How do you manage Bookmarks in Google Scholar?
The behind story of Collection feature in Scinapse
Bookmark (or Favorites) which is web browser’s traditional feature has been used in a variety of web services. As the amount of information increases rapidly, Bookmark had become an important tool that enabled users to efficiently re-use appropriate information.
Bookmark applies equally to academic search engine services. For example, there are Google Scholar’s ‘My library’ feature, or Microsoft Academic’s ‘Paper follow’ feature. Researchers often use Bookmark to save papers that will be read next time or be used as references to their research.
But papers simply saved in Bookmark are mostly forgotten by researchers. This is because Bookmark feature only focuses on “saving”. When you have like tens or hundreds of papers in your Bookmark, it’s very difficult to remember which papers had been saved, and why.
Collection is designed to complement this limitation of Bookmark within Scinapse. This is a key feature that Scinapse has. Today, we want to share the process behind developing the Collection feature.
Background
For a long time, researchers have been trying to store and organize papers well. But they often get into a dilemma. Managing many papers easily and efficiently is very difficult and takes a lot of time. So most researchers use paper management services such as Mendeley or Endnote, but it still is a bother to researchers. Therefore, we wanted to find a way to solve these problems.
First of all, we had searched for ways in which researchers manage papers. The basic way of managing papers was ‘structuring’. In most cases, a specific topic is set as a “high-layer” and papers information(e.g. title, author) is organized as a “sub-layer”. Based on this, we came up with the idea about Collection. The basic feature of Collection is to make a high-layer called a collection and to organize the papers below it.
Another basic feature of Collection is sharing it with others. Social Bookmark is not adding bookmarks to the browser, but adding bookmarks to the Web. This allows users to share Bookmarks with others and evaluate the value of the information through Bookmarks accumulation. That is, it is a system where information pieces are recommended and evaluated by sharing in the form of Bookmarks, under individual judgement. This has the potential to be approached from the viewpoint of collective intelligence. We thought that usage data of Collection could be utilized for recommendations such as “related papers”. Plus, this can help researchers collaborate.
Through Collection, we wanted to make users feel the following:
“ In Scinapse, it’s easy to save and organize papers.”
“ In Scinapse, researchers can share their experience(Collection, list of papers).”
Improve Collection project
We had a lot of ideas to improve Collection in Scinapse. One of these ideas, Memo feature which we recently updated, is the first step.
Add the Memo feature to Collection
Being able to save memos to individual papers could help users to better remember papers that had been saved. When users share their collections, using Memo feature could help others better comprehend the list. Therefore, we had decided to add Memo feature to Collection.
As mentioned in the previous post about our workflow, we aim to quickly try and validate ideas and update them with feedback. Therefore, we had developed a minimum Memo feature as a beta version.
Based on this beta version of Memo feature, we had user tests. Common feedback from user test is as follows:
- The feature to save individual paper with adding memo is very good.
- But the relationship with paper, collection, and memo is not intuitive. Saving a memo in a paper and saving a paper in a collection are perceived as completely different actions.
- The initial users don’t understand the Collection navigation bar.
Most testers felt the need for Memo feature and were satisfied with it. But they pointed out that the UI / UX flow is not familiar. So we decided to make an effort to improve UI/UX of Collection before developing other feature ideas. What we focused on was to make an intuitive flow between Paper-Collection-Memo.
Improve UI/UX of Collection
We have re-checked the user flow with the following considerations.
- The user enters Paper show page in Scinapse. (This is the most common user flow of entering Scinapse.)
- It should lead users to recognize Collection. In other words, Collection feature should be placed in a clearly visible spot in Paper show page.
- Existing [+Add Collection] button may not be familiar to users. That is, it needs a new button.
- Collection feature is available only to sign up users. Therefore, it should notify non-signed up or non-signed-in users that they can use Collection when logged in.
2. Save the paper in the collection.
- Users must be able to make a collection themselves or select the collection from Collection lists.
- It should remind users that the paper has been saved in the collection.
- If the paper is saved in the different collection, users must be able to check it.
3. Provide Memo feature.
- It should show that the memo is saved.
- It should be possible to edit or delete the memo.
- It needs to be delivered that users can move to the collection where papers and memos had been saved.
We had a new design based on the following points.
- Notify users of Collection feature when they sign in.
- Place the button below the Title with other actions where they’re clearly visible, and simplify into a box form for consistency.
- Use the Bookmark symbol and the word “Save” which is more familiar than “Collection”.
- Make them look clickable by either changing colors or giving tooltips when hovered over.
- Use a symbol to explain that the Collection list button is a drop-down.
- From the drop-down list, Bookmark symbols are used to show where the current paper is saved.
- When saved, let users know by changing the text and color.
- After saving a memo, the vertical to the right shows it.
- The reason for not showing Memo feature before users save paper in the collection is to strengthen the relationship between Collection and Memo feature. If it provides Memo feature optionally after users save the paper in the collection, it could help users to recognize them intuitively.
- Make a link to Collection page for users to check their saved papers and memos.
Results
In December Scinapse updates, we added Memo feature and modified UI/UX to improve Collection. As a result:
- Increase in sign-up
After updates, daily new members are increasing rapidly. We are not sure that this update makes users joining Scinapse for using Collection feature. However, we had made a design that will lead users to recognize Collection and sign in, and it’s clear that this is working. - Increase in Collection actions
Compared with before, Collection is being used more frequently. Therefore, it is expected that the same will happen with Memo - Established an identity for Scinapse with the addition of a unique feature
We had got characteristics that distinguish Scinapse from general academic search engines.
Next up
We will make other attempts on Collection. This January update is as follows:
- Add sort feature to Collection show page
We will add the sorting feature in Collection. Sorting criteria are as follows: Most citations, Oldest, Newest - Update external sharing feature
Collection can be shared to external channels with URL. However, it is difficult for users to recognize that they can. We are adding a “Share” button for this reason, as well as making it easier to share.
In addition to that, we will be making various new attempts in the future, such as downloading PDFs of all papers in the collection list and Collection Feed. We expect the Collection to be a collaborative research repository in the end, and will try to update new ideas gradually until we reach that stage.
