The philosophy behind Part II of this book is that professional Web content development requires more than just knowing how to write HTML, just as preparing effective business communications involves more than just knowing how to type. Developing excellent information for the WWW requires dynamic, thoughtful, creative processes of information shaping that pay close attention to user needs and experiences and take advantage of the characteristics and qualities of the Web as a medium for communication.
People have been using mediated forms of communication for tens
of thousands of years, ranging from paintings on cave walls to
hand-written manuscripts and books stamped out on a printing press.
Each medium had particular qualities and characteristics, and
artists or writers seeking to express themselves served an apprenticeship
to learn the best way to communicate. The goal of this chapter
is to introduce you to the Web's characteristics and qualities
as a medium for expression and a methodology for developing information
content presented in the next six chapters of this book. This
knowledge will help you become more than just a Web technician;
you will become a content developer for the Web.
| Note |
The term web with a lowercase w is used here to refer to the local hypertext that a developer creates. Web with an uppercase W denotes the collection of all hypertext available on servers worldwide. |
In this chapter, I'll survey the characteristics and qualities of the Web as a medium for expression and how these qualities are experienced from the user's perspective. These aspects of Web media and user experience are the basis for the development principles outlined in the following chapters. The rest of this chapter gives you an overview of the processes and products for the continuous, user-centered, web-development methodology described in this book.
The Web isn't paper, radio, television, or even a printing press. As you saw in Chapter 1, "The World Wide Web as a Communications System," the Web can be described technically as a system for delivering hypermedia over networks using a client/server model. In Chapter 2, "A Developer's Tour of the Web," you saw the Web's possibilities for information, communication, and interaction. But shaping communication on the Web to meet user needs requires knowledge and skills in combining language, text, graphics, sound, movies, and hypertext. The methodology for shaping Web-based communication described here stresses a continuous, process-oriented approach to information development with a central focus on meeting user needs. The first step in approaching Web communication is to understand the characteristics and qualities of the Web as a medium for expression and how the user experiences the medium of the Web.
The Web is an application that can operate on global computer networks. As such, the Web is part of an evolution of media used for human expression that goes back millennia. Figure 4.1 illustrates highlights in the evolution of media. Each innovation expanded people's ability to extend thought in time and space. The invention of vowels and the subsequent widespread use of writing in the several centuries B.C. changed human civilization to one based more on writing than on the spoken word for disseminating information. Some say that writing itself made the Roman Empire possible because it provided a means to communicate laws and collect records over a widespread geographic area. Centuries later, the printing press also revolutionized information dissemination, making the distribution of multiple copies of a publication easier. By the late twentieth century, global computer networks made the distribution of (virtually) unlimited copies of a work possible to anyone on a network.
Figure 4.1 : The evolution of media.
The Web offers a way for people to create works that can have a global reach. Technically, the Web's organization as a client/server information dissemination system often leads to nonhierarchical, distributed forms of expression as well as possibilities for multiple user roles (users as both consumers and producers of information). But the Web's technical organization reveals just part of its possibilities for expression. Just like other media-books, CD-ROMs, television, and radio-the Web has particular expressive characteristics that influence how it can be shaped and expressive qualities that people potentially can use in forming communications.
The term media characteristic as used here refers to the inherent properties of the Web that delimit its expressive potential. These media characteristics relate to the Web's time/space distribution possibilities, the context for Web expression, and the Web's organization as an information system. By comparing the Web's media characteristics with these same concepts for traditional media, the Web developer can gain an appreciation of how the Web differs.
Expressions on the Web are
Unbound in space/time A Web page on a publicly available Web server on the Internet can be accessed by anyone with an Internet Web browser at any time (of course, barring server or network downtime). This characteristic means that Web works are (virtually) everywhere (on the network) at any time. Unlike the need to physically move a medium-encoded communication object (such as a book or a CD-ROM) in physical space, Web works flow through Web space on the network. And, instead of access to a work being bound to its point in time, a Web work has theoretically 24-hour-a-day accessibility.
