Some comments on the LINGUIST service provider

[Helen Aristar Dry]

Thanks, very much, Steven.  I think you're definitely right on the
last two counts and probably on the first.  We added the search
blank on the first page at your suggestion before LREC,
remember?  We thought it was a good idea.  But it did mean that
we now had three levels of search: search blank, simple search,
and advanced search.  I've been meaning to do exactly what you
suggest--collapse simple and advanced--but had let it slip down on
my infinitely long to-do list.  You know how it is!  Thanks for the
nudge!

I think the first page could indeed be shortened.  And your idea of
adding a "more about OLAC" link is a good one.  But remember
that you're coming from a situation where you already know what
OLAC is.  Most of our readers haven't a clue.  So maybe some
explanation is really necessary.  We'll take another look . . .

Again, thanks for the help.  It's always useful to have your feedback.

Hope OZ is treating you well.  We miss having you just down the
road....
-Helen

Date sent:      	Wed, 2 Oct 2002 21:38:48 EDT
Send reply to:  	Steven Bird <sb at cs.mu.oz.au>
From:           	Steven Bird <sb at CS.MU.OZ.AU>
Organization:   	University of Melbourne
Subject:        	Some comments on the LINGUIST service provider
To:             	OLAC-IMPLEMENTERS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG

> One of the workshop preparatory tasks is:
>
> > 3. Review: choose three participating archives besides your own and
> >    suggest improvements to their use of metadata; review the
> >    www.language-archives.org site and the www.linguistlist.org/olac/
> >    service and suggest improvements.
>
> I have three low-level comments on the LINGUIST service provider.  I hope
> this feedback will make the service even better than it already is...
>
> a) The first page you come to is a long document with a search form some
> way down.
>
> I'd favor a very simple page (cf www.google.com) consisting of a search
> box, a link to the advanced search, and a link to "more about OLAC" which
> has all the original text.
>
> b) Users wanting "more powerful search" are directed to the "OLAC Query
> page".  (Weren't we just on an OLAC query page?)  Arriving on this new page,
> we see that it is called "OLAC Query Form: Simple Search".  This is
> confusing, since we've just come from a simple search page expecting the
> more powerful search page, only to find that this is still only simple
> search.  There's no pointer back to the really simple search.
>
> I'd prefer this to be called "Advanced Search" (both on the title and the
> incoming link), with a backpointer to the simple search.
>
> c) This second page points to yet another page, called Advanced Search.
> However, this generates an error: "ODBC Error Code = S1000 (General error)
> [TCX][MyODBC]Table 'OLAC.alltypes' doesn't exist".  I expect this really
> advanced search permits search on all fields.
>
> I'm not convinced we need three levels of search.  Could the second and
> third levels be collapsed into a single level, containing all the search
> fields?
>
> Does anyone else have comments on this service?
>
> -Steven
>
> --
> Steven Bird        Email: <sb at cs.mu.oz.au>  Web: http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~sb/
> A/Prof, Dept of Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Vic 3010, AUSTRALIA
> Senior Research Assoc, Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania