Page 170 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

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Extended English abstracts of articles published in the Chinese edition of Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.46, 2020 169

digital humanities platforms pay less attention to the real needs and requirements of humanities
scholars. In this regard, the actual usage, satisfaction rate, and sustainability of digital humanities
platforms are far from satisfactory. Therefore, the user experience design in an iterative way of
digital humanities platforms is worthy of further investigation.
On the basis of the socio-technical system theory, this paper conducts an action research to
improve the user experience of crowdsourcing transcription platforms with a particular focus
on the Sheng Xuanhuai manuscript transcription developed by the Shanghai Library. The action
research goes through three cycles of design iterations, including functional optimization,
interactive optimization, and personalized optimization. The first stage mainly focuses on
testing and optimizing the key functionalities of the platform, including database debugging, the
management function, the release function, and the transcription function. In the second stage,
the underlying functional problems of the platform are identified and improved. Meanwhile,
interaction and optimization are also conducted on several fundamental components, such as
information retrieval, click and response time, etc. The purpose is to enhance the use efficiency of
the platform. In the third stage, more university students from different disciplines are recruited to
conduct an extensive user study on the optimization of personalization requirements, to meet the
needs of individual users and to improve the satisfaction of target users. From the evolvement of
the three cycles, the focal point of the research has shifted from the technical perspective to the
human-technology interaction perspective, covering the three key user experience dimensions,
namely functional experience, interactive experience, and emotional experience. To this end, the
personalized needs and volunteer experience are better satisfied.
In terms of the theoretical contribution, the study presents a conceptual framework on user
experience design for crowdsourcing platforms in digital humanities from the technology and
social perspective, enriching three building-blocks of digital humanities projects, namely the
platform, the task, and the volunteer. In terms of the practical implications, the study sheds light
on the user experience design of crowdsourcing transcription platforms and provides valuable
guidance on how to align the development of digital humanities crowdsourcing platform with
the need of the social systems. This study also has some limitations. Firstly, due to the role
duality, some participants are both platform designers/managers and team members for action
research, which may lead to the some bias of the action because of the subjective judgment of
the participants. Secondly, constrained by realistic conditions such as technology and time, the
platform still has some user experience issues. Thirdly, the study is only aimed at crowdsourcing
transcription of digital humanities projects, and the generalization and applicability of its
conclusions need to be further examined. In future research, we will use more interventional
methods, such as quasi-experimental and mobile experience sampling methods, and use
some eye-tracking devices to better explore the user experience design of digital humanities
platforms.