Web Development Methods
Unit 10: Future Web Applications
Today
Contributes to Learning Outcomes: 1. Describe the evolution of the world wide web 2. Identify current and future application areas
for the world wide web.
We will cover: Semantic web Online communities/sociability New platforms/contexts Tips for Tracking trends
Why Future Trends Matter
First - v. hard (impossible?) to predict
But: Companies work typically 2-5 years
ahead As employees you need to keep skills
relevant Web is a v. fast moving environment
Identifying Future Trends
Can come from many sources: Technologist driven (e.g. Semantic Web) User driven (e.g. online communities) Context driven (e.g. using technology at home,
whilst mobile) Technology driven (e.g. new platforms, WAP,
DiTV, etc)Research centres (e.g. MIT, Philips Labs,
BT Labs, etc) often lead the way: ‘Blue sky research’
The Semantic Web
The web problem: Finding what you want
Tim Berners-Lee’s solution: The semantic web
The basic idea: Make the information more ‘machine
understandable’
The Dream
Machines that talk, and think/reason, like humans: HAL in 2001 Any number of robots/cyborgs etc in
films and books The Star Trek computer
The Problem
Computers are stupid: GIGO (Garbage In, garbage Out) They depend entirely on us giving them
data in formats they can understand The underlying meaning or sense of
data is called ‘semantics’ Humans use logic, inference, fuzzy
thinking etc to make sense:Semantics can vary with context
Semantics - Example
“In Edinburgh yesterday it was sunny.”Humans make sense of this sentence by:
inferring what its constituent parts mean and how they relate to each other
Machines can’t - they need this spelled out for them: In <city> <day relative to today’s date>
it was <weather: amount of sunshine> with <weather: type of wind>
TBL’s Vision
The web is structured so that: the underlying semantics of all its data is clear which would allow machines to use logic to
analyse dataCurrently:
Find all web pages with the phrase ‘cars for sale’ and Edinburgh
Future Find all web pages that advertise cars for sale in
the Edinburgh area in the price range £2000-£4000
Achieving the Semantic Web
A new kind of approach to marking up web pages HTML just marks up page layout Need to mark up semantics as well
TBL’s proposal: RDF (Rich Description Framework) Extends the principle of metadata
Metadata
In the previous example <city> etc. are examples of metadata: Information about information Edinburgh = information <city> = metadata Tells a computer that ‘Edinburgh is a city’ Would not know this otherwise
You have already used metadata: ‘meta tags’ e.g. <title> etc in the <head>
section of an GHTML page
But...
Means we all need to agree about meaningsExamples:
What is a <city> ? Is today 14/5/01 or 14th May 2001 or 5/14/01?
TBL thinks we ‘understand’ by ‘associating’ things as if programming our brains Many philosophers would disagree!
Politics: Who controls the meanings?
WHAT IS AN ONLINE COMMUNITY?
Preece (2000): People Shared Purpose Policies Computer Systems
E-commerce sites increasingly try to promote ‘community’
Question: are all web sites ‘online communities’?
OTHER PERSPECTIVES
CHI96: shared goals and resources, repeated participation,
reciprocity, shared context Sociological:
geographical, strength and type of relationships Technology:
participation technology (Listserv or chatroom, synchronous or asynchronous, text or graphical etc)
VR: long term, immersive
E-commerce: broad view, promote ‘stickiness’
COMMUNITY
A process not a ‘thing’Have a historyCan be more or less:
planned regulated dynamic heterogeneous purposeful
CLASSIFYING ONLINE COMMUNITIES
Categorised by purpose: informational, communication/social
exchange, therapeutic, educational, entertainment, work
Categorised by people: professional, casual, customers, work
groupsCategorised by technology:
graphical/multimedia, text, immersive (VR), a/synchronous
CASE STUDY: BRAINIUM
http://www.brainium.comPurpose:
educational, informationalPeople:
professional (teachers), regular (kids), casual (parents)
Policies: privacy
Technology: asynchronous, multimedia
SOCIABILITY - PURPOSE
Shared goalsClarity of community’s purposePromoting empathy ‘v’ encouraging
lively interactions ‘v’ hostilityEvolution: purposes develop
BRAINIUM PURPOSE
Mixture shared goals: parents: support kids, stay one step ahead... teachers: educate, share teaching resources... kids: do what told, learn, have fun...
