Design of Knowledge Driven Interfaces in Cultural Contexts

A major problem in developing interactive interfaces is how to guide users with respect to which queries they can ask. This is because users need to know what is possible to ask in a particular domain. This paper explores these issues in the context of cultural heritage (CH) environments. The effective presentation of CH information requires the application of sophisticated techniques from different areas, mainly human-computer interaction and knowledge management. In this kind of interactive applications users should adopt different accessing strategies independently of how the information is organized in the repositories. Thus, if the information domain is spread in different sources the user has to be able to operate in a transparent way independently of the data-structures of the archives. Moreover, the user would not be taken aback by a huge amount of data available, but the information has to be tailored according to the real user's interests. The proposed approach is based on the definition of relationships between the information cultural domain fitting the conceptual model of the cultural experts (represented by an appropriate knowledge base) and an information domain which can be understood by the machine (modeled by a domain ontology). The final system's infrastructure filters the richness of the data-sources to comply with the users' needs, tailoring the information according to their context of use. In this way the user can properly navigate through the heritage and create their own personalized thematic tour through a large number of information trails.