3MAP - milestone 2.
interaction design : principles : metadata
Design Principles
Annotating nodes with structured metadata
Problem
Our users will want to filter data to find what they're interested in.
Traditional text searches on unstructured databases are inadequate for this task.
In order to facilitate this kind of information seeking and complexity management by users, it is necessary for objects in the geospatial database to be pervasively annotated with structured metadata.
However, users will not wish to write XML documents to attach to their nodes.
Users inputing metadata may not know the vocabulary of elements available to them.
Also, a single user may not know all there is to tell about a node.
Solution
Provide a facility for users to annotate nodes with structured metadata.
Tag nodes with as much metadata as possible without the need for user intervention - for example, location, author and creation date. Further information can be construed from users' choice of archetype.
Provide users with clear, simple forms to fill in extra metadata, and to edit defaults.
When data must conform to a specific format provide constraints and affordances such as dropdown menus and combo boxes to ensure valid input.
Task flow
![1. User has placed a node in geospace, and selected an archetype to represent the node.
2. A form appears, with as much information as possible (author, creation date, geospatial coordinates) already filled in.
3. Other fields appropriate to the object are available to be filled in, drawing from a DTD (Document Type Definition) [as defined in Milestone 3] giving both common elements (such as Description, Time) and contextual elements (such as a numerical input field for Bedrooms for a house).
4. At the end of the form is a SUBMIT button. Once submitted, the form disappears.
5. Clicking on the object now reveals data in read-only format. If the user is the author of the metadata, a button marked EDIT is available. Otherwise, a button marked ADD is available.
6. Metadata is now available for that node, and the visibility and appearance of the node can be effected by the parameters of dynamic queries performed by users.](images/metadata.gif)