Clarity of purpose: high (parents, teachers), mixed (kids)
Promoting empathy: teachers bulletin board
SOCIABILITY - PEOPLE
Participation ‘types’: moderators/mediators professionals lurkers participants (stars, provocateurs,
socializers, explorers, etc)Community size:
bigger community = harder to represent
BRAINIUM - PEOPLE
Professionals - science experts, educators
Participants - teachers, parents, kids, limited scope to ‘star’, provoke, etc
‘Anonymous’ moderator (policy writers etc)
Lurkers - encouraged since only got email communication options
SOCIABILITY - POLICIES
‘Internal’: membership netiquette/netspeak bylaws and moderation rules
‘External’: privacy security copyright
Balancing: promoting ‘v’ stifling community development
BRAINIUM POLICIES
Membership types (educator, parents, kids, corporates)
Privacy Policy - available from home page
No netiquette/netspeak policies detailed
SOCIABILITY - TECHNOLOGY
Immersiveness: virtual environments, text worlds (MOOs),
avatars, etcInteraction devices/stylesMedia/modalitiesA/synchronousListservs/email, usenet, chat rooms,
CVEs/shared spaces, web sites, bulletin boards, groupware, media spaces
BRAINIUM TECHNOLOGY
MultimediaVery graphicalAsynchronousEmail Bulletin Board (but no bulletins…)
DESIGNING FOR SOCIABILITY
Requirements: sociability as focus (people, purpose, policies,
technology) still need other HCI issues (activities, users’
from cognitive/physical perspective, etc) design for community moderators as well as
participants ‘other’ issues: economic, collective
characteristics, community centered designBut as with the Semantic Web:
Who defines/controls the community?
COFFEE TIME
Back in 10 minutes please
KEY AREAS OF HOUSEHOLD TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT
‘Smart Homes’: networked, devices that ‘talk’ to each other (e.g.
via wireless technology), monitoring systems, personal safety/health systems, central services control
‘Information Appliances’: devices that have informational capacities built-in
(Web enabled fridge, microwaves, games consoles, TVs etc)
‘Tangibles’: toddler beds that detect movement, picture frames
that respond to distant events
CASE STUDY 1: HOME INFORMATION CENTRE
Flex Project: EU funded 2 years long 5 partners (Napier, Bang and Olufsen, UPM, SAGE,
PDC) in 3 countries (UK, Denmark, Spain)
Interface just one of the issues: content, data mining, natural language systems,
speech Shares many of the concerns of the semantic web
FLEX GOALS
Main project goal
• Home Information Centre (HIC)
• Multimodal access to data and services
• Relevant for everyday lifein domestic situations
Contents
• A huge amount of information out there, but diffuse
• Need for easy, intuitive access• Well-ordered sources from
providers
Product goals
• FLEX technology
• Technological platform for HIC
• Evaluate synergy of:
• simple use
• intuitive navigation
• flexible search
HIC - User Context
Beolink (r)
prin-ter
PC isdn
M oving around INFO TAIN M ENT
Lean-backEN TERTAIN M ENT
Lean-forw ardPR O D UC TIV ITY
phoneradiotapeC D
TV
video
Internet
HIC Living room Hom e office
info
pen
HIC Prototype Design
HIC Prototype setup (seen with BeoLab 4000 speakers)
FLEX Interface Design
Scenario-based Design
• Developing scenarios that capture:
•people undertaking
•activities in an
•context using
•technologies
• Web-based FLEX Scenarios Corpus, standarised scenario layout
• Facilitates design decision making, partner communication
Developing Scenarios
• Gathering user experiences
• Brainstorming concrete situations
• Collect/compile into classes:
•info gathering
•communication
•entertainment
• Gather representative real data and media
• Specify rationale for scenario
Scenarios Through The Lifecycle
User User
StoriesStories
Use Use
CasesCases
ConcreteConcrete
ScenariosScenarios
Conceptual Conceptual
ScenariosScenarios
Gathering User Experiences
Households Study
• Ethnographic studies of information/communication in domestic settings
• Rural and urban households
• Challenges:
• negotiating access
• defining domestic setting, household, etc.
