Engineering annotation usability - Toward usability patterns for linguistic annotation tools
Manuel Burghardt · University of Regensburg Publication Server (University of Regensburg) · 2014
This dissertation engages with the improvement of user interfaces for manual annotation tasks in a linguistic context. Eleven linguistic annotation tools are evaluated in order to derive hints for good and bad designs in this specific domain of application. The evaluation design is influenced by related work from the field of human handwritten annotation theory and linguistic annotation standards and practices. At the same time it builds upon established usability engineering concepts and usability testing methods. The results of the annotation tool evaluation are documented as usability patterns. While the identification of patterns is generally considered a rather vague and unstructured process, this dissertation presents a systematic approach for the integration of qualitative results from a series of heuristic walkthroughs and a usability pattern format. The twenty-six usability patterns identified in this work help tool developers to prevent common mistakes and pitfalls in the design of annotation tool interfaces. They also guide actual tool users to decide which tool to choose with regard to usability requirements.