Automatic data-gathering agents for remote navigability testing

The Tirsus Project, developed at the Laboratory of Object-Oriented Technologies at the University of Oviedo, Spain, comprises the design of several hypermedia tools for teaching history in the exhibition rooms of the Archaeological Museum of Asturias, Spain. These tools must be designed for a wide variety of users. We use the Object Oriented Hypermedia Development Model to structure the information that historians, archaeologists, and the museum curator provide. This tool lets us create several navigation models to comply with the expectations of different kinds of users, including special versions of the knowledge base in three languages: English for international support, Spanish for national support, and Asturian, the local language, for local support. The research team at Oviedo tested the prototypes´ usability and navigability concurrently, employing usability testing techniques. The test participants were history students and volunteers of the Friends of the Archaeological Museum of Asturias Society, two groups who closely matched our intended average users.