Bound in use context through associative linking Web-based hypertext fosters interlinking that connects works to networks of meaning and association. This characteristic relates to the nature of hypertext as a system for association combined with the nature of Web-based hypertext as unbounded hypertext, where meaning for one Web work is not constrained to information on a single Web server. And, because Web works are distributed through the very "stuff" with which their authors create them, Web works become enmeshed in a context that reflects their meaning, use, and construction. In contrast, a book or a CD-ROM is constructed with successive manuscripts or drafts that may not be in the same form as the final, mediated communication object (a manuscript in electronic form becomes encoded in paper or the plastic of a CD-ROM). This final form for books or CDs makes them extremely portable but divorces them from the environment of their creation and references to other works. A link from one book to another is possibly only symbolic (through references and citations). In contrast, a link from one Web work to another is "live."
Distributed, nonhierarchical The Web's technical organization as an application using the Internet for a client/server model influences the disintegration of user focus on a single outlet for experiencing content. This characteristic of distributedness follows from both the nature of the Internet as well as client/server systems for information distribution. The Internet itself has no "top"; its patchwork of networks brings together myriad personal, local, regional, and global-area networks merging in a cyberspace common ground. Then, within this arena, the system of content distribution again is split; the client/server model allows diverse kinds of users (clients) to access multiple servers. The result is that the distribution of content, already widely scattered among the many networks of the Internet, is scattered further among the many Web servers on those networks (and the many individual webs on those servers).
Figure 4.2 illustrates the Web's time/space and use-context media characteristics in comparison to traditional media. Copies of books and most CD-ROMs have time/space boundaries around them that are inherent in their nature as physically encoded media. In contrast, Web works, being virtual, can be available in unlimited copies to any Web user at any time.
Figure 4.2 : The Web versus traditional media.
In use, both books and CD-ROMs are removed from the context of references to other works as well as the context of their creation. Authors creating Web works, in contrast, make paths through hypertext and can strongly bind their works to others on the Web.
In addition to media characteristics, there are qualities of Web media that users and authors may or may not exploit. The term media qualities, as used here, refers to the features of the Web that are optional and may occur in Web expressions, but that aren't inherent, as are the media characteristics described previously. Note that some of the Web's media qualities are not necessarily exclusive to the Web as a medium, but may be shared by other media.
The Web can be
Multirole The Web's users can be not only consumers of information but providers as well. Technically, Web information providers need Internet connectivity as opposed to simple access (as outlined in Chapter 3), but once users have a presence in Web space, they have the capability to create their own expressions. Figure 4.3 illustrates these multiple roles. Whereas the person in the lower right part of the diagram is only a consumer, the person in the lower left is both a consumer and a producer. Others may play roles in the Web by contributing to Web content development.
Figure 4.3 : The Web offers multiple rules for users.
Porous A Web work need not be a single "monster" page of hypertext; it can be a system of many smaller pages linked by hypertext. Web-based hypertext, broken up in this manner, presents multiple entry points for other works to reference these pages. A Web work doesn't present a single appearance, and users might suddenly find themselves deep inside a work. A Web work therefore is porous, allowing many ways into its multiple internal pages and groups of pages.
Dynamic The Web is characteristically, notoriously changeable, with new technologies (servers, browsers, and network communications) as well as new content being introduced continuously. On top of this technical and content flux is the expressive, changeable nature of human thought. Because a Web work usually is not encoded permanently in a medium such as a CD-ROM, Web space is extremely dynamic, with new expressions introduced and existing Web sites changed continually.
Interactive As shown in Chapter 2, the Web supports both a high degree of selectivity through user choices in hypertext as well as possibilities for interactivity, such as user-to-user communication or customized responses to users based on gateway programming or languages like Java. Social practices for interactivity on the Web are not yet as rich as in other cyberspace media such as Usenet, but the Web definitely includes interactivity in its media qualities.
Competitive Because of its distributed characteristic and dynamic qualities, the Web's content developers face extreme competition for user attention. A completed Web work exists in the flux of Web space where other works compete for attention, perhaps for the attention of the same audience for the same purpose. Moreover, a Web work, even if it doesn't change, alters in meaning as the works to which it links change. Thus, a Web can never be "static," because the dynamism and enmeshed content of Web space changes it.
