Int. J. Human-Computer Studies (1997) 46, 685—686

Editorial

The explosive growth of the World Wide Web in the 1990s is a significant example of newtrends in human—computer interaction evolving through grass-roots development world-wide. In particular, web forms support a graphic user interface that can be simplyprogrammed as an interactive document. Anyone who can use a word processor canbecome a user interface designer. The embedding of user interface elements withina document in itself promotes a new approach to interaction in which the interfaceemerges from the content and context. The flexibility of a dynamically programmedemergent interface may itself constitute a new paradigm for human—computer interactionin the 1990s.

Much of the growth of the web may be ascribed to it supporting a simple client servermodel in which web browsers provide client software that operates in a uniform way onvirtually all platforms, and support access to services anywhere on the Internet. This hasenabled developers to factor their systems into specialist server software operating undertheir local control and remote client software about which they need know nothingexcept that it properly implements certain communication and user interface protocols.It has led to the development of a wide range of innovative applications on the WorldWide Web which exhibit the capabilities of emergent interfaces in active documentsthrough widely accessible services.

This special issue is the result of a call for papers on Innovative Applications of the¼orld ¼ide ¼eb which elicited a wide range of submissions. Ten of these have beenselected to provide illustrations of the potential of client—server computing on the web,and, in particular, to draw attention to the many new human factors issues that are arisingin web applications. We hope that the International Journal of Human—ComputerStudies will increasingly be used as a forum for describing innovative applications of theweb and for reporting studies of the ensuing human—computer interaction issues.

The first three papers are concerned with the development of knowledge-basedsystems through the web. The paper by Gruber, Vemuri and Rice illustrates how virtualdocuments on the web can provide an interface to a complex knowledge-based systemthat emerges naturally out of the interaction between the user and the knowledge base.The paper by Farquhar, Fikes and Rice describes one of the most complex servers on theweb that provides users for facilities for building and testing knowledge base ontologies.The paper by Gaines and Shaw complements the previous papers by showing howa range of knowledge acquisition and modeling tools have been ported to operatethrough the graphic user interface of the web.

The next three papers are concerned with the provision of interactive services on theweb. The paper by Ibrahim again emphasizes the use of the web interface to supportclient—server applications and describes one of the earliest uses of the web to providea programming environment for teaching Pascal. The paper by Wagner, Castanotto andGoldberg illustrates the use of the interactive graphics capabilities of the web to providea design environment for manufacturing. The paper by Kamba, Sakagami, Koseki andAkita describes the use of Java to support dynamically personalized newspapers on the web.

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1071-5819/97/060685#02$25.00/0/hc960123 ( 1997 Academic Press Limited

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The remaining four papers are concerned with the support of social interaction on theweb. The paper by Dieberger analyses social navigation on the web in terms ofexperience with MOO systems. The paper by Bentley, Appelt, Busbach, Hinrichs, Kerr,Sikkel, Trevor and Woetzel describes a freely available and widely used shared work-space system supporting cooperative work through the web. The paper by Fisherdescribes Thomson Consumer Electronics’ experience in using the web to supporta corporate memory. The paper by Paulos and Canny describes the extension of thesocial environment to include tele-operated mobile robots that are able to give users incyberspace a telepresence in a remote real world.

The papers in this special issue illustrate the potential of the World Wide Web tosupport systems implemented in new ways based on a different style of user interface andinteraction from that to which we have been accustomed. The many human factor issuesraised, are the same as for conventional systems, but many new ones have emerged asdynamic, active documents come to provide a rich and ubiquitous interface. Currentguidelines for web development focus on issues of multimedia page layout and there area few human factors studies as yet which address the full client—server capabilities of theweb. We hope that this special issue will stimulate further innovation and in-depthstudies of the human factors of applications of the World Wide Web.

Brian Gaines, Editor

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