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IwC Journal Special Issue Active Web home | special issue | part 1 | part 2 | conference | tutorial |
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 event, 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 seams 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 udnerstanding 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
in 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, despite increasing the list substantially -the
original "one or two" papers we asked them to reviews 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.
In 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.
The web is a medium for both communication and cooperation in "Supporting
Educational Activities through Dynamic Web Interfaces" by Pimentel, Ishiguru,
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, discuss the material with one another. Increasingly
flexible patterns of education mean this is a glimpse 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.
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 web-based 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
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 ClarkeEditorial - Interfaces for the Active Web (Part 1)
Alan Dix
| Active Web home | special issue | part 1 | part 2 | conference | tutorial | |
| Guest Editors Dave Clarke and Alan Dix | pages hosted by Hiraeth Mixed Media and Visualize Software Ltd |