Figure 4.4 summarizes how the characteristics and qualities of the Web create an environment in which
Figure 4.4 : Web communication and information relationships.
Meeting user needs is crucial in all processes of web development. Understanding what these user needs are is an important first step in learning web development. This section presents a close look at Web users' navigation needs and experiences.
The idea of developing any product in a user-centered manner-that is, one in which the needs, interests, characteristics, abilities, knowledge, skills, and whims of the user are central in the whole process-might not seem like a radical idea. After all, a web is meant for users to find information and accomplish specific objectives. Not all web developers, however, are sensitive to the needs and experiences of the user. In fact, because user experience often is difficult to plan for and analyze (see Chapter 5, "Web Planning," and Chapter 6, "Web Analysis"), it often is overlooked. The characterization of user experience in hypertext also is not as simple as it might seem. What is the user doing when experiencing a web? The web developer should have a basis for approaching this question in order to create meaning based on user experience.
Whenever a user navigates the Web with a browser, certain essential needs exist that must be met (such as the capability to view documents and active links in hypertext). A user also will want an additional set of functions in a browser, such as a way to record items in a hotlist or other access to charting features-functions that might not be essential for viewing the Web but that could be very useful for effective navigation. Finally, there is a range of deluxe functions-for example, ways for a user to change fonts and set other preferences in the browser. These functions can help make a user's journeys through the Web more enjoyable.
A Web user's needs consist of a series of activities that can be arranged from lower level survival needs to the luxuries of Web navigation. This progression, because it's arranged with the most basic needs first, reflects the basis for user experience in navigating the Web.
The subsections that follow trace through a Web user's hierarchy of needs, highlighting how these needs are met by Web browser features (using Netscape and/or Mosaic as examples, in some cases). This hierarchy of Web user's needs consists of seven levels:
These needs constitute the set of browser navigation functions that Web users experience. As such, this list of basic needs serves as a basis for development principles covered in the following chapters.
A Web browser's essential function is to provide a visual, aural, or other sensory representation of a Web document or Net information file or service to the user. When activated, either at the time the Web browser is started on the user's computer or as a result of the user selecting a network location, a Web browser displays information.
A browser's rendering of HTML or other media gives visual or aural information to the user. This information can be in the form of ASCII characters (such as with the Lynx or the CERN line-mode Web browsers) or graphics used with other browsers (Netscape, Mosaic, Cello, or Prodigy's browser, for example). In all cases, though, the browser resolves the HTML (or other information format) so that the user can experience it. In the case of sound, movies, graphics, or other sensory stimuli, the browser's connection to helper applications should call the proper multimedia player into action for appropriate sensory display. In the case of an embedded executable program (for example, written in a language such as Java), the browser works with the language interpreter to interact with the user.
Despite the potential that these multimedia communications may bring to the Web, the most popular form of communication on the Web remains visual, in the form of text and graphics. The elements of the visual displays of information follow:
These visual elements-text, hyperlinks, special symbols, and graphics-are the most basic need of a Web user. Information displayed alone is used to convey much meaning on the Web through text, graphics, symbols, and animations.
Although the display of information is a Web user's most basic need, without link activation (the capability to activate a hyperlink so that the browser displays a resource to which the link refers), the Web would not be an associatively linked set of information at all, but just a set of disparate information pages located on servers. Associative linking is the key to the unique way that the Web helps people create meaning, and the capability to traverse these links is the next level in the hierarchy of needs for a Web user.
The fundamental idea of link activation is that a user can select one of the hyperlinks (if any) in the information display. This selection causes the browser to retrieve the resource specified by the selected link. This resource might be another document, an information service, a picture, a sound, or some other sensory stimulus. After the user selects the link, of course, the resource must be retrieved (possibly from the user's computer or from a server on the Internet located across the world). After a resource is retrieved, a user's needs shift back to information display (as discussed previously).
