Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage: A Guide to Rich‐Prospect Browsing

Citation

Mihaylov, P. (2012), "Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage: A Guide to Rich‐Prospect Browsing", Library Review, Vol. 61 No. 8/9, pp. 664-665. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242531211292132

There are several questions that can be asked about every completed product:

• •

  What is the difference between a good and a bad product?

• •

  What makes a user like or dislike a product?; what makes a user pleased or annoyed with a product?

• •

  Why is one particular product a success while another one is a failure?

• •

  What constitutes a good design?

• •

  How can the production of good designs be learned?

This book explores and discusses the above issues by employing proper research methods which, as a designer and researcher, I found really admirable. This approach is particularly important where e‐products are concerned: sometimes the attitudes associated with such products might be very naïve, artisan, or “do it yourself”‐like. Furthermore, there is still resistance from the creators of most design formats to accept as a serious science those elements perceived as purely artistic: beauty, pleasure, enjoyment, or those related to personal preferences. In practice there is very little solid science, research and academic literature behind a major contemporary business such as visual interface design.

The book Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage: A Guide to Rich‐Prospect Browsing published by Ashgate is a serious step in the right direction. It asks the correct questions and provides well‐grounded research in answering them. It also provides very interesting comparisons with examples from real life (as opposite to e‐world) and puts an interesting twist on some of the concepts taken for granted in design.

The main purpose of the book is to introduce reach‐prospect browsing to digital collection specialists, particularly those dealing with cultural heritage such as digital libraries. It also introduces the concepts of prospect and affordance to the wider public together with some tools and examples of how they can be of assistance to professionals in the area. The essence of this study is how to make the visual side of computing more attractive.

The authors illustrate the advantages of reach‐prospect browsing very well, but also show the weakness of the method and the possible errors that can be made whilst designing the product. The second and third chapters provide detailed information of what affordance is and suggest methods to study it. Chapters 4‐6 concentrate on how to apply the reach prospect to computer interfaces. These chapters show the methods, the problems and the details in the browsers' design from the perspectives of designers and programmers. Chapter 6 also presents various tools that can be employed in the reach‐prospect browsers.

The book itself is very well produced and it is a pleasure for the reader to hold. It offers excellent visual aids (screenshots, illustrations, etc.) which nicely illustrate the ideas behind the different interface examples and really help towards consolidating a better understanding of the topic being discussed.

One potential way to improve the book's impact would have been to generalise and simplify the highly specialised language used. One would expect this topic to be of interest to a wider audience, yet the terminology is not readily understandable to a layman. As it stands, the book is difficult to read and its style is more like a scientific volume rather than universal book.

Certainly, some aspects of this book are well worthy of the attention of much broader group of specialists with an interest in design. The topic of the book, directly or indirectly, can influence various professionals who create diverse types of online products, but it can also influence software programming, the gaming industry, the tourist industry and even the way interactive presentations are made within every discipline. As the transfer of knowledge and knowhow is very popular approach at the moment, this work can potentially benefit many more areas.

Based on that, the book Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage: A Guide to Rich‐Prospect Browsing would be a very useful guide for professionals across various areas (designers, librarians, archivists, curators, publishers – everyone who is involved in preparing digital products) and it is a great choice for college and university libraries.