LINCS Context Explorer
I led the design of the LINCS Context Explorer tool, a web extension plugin that enables users to contextualize web content with cultural data drawn from the LINCS datastore.
As the sole UX designer on this project, I drove the design of the tool from a proof-of-concept to an MVP, helping secure a $200,000 partnership grant with Library and Archives Canada.
Context
LINCS is a grant-funded interdisciplinary project creating linked data tools that enable humanities researchers to create and share cultural data.
Linked open data enables data owners to connect and share data across the web. However, previous research on other tools found that casual users had difficulty making meaning out of the data.
With this in mind, how might we design a tool that makes LINCS linked open data more accessible?
Design
Our solution was the LINCS Context Explorer — a browser extension that enables anyone to explore LINCS data through connections between people, places, and works directly on any web page.
My impact
Collaborated across a cross-functional team, shaping feature development through user-centred practices.
Designed the end-to-end interactions and interface for the Context Explorer.
Initiated and conducted usability testing, enabling the team to evaluate designs and prioritize feature development.
Supported content development, allowing casual users to understand and make use of LINCS data.
Initiating the project
The project first began as a proof-of-concept, developed in Summer 2021. As a part of LINCS' official launch in April 2023, we sought to build an MVP version of the tool. As the sole designer on this project, my task was to guide the direction of the experience, in addition to designing the interface.
To initiate the design process, I first conducted a stakeholder meeting to establish the project's goals and requirements, forming these high-level use cases:
A scholar on a web page with unfamiliar references uses the extension to provide context for the information they are encountering. (e.g. someone interacting with a record on a library site)
A user reading an academic article uses it for finding contextual information about the scholars whose work is referenced.
Scholars navigate to LINCS-related materials, using the Context Explorer to contextualize what they find there.
Defining the users
With a broad user profile, I opted to focus on specific shared behaviours rather than creating individual personas.
Using pre-existing user stories and data gathered from previous user research, I outlined behaviours relevant to accessing linked data:
When researching a topic, users initially scan through a variety of resources to find relevant information.
As a result, users will quickly abandon a resource if they don't find it useful.
Academics and students often only commit to learning and using a tool when it's critical to a project
Since the context explorer is a tool for accessing data, it most likely will not be a critical tool for academic projects. Therefore, users may not take time to learn the tool.
Users will have varying research goals that have different degrees of complexity and specificity.
Information provided by the context explorer needs to be relevant to a broad set of research contexts.
Establishing design goals
I established two main goals to guide the user to information they value and understand.
Provide a clear and simple workflow.
Accessing data that provides informational value isn’t always apparent in linked open data; as such, I wanted users to be able to reach important information without a long onboarding period.
Using familiar language and categories of information.
The data model used by LINCS is particular and complex — to help users better understand the context of the information, I wanted to use familiar language to frame the information users would receive.
Designing a clear user flow
To strategize the experience, I outlined a high-level user flow that focused on three stages: scanning, matching, and exploring.
Scanning
In this stage, users scan a web page and are presented with a list of highlighted words that potentially match with LINCS data.
different approaches to initiating a scan.
Matching
After users select a highlight, they are presented with a list of matches found within LINCS data. LINCS has over 50,000 entries with varying degrees of information — as such, one important aspect was to assist users into selecting correct results with tooltips and connection count indicators.
Exploration
Users can explore information about their selected entry by seeing how it's connected to another entry in LINCS. Building off the proof-of-concept, we decided to keep and redesign overlaid graph, aiming to represent connections between two things better visually.
thinking about how to display information via nodes.
At the same time, we added parallel side panel to enhance the information and to provide an accessible interface. To communicate a relationship between two entities, I divided the panel into those respective sections, to establish consistency with the graph.
Final thoughts
Thanks to the hard work of the team, the Context Explorer was presented and featured at various academic conferences. At Congress 2023 of the Humanities and Social Sciences, as part of the Canadian Society for Digital Humanities, I held a demo session and at Making Links 2023, was also a part of a UX panel discussion talking about the tool. In 2024, LINCS secured a pilot partnership grant with Library and Archives Canada to explore further development on the Context Explorer.
This was one of the first projects where I had the opportunity to take ownership of the design to development. Throughout this process, I learned a ton about communicating with developers, from handing off designs, using a style library, to understanding how data is used.