A Web user can employ a variety of ways to activate a hyperlink, and these ways vary, of course, according to the Web browser used. Graphical browsers usually employ a mouse-based scheme of point-and-click selection. For nongraphical browsers, keyboard commands (or number selection as in line-mode browsers) frequently are used. The essence of link activation involves a transaction between the user and the Web browser; based on experiencing the information display, the user chooses a hyperlink to follow and conveys that choice to the browser. This process of viewing, choice, and link activation is the essence of Web navigation.
The first two categories of needs for a Web user-information display and link activation-could, theoretically, provide a Web user with everything needed to experience the Web. By following the links on the default home page of the browser, a Web user could follow links until reaching a dead end (until a resource is displayed in the browser that has no hyperlinks in it). Without the capability of movement, however, a Web user, when reaching such a dead end, would have to exit the browser and start all over to follow a different path! It would be possible to navigate the Web with this scheme, but it would be very unpleasant.
Movement, then, is the next level of Web users' needs. Movement is the capability to select a link from a set of previously visited resources or to move directly to a particular resource. Movement is key for a Web user to make good use of the Web, and it enables a Web user to be more flexible in following paths.
The most basic movement function is Back. This function enables users to re-select the resource that was displayed in the browser before the most recent link activation. The Back function helps users retrace their steps after reaching a dead end on the Web. Although this might seem like a very simple procedure, a browser must have a "memory" in order to support a Back function so that it can store the URL of the currently displayed resource when users choose to activate a link. The capability to repeat the Back function multiple times requires the browser to store a stack of previously visited locations. Storing these locations from a nonlinear traversal of the Web into a linear data structure (stack) requires an algorithm that involves recording only certain past paths in the Web.
Another basic movement function is to open an arbitrary URL. Although a very popular way to view the Web is to make selections only from the available set of hyperlinks in the browser's information display, users might want to "go to" a particular place on the Web. Without an Open function to enable this, Web users are doomed to wander only that portion of the Web connected to where they happen to have started. Theoretically, the entire global Web eventually can become connected through spiders and subject trees (see Chapter 1), but floating islands of hypertext might exist in the Web that are not listed in any spider database or Web tree. These pages also might not be connected via a link to any page of hypertext that is listed in the popular spiders or trees.
Although not as crucial as the Back and Open functions, a Forward function (implemented often in browsers for symmetry and completeness) often is needed by a Web user. A Forward function enables the user to revisit resources that have been backed over from operation of a Back function.
The key for the user to operate the Back and Forward functions with any particular browser is to understand the algorithm used to fill and flush the browser's memory stack that holds these locations. The user's experience of the Web could be (and most often would be) nonlinear, but most browsers use a linear stack method for storing locations in its memory.
The needs discussed so far could give a Web user just about all the functionality to encounter the Web fairly well. There is another, higher layer of needs, however, related to the capability to control information that a Web user often wants. These information-control needs arise from the imperfect nature of the Web. If network connections never failed, retrieval of data across the network were nearly instantaneous, and all Web pages were designed well, these information-control needs would never arise. But the Web isn't perfect, so the Web user must have ways to control information.
First, a Web user needs to be able to stop network information retrieval. Network information retrieval occurs when a user selects a hyperlink referring to a resource on a remote host. If that remote host is not operating, the browser often hangs and keeps trying and trying to retrieve the resource. Or, if the resource is huge, the browser keeps working away, retrieving the resource byte by byte. If left unchecked, these retrieval processes could take a very long time and waste a great deal of network bandwidth. Faced with such a situation, a user needs to be able to request that the browser stop the retrieval. In Mosaic, the famous spinning globe serves this function. In Netscape, the stop sign icon does this (alternatively, clicking Netscape's animated logo stops this, but this action sends a user to the browser manufacturer's home page). Nongraphical browsers sometimes have control sequences to enable this (the keyboard commands Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Q, for example).
Left without the Stop function built into a browser, a user's only alternative may be to "kill" the browser itself by forcing a shutdown (killing its process on a UNIX workstation, for example) or completely powering down the system (or disconnecting the network connection). Without a Stop function, the resource eventually may be retrieved or an error message may be returned, but the cost in terms of user time, bandwidth, and frustration makes the Stop function an important part of a user's needs.
