Online Multimedia Database for Communities of Practice in Biology: A Real Use Challenge

The ETIC scientific program aims to enhance insular tropical environment research contents from biologists to general public through information and communication Web technologies. In this frame, online multimedia databases are convenient Web applications that allow communities of practice in Biology for environmental protection to share different types of documents (text, photo, video, sound, etc.). But the way to design them needs to be adapted to researcher´s practices, in order to be really attractive and useful. By applying a user-centered development process and an appropriate human resources project management based on a co-design platform, our team has been able to develop an online multimedia database that matches user´s expectations. An important effort has been devoted to deliver a usable interface close to offline standard applications. Indeed, Web applications will have to extract themselves from Web interface rigidity without imposing users to download additional plugins. Moreover, interoperability between Web applications allowing the creation and the online modification of files stored in the multimedia database is also a priority challenge.