutions to visualize and interact with linked data in historical archives considering three different scenarios: search, individual record view, and creation of relationships. The created solutions were designed using nonfunctional mockups and were based on the CIDOC-CRM model, a model created and applied in the museums community liable to be extended to other cultural heritage institutions, being our solutions an application of this model to archives. A sample of 20 archival professionals was selected to evaluate the elements included in the proposed solutions. The evaluation sessions consisted in structured interviews supported by an introductory video and a survey. The think-aloud protocol was applied during the sessions. We conducted both a quantitative and qualitative analysis to the collected answers. From this analysis, we conclude that the majority of the participants showed great receptivity to the solutions presented and recognized many benefits in the application of linked data. Our contributions also include an exploratory study of some existing linked data systems, giving particular attention to their visualization and interaction modes.