Another information-control need is related to the idea of stopping network information retrieval. This is the capability to control image loading. Controlling image loading is an issue, of course, only in graphical browsers, but it is related closely to the need for stopping network information retrieval.
In most graphical browsers, you can turn off image loading. All inline images then are represented by an unloaded image symbol. By being able to control image loading, a user can avoid situations in which massive amounts of inline images are used on Web pages. Large numbers of inline images can be as potentially crippling as a massive resource retrieved from a remote site. Unfortunately, the practice of including many inline images on a page is common on the Web. Therefore, the capability to turn off these inline images for more efficient Web navigation and specialized techniques, such as surfing, is crucial.
Just as the Stop and Turn Off Images functions described previously are key to a Web user's capability to control the information, so is the capability to make use of a (possibly large) resource in a browser's information display. A Find function gives the user a way to search for character strings or patterns within the document text currently displayed in the Web browser. This Find function often works similarly to functions found in word processors to search for the occurrence of a string in a document. Without this Find function for a browser, a Web user must visually search for a string or keyword of interest in a (possibly very) long document. It is possible, but it could be extremely laborious when dealing with long documents.
After users meet the needs for information display, link activation, movement, and information control, their attention turns toward features such as interactivity.
Interactivity includes the user's capability to transmit specific information (beyond just information about the link-activation choice) to a Web server or information provider. Interactivity includes a Web browser's capability to support an interactive forms feature of HTML, imagemaps, interfaces with gateway programs (see Part IV, "Gateway Programming"), Java applets, and electronic mail or other communications links among people or information services.
Other preferences that are part of the interactivity category are security and privacy. A user's selections of what information to encounter on particular servers could become known. One way this could be done is as a result of the Web server software. Another is through people snooping on the flow of data traffic through the network. As long as users aren't too concerned that others might discover what they view on the Web, this might not be much of an issue. Identification of which users access what pages on a server is not universally done, but some users might be sensitive to this.
Forms represent a very large issue for privacy and security for users. First, the forms themselves often ask for very private personal or financial information (for example, credit card numbers). Security methods (such as encryption) may ensure the safer traversal of such information across the network. Users always should use caution, particularly when using forms that are not secure. Systems for higher levels of security on the Web are evolving. When choosing a browser, users concerned with security and privacy should look for the capability to integrate these systems into browsers (visual schemes for security verifications, such as in Netscape) as well as the explicit use of encryption methods.
Although not essential for the navigation of the Web, options and feedback give the users a way to be more efficient and to customize the Web browser to their set of preferences. Options and feedback issues include a variety of features. First, you'll look at some basic options and feedback issues that most browsers support, and then you'll look at some more esoteric options.
A Web user can move very efficiently if a Web browser readily displays the following information:
The current location URL In graphical browsers, this often is displayed in a Document URL or Location window (see the Mosaic and Netscape discussions that follow).
Hotspot URL The user can view the complete URL of any particular hotspot in the browser display (usually in the status message area). This is an extremely useful capability for helping the user look before leaping into a resource. In graphical browsers, the user generally can do this by passing the cursor over the hotspot, causing the URL of the resource to be displayed in a message area of the browser. In some browsers (such as an e-mail Web browser, for example), the complete URL of each hotspot is displayed as a result of browser activation.
Network retrieval status This gives some indication of what's going on with regard to resource retrieval. For Mosaic, the spinning globe, in addition to a status message, accomplishes this. Netscape has the "throbbing N" and also status-line messages.
A user can progress through the web more efficiently by using the following navigation aids:
Hotlist (also called bookmarks) This is the capability to record resource locations on a list that is saved on the user's storage area or disk from session to session. The hotlist is the most effective way for a Web user to quickly record great finds on the Web. Most browsers support hotlists (for example, Mosaic, Netscape, and Lynx), but public-access Web browsers can't support such a list because the user doesn't have personal storage space from session to session.
Session history This aid allows users to access the history list used with the Back and Forward functions. This can help users get back to somewhere they had been during the current session without having to retrace steps or repeatedly select the Back function.
