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CONTENTdm : Overview : End user experience

End user experience

The CONTENTdm end-user interface makes your digital collections easy to find, easy to use and easy to share. A dynamic end-user interface offers an intuitive discovery experience, making it easy for users to find your digital items and stay focused on their research. The result of extensive usability testing, the CONTENTdm end-user interface includes:

  • A viewer for zooming and panning, and viewing images full-browser,
  • Social features for commenting, tagging and rating digital items,
  • The ability to share digital items (e-mail, bookmark, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and many more), and
  • Features that support discoverability such as QuickView, image carousels and RSS feeds.

Searching and accessing collections

CONTENTdm enables you to create predefined queries and customized interfaces to collections. End users can include all, some or one collection in a search. The collection list is always visible and the search query is repeated at the top of search results to help end users remember what was searched. End users control the display of results in grid or thumbnail view and can opt to see a QuickView of selected metadata as the mouse rolls over an item in results. You guide their experience by configuring which metadata fields to display in results grid and QuickView. You also control which fields are listed as sort options and the end user selects from those sort options.

Search results provide one-click access to images, documents, audio or video files, and their associated metadata. If a search returns no matching results, CONTENTdm will provide alternative suggestions to help users correct spelling errors. Additionally, end users who are unfamiliar with a collection can simply browse, rather than formulate specific searches.

Searching and accessing collections

High-powered search features

Flexible search features include Unicode support; Boolean operators; faceted searching to help users refine their search results; and a powerful advanced search option for users to search by defined fields, across all fields, by date and across one or many collections. CONTENTdm also auto-generates search terms based on existing metadata.

Additionally, CONTENTdm provides multiple sorting options for search results, including relevancy sorting or sorting by specific fields, which can be configured by both collection administrators and end users.

Customizing your digital collection website

The CONTENTdm Website is optimized for customization at a global and collection level. You can start by using the Quick Config Tool to brand your website and describe your collections. You can further tailor your website's appearance and behavior using the Website Configuration Tool. These configuration tools let the collection administrators apply their knowledge about the collection to the presentation of the collection. No programming knowledge is needed.

Customizations can go far beyond the configuration toolset if you have programming skills. The CONTENTdm Website is extensible and customizable using JavaScript, CSS and PHP. You can use the Custom Scripts capability to add components such as Google Analytics or shopping carts.

You also can easily localize your CONTENTdm website to support languages other than English. Currently, the website is available in English, French, Spanish and German, and can be localized to support other languages.

Additionally, you have the flexibility to create predefined searches called Suggested Topics. This enables collection professionals to follow a few simple steps to set up search queries that are appropriate for a specific collection and end-user audience. Suggested Topics can be used to simplify discovery of a very large collection or to suggest discovery pathways based on experience.

Save items for reference and presentations

End users can save any media type and its metadata in their CONTENTdm favorites for presentations or reference. Items added to My Favorites are links to items within collections rather than the actual images so they are never out of date. Items may be added to My Favorites whenever you search or browse a CONTENTdm collection. CONTENTdm favorites also may be saved as HTML pages and sent to other CONTENTdm end users who can view the items as long as they have Web access to the CONTENTdm server. You also can create custom slide shows of favorites, view and rearrange images or compare two images.

My Favorites files have many uses. Instructors can distribute the digital items to students or post links on a Web site in support of other curriculum materials. Also, My Favorites files can be directly linked from course management software systems. My Favorites also can be used to create a shopping cart for submission to eCommerce systems. This allows organizations to retain unique identifiers for each item and ensure orders are filled correctly.

CONTENTdm also provides an easy to use "reference URL" for all items. This unique URL can be generated for any item when browsing or searching a collection. You can record this persistent, short URL for future use, ensuring accurate and consistent citation. This link always returns to the original digital file and metadata within the collection so context is maintained.