The NTUH new portal has classified the linkages into groups; the users can operate the
portal intuitively and effectively. The portal permits searching by browsing hierarchical
classifications of the web-based information. Although there are many positive feedbacks, a
beginner is not familiar with the portal layouts initially and may not navigate them
smoothly. There is one issue users complain. In general, a user accesses not more than 10
function selections on average. However, in the current design, the user needs to select the
target menu from classified groups covering over 300 linkages. It is still time consuming.
Regarding the issue, we plan to improve it according to the following approaches:
1) Keeping the favourite links for users: we can log (Liu et al., 2006) users’ behaviour and
obtain users popular function links by adapting LRU (Least Recent Used) algorithm. These
links will be collected and implemented as “my favourite”. Users can quickly retrieve the
links they frequently execute. In addition, the pre-fetched links can be cached in advance to
improve performance. Therefore, an embedded DDNMLog has been implemented in
conjunction with NTUH HIS. The application uses Oracle as the back-end log database and
is integrated in Microsoft.NET environment. In addition, the application has been pilot
since April, 2009.
2) Providing site map facilities: the portal site map can improve targets searching temporally
and spatially. The site map is generated, maintained automatically, accordingly by the
portal configuration files. The approach illustrates the flexibility of the site map maintenance.
NTUH HIS Portal provides medical practitioners and staff with a visible site map to
encourage them to navigate the Portal via shortcuts. However, the current NTUH site map
|
|
is a heavily hierarchical interlinked tree structures; it can induce disorientations (Dieberger,
50 Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agents
1997). On the other hand, the practitioners have different expectations and preferences while
navigating the web site to perform their daily operations. It is desirable to ameliorate the
situation. Therefore, we propose a technique by utilizing the DDNMLog scheme to retrieve
users’ behaviours in order to construct a multi-granular, topic of interests site map imposed,
derived via the configuration files automatically. The link structures of the map can be
presented, indicated by citation analyses with further pruning as well. It is anticipated that
the usability effects of the NTUH Portal site map can be improved.
3) Full text searching: the portal will provide the feature. The planned searching engine will
examine all the words in bulletin contents, documents, announcements, as well as menus to
expedite searching and text retrieval.
4) Customized portal per user: the portal can be customized by per user basis including
groups, function links, as well as web page layouts. The approach can be achieved using
Web 2.0-based technologies (Knights., 2007; Schroth & Janner, 2007). The techniques
empower users to customize their experiences more effectively than ever before, and share
information in more efficient and collaborative way.
Therefore, the combination of these techniques effectively benefits the entire NTUH HIS
systems workloads. The portal has been on-line formally since June 2006. The portal
provides services for doctors, medical staffs, as well as administrative personnel. In order to
understand and validate the perfectionism, completeness of the portal, we conduct
periodically assessment interrogation, interviewing, and debriefing to obtain the portal
usages, suggestions from the associates for further enhancements as well.