Built-in directories These are a set of hard-coded links available as selections within the controls on particular Web browsers. These built-in directories include quick links to Web pages. Often, these pages are supplied by the browser manufacturer (for example, Netscape's What's Cool button takes the user to a Netscape-supplied Web page).
Annotations This is the capability of a user to create a message in text, audio, or some other media that can be associated (in the user's browser) with a particular resource. This annotation capability was included in Mosaic but never seemed to catch on among users. Netscape offers an Annotation option within its bookmark management system.
File management This includes the full range of printing and saving files, opening local files, or reloading files.
Visual aids you can use follow:
Font changes The user should be able to select the size (and often the style) of font for the display of text information. This is useful particularly for poor screen resolution (or less than perfect eyesight!).
Display refresh The Web browser's graphical display might become corrupted because of a window overlap or some other problem. A Refresh function enables the user to redisplay the browser without reinitiating the network information retrieval or reloading the current document.
Color changes Options may be implemented in future browsers to allow a user to change the default background color (or link color).
Not every Web browser is perfect. Every Web browser should meet the critical navigation needs as outlined previously for users. The preceding six categories of Web users' needs-for information display, link activation, movement, information control, interactivity, and options and feedback-might suffice, however, to give users all they need to navigate the Web well. Web users have a higher need to become so adept with their browser that they can seamlessly observe the vast panoply of networked information on the Web. Any Web browser is an interface, and, as such, it can help or hinder, hide or obscure, or trivialize or exalt the world of the Web.
In an ideal browser, users would feel that nothing intervenes between themselves and the Web. To accomplish this, users must be trained well in techniques for using a particular browser as well as in general Web-navigation tools and techniques. The browser must have an inherently good design; otherwise, even the most adept users would grow impatient with it. Similar to the emergence of standard applications in word processing software, standard Web browsers probably will emerge with interfaces that elegantly and lucidly meet users' needs. A well-designed Web browser is the essential first step in the process for a user to navigate the content of the Web.
Web users can meet their navigational needs by
Realizing what options are available
Knowing what needs these options meet
Knowing how to use these operations to accomplish useful work
Besides using a browser for navigation, users access content and information. Users need to look at specific things when encountering a display in their browser window. Users ask, "What is this? What is it made of? What is it for? What can I do with it? How do I get what I want?" Users aren't necessarily concerned with the fine points of the Web's design. Instead, they are concerned with getting the job done correctly and efficiently. Therefore, this review of a user's general experience of information helps the web developer become more aware of the perceptive qualities of web information: information space, texture, and cues.
One of the fundamental pieces of information a Web user needs to know when encountering a new display on a browser is, What information space is this? A Gopher? An FTP site? A WAIS session? A Web server? Although this information is not necessarily crucial to the meaning conveyed by a Web, the type of information space presented to the user immediately establishes expectations. These expectations include how to navigate in the space and even what kind of information might be found at that site. A Gopher information space presents menus of information-each entry of which may be another menu, a link to a document, a link to a search, or a link to a Telnet session. This information structure sets up expectations for the user about navigation strategies. Also, through traditions and practices (that do change over time), a user gains expectations about what kinds of information Gophers often present. A user of a Gopher might expect to encounter tree-like information-subject catalogs and organizational or campus-wide information systems (although not exclusively, but these are very common applications of a Gopher).
Just as Web users gain a great deal of cues from the kind of information space they're in, they also pay attention to the information's texture. Information texture, as defined here, refers to the medium in which the information is encoded, the structure of the information, and the connections to and from the information. Just as users of a Web look quickly to find cues about the information space they are in, they also look for cues about how the information is presented. By examining cues of media type, information structure, and connections, they quickly get a handle on how to extract information.
Media type is one aspect of information texture. A user entering an FTP site, for example, might encounter a long list of files that display a variety of media types-graphics, a movie, text files, and directories, for example. This variety (or uniformity, in the case of all the same kinds of media presented to the user) is the media type, which is one aspect of the information's texture. A quick look at the possible graphical symbols at an FTP site or a Gopher, for example, quickly creates a set of user expectations about what will be found there and the interface required to sense that information. Users encountering a long list of sound files, for example, knowing that their sound player is not hooked up to their browser, know immediately that the site contains information they can't use.