• lack of obvious tasks
• techniques
Design Workshops
• Varied user groups:
• rural / urban
• kids / adults
• techno-literate / non-literate
• Developing scenarios
• Brainstorming/mocking up design ideas
• Paper based prototyping
FLEX CHALLENGES
Development Methods: how do we understand users, activities,
contexts and technologies in the household use of scenarios and participatory design
workshops to bridge the gapThe Content Problem:
web content is still largely designed for ‘lean forward situations’
household contexts are more ‘lean back’ and/or ‘walking about’
DiTV
DiTV = Digital Interactive Television long hyped a reality with the arrival of digital broadcasting
DiTV approaches: enhanced interactive
DiTV genres (Dormann, 2000): information (e.g. weather) commerce (e.g. shopping, banking) fiction (still rare) play (games, game shows, magazines, chat, email)
DiTV TECHNOLOGY
Transmission: satellite (SKY Digital) cable terrestrial (OPEN)
‘Set-top box’: now being built in (e.g. Philips tv)
Interaction devices: currently restricted to wireless keyboards future: joysticks, voice, touch screen, force
feedback,eye tracking
DiTV SERVICES
Home shoppingHome BankingSmall adsPay per View (e.g. films, big sporting
events,concerts)Games: interactive and networkedChat, email, WebInformation (somewhat like Teletext,
the first iTV in the UK)
DiTV PROGRAMMING
Interactive advertisingTeleshoppingGameshowsNews/Current AffairsEducationalDrama
DiTV AND COMMUNITY
One of the added value aspects of iTV is the opportunity to build community: can offer fan based communities chat
rooms after shows, online with the stars etc game shows can be enhanced by offering
viewers chance to compete documentaries etc. can offer viewers a
chance to respond, get involved in campaigns etc
DiTV CHALLENGE
Handling transitions between ‘observing’ and ‘interacting’
Multi-media aspects: can present same information in many ways
(media equivalent of changing camera angles)
GUIs: getting away from PC/office look and feel new interaction devices (hard and virtual)
required (e.g. the problem with remotes)
A PASSING FAD?
The first movies were comprised entirely of people running around: what was new about movies was - they moved it took a while, but movies got more
interesting!
The breakthrough for movies: when movie makers got over the technology
and got back to the content
iTV: content,content,content…
SUMMARY
Emerging contexts of and platforms for experiencing the web challenge design methods/thinking
Concept of ‘usability’ needs revisingDevelopment methods need changingPeople, Activities,Contexts and
Technologies are harder to specify in emerging markets
Tracking future and emerging trends is important, but difficult to do
TRACKING STRATEGIES
Find reliable sources: professional organisations (e.g. BCS, ACM, etc) watch for conferences (e.g. Ceebit, CHI and
HCI,CSCW, CVE) specialist UI websites (UINET) magazine etc websites ‘trade’ websites (e.g. Macromedia, Adobe,
Microsoft, Philips, Sony, IBM, BT etc) the competition (e.g. case studies)
Visit your sources regularly as part of your professional practice
Follow-up
Tim Berners-Lee “Weaving the Web”: Chapter 13, ‘Machines and the web’
MIT Media Lab website: www.media.mit.edu
Professional bodies: www.bcs.org.uk www.acm.org
Coursework 2
Notes: Submit your website on your public_html
directory Do not alter any files after the hand in date Make sure you give the correct URL for people
to access your site via the web in your report Make sure you set the permissions! If you don’t understand any of the above - get it
sorted in THIS WEEK’S TUTORIALSOtherwise:
Any questions?
Group Activity
Last year telco’s paid vast sums for licenses for next generation mobile phones
This year they are laying off vast numbers of staff
Do you think web access via WAP phones and their next generation equivalents has any future?
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