Towards a cultural user experience approach in designing scholarly digital editions

Abstract

In this paper we present a series of methodologies and best practices in the context of user experience (UX) applied to the design and development of scholarly digital editions (SDE). In particular, we discuss a real workflow and case study throughout the presentation of Muruca (http://www.muruca.org/), a platform that has been conceived as a framework to allow digital humanities researchers and research teams to create, curate and share their own SDE, and Pundit, a platform which enables collaborative semantic annotations.

In the following sections, the authors describe the latest version of Muruca and Pundit frameworks, which have been designed and developed through an iterative process starting from the needs and experiences of users, notably research teams. Those tools have been designed by taking into consideration a user-centered approach, and by adopting UX design as a core methodology for their development.

In the conclusions we open to some challenges, opportunities and criticalities in the field of designing frameworks for digital editions, such as the tension between the choice to offer a “prêt-à-porter” vs a “tailor made” solution and the challenges and opportunities offered by adopting a fully open solution in the fast changing European scenario.