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Interfaces for the Active Web
D. Clarke, A. Dix / Interacting with Computers 13 (2001) 323–324
323
Interacting with Computers 13 (2001) 323–324 www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom
Editorial
Interfaces for the Active Web
In its early days, the Internet was a means for transferring data between academic and military computers and communicating largely via messages. The Internet could also be, for the technological elite, a means to contact and interact with remote computers. With the explosive growth of the World Wide Web, the paradigm shifted to one of publishing; not like traditional media owned and organised by a powerful elite, but instead a decentralised and open environment. As the web has matured, static pages have given way to interactive sites that change depending on world events, that animate, that react to what we do. As access to the Internet moves out from the computer to mobile phones, television and games consoles, we are forced to constantly re-evaluate the nature of ‘the web’ and what it will become. Sometimes it seems that the progress of technology is outstripping our understanding of it. It is precisely because of this that more fundamental and analytic views of this dynamic topic are necessary. Only by establishing deep understanding can we hope to reapply that knowledge to a shifting world. Our personal interest in this topic goes back many years, including database-driven web construction, while most sites were still at the ‘build it now and worry later’ stage! Over 2 years ago we planned a day conference together on “The Active Web”. Although we knew this was an exciting topic, the level of interest still took us by surprise. The conference was held at Staffordshire University in January 1999 and the enthusiasm generated by that, lead directly to the call for this special issue. We were a little more prepared for the response this time, but still it stretched our own expectations, not to mention our list of reviewers. We particularly want to thank our reviewers – the original “one or two” papers we asked them to review stretched way beyond that in several cases. Because of the large response, we are expecting to produce a further special issue on the topic. The change of the web from a passive ‘published’ medium to an interactive shared space raises both social and technological issues. It is good to see both sides of this represented within this issue. Light and Wakeman’s paper, “Beyond the Interface: User’s perceptions of Interaction and Audience on Websites”, addresses the question of what people feel when they interact with active web pages – who do they feel they are interacting with and why. Users are often forced to enter personal information to a very impersonal medium. Unlike a telephone or face-to-face interaction, there is little sense of reciprocity. For designers of interactive pages, at least one lesson is clear – don’t expect to be able to suck information from your users without giving reason, otherwise they are likely to take the only control remaining and leave your site. 0953-5438/01/$ - see front matter 䉷 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. PII: S0953-543 8(00)00053-9
324
D. Clarke, A. Dix / Interacting with Computers 13 (2001) 323–324
The web is a medium for both communication and cooperation in “Supporting Educational Activities through Dynamic Web Interfaces” by Pimentel, Ishiguro, Kerimbaev, Abowd and Guzdial. The Classroom 2000 project at Georgia Tech. is highly unusual in demonstrating integration between different media, between synchronous and asynchronous interaction and between physical and digital life. Students sit in a lecture, looking at slides and listening to the teacher. Later, they can review the material, navigate in and replay the lecture in audio or video, view the teacher’s annotations and annotate the material themselves, and discuss the material with one another. Increasingly flexible patterns of education mean this is a glimpse of the future for all learning, and possibly even the future of viewer interaction with television soaps! For Sorensen, Macklin and Beaumont in “Navigating the World Wide Web: Bookmark Maintenance Architectures”, the issue is more about the way in which users control their interaction with the information of the web and the design space of software architectures for systems to support bookmark management and information filtering. In real interface design there are rarely ‘fit all’ solutions and the important thing is to understand the choices that need to be made and the implications of these. Using six different prototype systems tuned for different uses, this paper demonstrates both the range of options and a descriptive framework for assessing and comprehending them. Finally, in Phillips and Rodden’s paper “Multi-Authoring Virtual Worlds via the World Wide Web”, the focus is on the construction and authoring of web material – not just any authoring, but the authoring of complex virtual worlds and the issues that arise due to collaborative editing and restricted web interfaces. Collaborative virtual environments allow remote users to interact with one another in simulated virtual worlds. However, the construction of 3D spaces is usually an expert task, performed by a single designer offline using special software. This paper looks at the issues that arise in the design of a system to enable ordinary users to modify the virtual environments using a standard webbased VRML interface similar to that in which the environment is used. Notice again, not just the technical challenges involved here, but a change in paradigm, from publishing to sharing virtual worlds. The future of the web is almost certainly not the web as we know it now, but a more fluid networked environment. Barriers collapse: between reader and publisher, between media, between digital and physical, between synchronous and asynchronous, between space and screen. Perhaps most exciting for us as editors, who both have at various times and in various degrees had feet in both the commercial and academic camps, the barriers in this area are low between theory and practice. Within all the papers in this issue you will find both long-lasting deep knowledge and insights of immediate applicability. For more about the Active Web, including links to papers from the Active Web conference in 1999 and related material, see: http://www.hiraeth.com/activeweb Dave Clarke* Alan Dix
* Corresponding author.
