Report:Thomson Innovation/Usability
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Usability
The following section contains subjective comments about the system that represent our editor's opinions, and should not be viewed as fact. Editor's opinions include positive and negative judgments about the product written in consideration of wider context, including related products and the industry at large. Further subjective information is presented in clearly labeled "Editor's Notes" throughout the report.
Usability is one of the qualities that sets Thomson Innovation apart from the older Thomson products. Innovation takes advantage of Javascript and other modern technologies to deliver a powerful, easy-to-use, and largely intuitive user interface. Anyone who has experience with basic web-based search tools will catch on quickly to Innovation’s user interface, once they learn the functions of its myriad buttons. Some advanced patent knowledge is also required before users are able to take advantage of advanced features, such as the “collapse by” family features. The wide variety of preferences may also appear daunting to novice users, although they do provide a high degree of customization for the user interface.
By using a slick JavaScript-based web interface and offering powerful search options paired with fast image viewing and advanced highlighting features, as well as analysis-oriented functions such as attractive graphing and citation mapping, Thomson Reuters has created a comparable system to other competing high-quality web-based patent search tools.
One feature that notably aids usability is the so-called "Breadcrumb" navigation tool. This tool allows easy forward and backward navigation through the Thomson Innovation interface. The searcher can use the Back and Forward arrows to retrace his or her previous steps. Between the Backward and Forward arrows is a drop-down menu allowing the user to skip directly to a previously visited screen.
The Citation mapping and Charting functions, while impressive looking and ultimately useful, aren’t as intuitive as some of the more basic features and may require some experimentation on the part of the user and/or a read through the Thomson Innovation Help file. Also, sometimes when creating more complex charts, the system can take a noticeably long time to compile/load.
One less intuitive component of the tool is the saved work interface. For example, the presence of both an active search history (under the Search tab) and a saved search history folder could confuse novice users.
Fortunately, Thomson Reuters has produced ample in-system help materials to help users understand the interface and how it should be used. A very detailed help file containing step-by-step instructions, explanations and screenshots of all the different features is available to provide assistance to both new and experienced users of Innovation. Thomson Reuters also deserves praise for keeping their very in-depth documentation up-to-date, and making it easy to navigate - the index is both searchable and browseable.
A recent update to the interface in the fall of 2011 added additional user-friendly tools that facilitate quicker patent searching and viewing, such as the numbered step functionality that guides users through the use of complicated search features and the Quick View option for the Record View. The Quick View option and "Mark and Next" tool are particularly useful for facilitating quicker browsing through large record sets. Users can mark relevant records and move on to the next record in a single click through the "Mark and Next" feature, which will save time for patent searchers reviewing large sets of data.
