Hello, my name is Michael Stokes with IBM Rational Software.

I want to speak with you today about Rational Asset Manager, otherwise know as "RAM", and the design that went into creating a highly usable search and create function for software assets

The overall usability objectives the went into the RAM design were threefold: ease of asset creation, ease of finding an asset, and ease of evaluating and using an asset.

This discussion will focus on the ease of finding and asset objective

The principle function for finding an asset is a search function, which you see here.
The objective behind the design of the search function was to recognize that end users in searching for things will adopt different strategies. We strove to accomodate 
these different strategies, usage patterns and preferences. Rational Asset manager in so doing,  provides four major methods for searching and browsing an asset repository.  I'll cover each here.

The first method for finding an asset is to use the text search, in which a term is entered and the results are listed. From the results a user can view information about the asset as well as click on the asset's name and be takn to a details page that lists the asset's description, the asset contents, and what members of the community are saying about the asset.

The second method is to use filtered search.  When an asset is created it is categorized.  These categories form the basis of the filters. A user can click on any of the filters listed, at which point the user will be taken to an area in RAM that contains assets of that type and category. Filtered search has proven to be very useful in allowing a user to navigate the RAM repository where there are many assets.

The third method for serching assets in RAM is to use tags. When a user creates an asset or when a user browses an asset,  that person can add a tag.  A tag is bascially a label that describes the asset in a way the is meaningful to the user.  Later, other users can browse these tags to determines what is of interest to the users of the RAM community.

The fourth method of browsing and searching is to user our visual browse function.  
As the name would suggest, this function allows the user to browse and search the repository in a visual manner.  We can enter a search term. From the results list a user can select an asset or assets of interest.  Upon selecting an asset, it is displayed in a graphical panel at the bottom. From here the user can view information about the asset or they can display the asset in different ways, such as showing related assets. Here you see the assets that are related to the Credit Management Service Interface asset are displayed and I can display details regarding the relationships. I can also choose differnent way of displaying the asset. In this case, I might want to show the various assets grouped by type.  Type is denoted by color and by label.  As you can see here, like assets are displayed near each other in the diagram.  

The graphical browse function was added in the second release of RAM in response to some very clear requirements from our stakeholder customers. We have received high praise for this function.  We believe it is going in the right direction and we anticipate improving upon it in the time to come. 

In evaluating an asset, a user can dive into details about a particular asset.  Here we see a details page that is divided into various sections.  From the main section you can view a summary of the asset including a description, its attributes, what category it is associated with,  and whether or note it has related assets. You can also view the contents of the asset. Every artifact making up the asset is listed.  From there you can launch viewers or browsers for the various artifacts that make up the asset. 
You can view ratings for the asset if users have commented on the asset and given it a rating. You can view discussions about a particular asset, and statistics.  

If a user decides that this is an asset that they want to reuse, a download button -- a single click --  will allow the user to download the asset to the desktop. 

In addition to that, users can select to monitor to find out whether it has changed by creating an RSS feed for the asset or subscribing to the asset and getting e-mail updates. 

As so, as you can see, the overall solution is one the is designed to accommodate the needs of the end user, to provide an easy way to access information about assets within the repository, and also to foster a sense of community among the users of the asset repository.