323
Interacting with Computers 13 (2001) 323–324 www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom
Editorial
Interfaces for the Active Web
In its early days, the Internet was a means for transferring data between academic and military computers and communicating largely via messages. The Internet could also be, for the technological elite, a means to contact and interact with remote computers. With the explosive growth of the World Wide Web, the paradigm shifted to one of publishing; not like traditional media owned and organised by a powerful elite, but instead a decentralised and open environment. As the web has matured, static pages have given way to interactive sites that change depending on world events, that animate, that react to what we do. As access to the Internet moves out from the computer to mobile phones, television and games consoles, we are forced to constantly re-evaluate the nature of ‘the web’ and what it will become. Sometimes it seems that the progress of technology is outstripping our understanding of it. It is precisely because of this that more fundamental and analytic views of this dynamic topic are necessary. Only by establishing deep understanding can we hope to reapply that knowledge to a shifting world. Our personal interest in this topic goes back many years, including database-driven web construction, while most sites were still at the ‘build it now and worry later’ stage! Over 2 years ago we planned a day conference together on “The Active Web”. Although we knew this was an exciting topic, the level of interest still took us by surprise. The conference was held at Staffordshire University in January 1999 and the enthusiasm generated by that, lead directly to the call for this special issue. We were a little more prepared for the response this time, but still it stretched our own expectations, not to mention our list of reviewers. We particularly want to thank our reviewers – the original “one or two” papers we asked them to review stretched way beyond that in several cases. Because of the large response, we are expecting to produce a further special issue on the topic. The change of the web from a passive ‘published’ medium to an interactive shared space raises both social and technological issues. It is good to see both sides of this represented within this issue. Light and Wakeman’s paper, “Beyond the Interface: User’s perceptions of Interaction and Audience on Websites”, addresses the question of what people feel when they interact with active web pages – who do they feel they are interacting with and why. Users are often forced to enter personal information to a very impersonal medium. Unlike a telephone or face-to-face interaction, there is little sense of reciprocity. For designers of interactive pages, at least one lesson is clear – don’t expect to be able to suck information from your users without giving reason, otherwise they are likely to take the only control remaining and leave your site. 0953-5438/01/$ - see front matter 䉷 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. PII: S0953-543 8(00)00053-9
324
D. Clarke, A. Dix / Interacting with Computers 13 (2001) 323–324
The web is a medium for both communication and cooperation in “Supporting Educational Activities through Dynamic Web Interfaces” by Pimentel, Ishiguro, Kerimbaev, Abowd and Guzdial. The Classroom 2000 project at Georgia Tech. is highly unusual in demonstrating integration between different media, between synchronous and asynchronous interaction and between physical and digital life. Students sit in a lecture, looking at slides and listening to the teacher. Later, they can review the material, navigate in and replay the lecture in audio or video, view the teacher’s annotations and annotate the material themselves, and discuss the material with one another. Increasingly flexible patterns of education mean this is a glimpse of the future for all learning, and possibly even the future of viewer interaction with television soaps! For Sorensen, Macklin and Beaumont in “Navigating the World Wide Web: Bookmark Maintenance Architectures”, the issue is more about the way in which users control their interaction with the information of the web and the design space of software architectures for systems to support bookmark management and information filtering. In real interface design there are rarely ‘fit all’ solutions and the important thing is to understand the choices that need to be made and the implications of these. Using six different prototype systems tuned for different uses, this paper demonstrates both the range of options and a descriptive framework for assessing and comprehending them. Finally, in Phillips and Rodden’s paper “Multi-Authoring Virtual Worlds via the World Wide Web”, the focus is on the construction and authoring of web material – not just any authoring, but the authoring of complex virtual worlds and the issues that arise due to collaborative editing and restricted web interfaces. Collaborative virtual environments allow remote users to interact with one another in simulated virtual worlds. However, the construction of 3D spaces is usually an expert task, performed by a single designer offline using special software. This paper looks at the issues that arise in the design of a system to enable ordinary users to modify the virtual environments using a standard webbased VRML interface similar to that in which the environment is used. Notice again, not just the technical challenges involved here, but a change in paradigm, from publishing to sharing virtual worlds. The future of the web is almost certainly not the web as we know it now, but a more fluid networked environment. Barriers collapse: between reader and publisher, between media, between digital and physical, between synchronous and asynchronous, between space and screen. Perhaps most exciting for us as editors, who both have at various times and in various degrees had feet in both the commercial and academic camps, the barriers in this area are low between theory and practice. Within all the papers in this issue you will find both long-lasting deep knowledge and insights of immediate applicability. For more about the Active Web, including links to papers from the Active Web conference in 1999 and related material, see: http://www.hiraeth.com/activeweb Dave Clarke* Alan Dix
* Corresponding author.