Toward Hypertextual Glossaries

It has been over a decade since the last report on user testing of interfaces for glossary tools, although now more is known about several underlying factors. An aim of this paper is to remedy that deficiency in the literature. We examine basic issues of glossary tools as part of a suite of annotational tools to help users make connections between documents in various digital libraries, regardless of the content provider.

An automatic glossary tool and an editable glossary tool were developed. Both tools extracted definitions from the text of articles. Unlike the automatic glossary tool, the editable glossary tool allowed users to edit, delete and add new entries.

Both tools were evaluated to find out how useful they were to users reading technical articles online. Forty users were given two online articles about selected health conditions to read. A within-subjects design was used: in one condition users were given one of the glossary tools and in the other condition they were not given any glossary. Measures of speed, comprehension, and satisfaction were collected.

Although they accessed glossary entries regardless of which tool they were given, users did not employ the specific features of the editable glossary. However, users found both of the tools useful and easy to use. Furthermore, users commented that if they knew that they could use the glossary after the experimental session, or that they would need to understand the terms for a test or in their job, then they would have used the editable glossary more.

The analytical results showed that user performance improved without increasing total reading time. The glossary tools were effective and pleasing to users at no decrease in efficiency. This experiment points the way for longer-term studies with adaptable tools, particularly to help users unfamiliar with technical documents.