Interactive media such as Java applets are information textures that allow interactivity. Typically, a Java applet is animated or presents a visual cue suggesting the potential for interactivity (for example, the cells of a spreadsheet).
Another aspect of information texture is information structure. Structure is the overall organization of the information within the display of the browser. The structure could be characteristic of an information space (such as the list of files at an FTP site or a menu from a Gopher), or it might be an ordered or unordered list within an HTML file. Structure is the pattern by which the information is presented. Simple structures, like lists or menus, immediately are recognized by the user.
Other structures, such as the complex interspersing of paragraphs, ordered and unordered lists, figures, and forms using HTML might be more difficult at first for the user to perceive. In either case, the structure of the information sets up expectations in the user about how to deal with the information. If the list shown on the browser display is numbered and it continues down the page, a user quickly forms the expectation that the rest of the list will be available by using the scrollbar. In more complicated structures that are possible in Webs, the structure of the information, although more expressive, might include paragraphs and lists, and the user might not know what to expect on the rest of a page or on other pages.
Another aspect of information texture is the connections to other information that are explicit or implied. An FTP site listing, for example, often includes a folder at the top of the list with the Parent Directory label next to it. This folder icon sets up in users' minds an expectation that the information they are encountering is connected to some other information (hierarchically up, in the case of FTP sites). In the case of a Web, these connections might be to pages that are more general or more specific in information content than the page the users presently are viewing, but not necessarily in a strict, linear hierarchy (not necessarily up). In the case of experiencing any information connections, users wonder, "Where in the hierarchy (in the case of FTP sites or Gopher menus) am I?" or "Where in the mesh (in the case of Webs) am I?" The connections to this other information, revealed by cues (see the next section), can have a great impact on setting up their expectations about how to deal with the information shown.
Although information texture often is the first thing users notice when entering a web, cues are the next part of users' experiences. Whereas information space and information texture have set up expectations in users about "Where am I?" and "What is this?," cues are the features in a web that say to users, "Here is what this is" (information cues) and "Here is how to get there from here" (navigation cues). Information cues are the features of the text or graphics on a web page that help users know the page's purpose, intended audience, contents, and objective. In other words, information cues help users know what the page is for and what it contains. A careful presentation of information cues can get users oriented quickly, enabling them to more efficiently use information.
An example of an information cue is the title of the document-as it appears in the Document Title window on the browser and the words that appear most prominently at the top of the page (which the user may perceive as the title). A meaningful title that conveys the purpose, audience, and objectives for a web page serves well to orient the user. A title such as "Business Divisions of XYZ Industries, Listed by Region," for example, immediately helps the user know what to expect on that page.
Other examples of information cues are icons, background textures, colors, headings, subheadings, boxed text, or any feature the web developer uses to direct the user on how to get and use information. Considerations for cues play a large role in the design process for a web and are covered in more detail in Chapter 7, "Web Design."
Communicating on the Web is different from communicating through paper-based means (such as brochures, reports, letters, memos, and other documents) because it involves a different kind of encoding process (how a communicator creates hypertext) as well as a different kind of decoding process (how users perceive webs through network-distributed browsers and servers). Because the Web's characteristics and qualities shift user focus and make possible a much more dynamic environment for presenting communication, processes for Web communication differ from many forms of traditional communication in many ways.
Web communication involves different space and time constraints, taking on a different form and employing a different delivery mechanism than traditional media.
When people receive a paper memo, for example, they first might pile it with all the other things to deal with: reports, electronic mail, meetings, voice mail, postal mail, express mail, and so on. All these kinds of communication compete for attention in terms of the space and time they occupy. The memo on a desk is more likely to get attention than the one in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet or the one that arrived last week. In addition, these forms of communication compete in terms of what form and delivery mechanism they employ. A brightly packaged express mail letter (a special form of communication) usually commands more attention than a plain envelope, particularly when a receiver must sign for the express mail (a special form of delivery).
On the Web, however, the user chooses the time and space for communication. The form of the communication's display (how the hypertext file is shown, in terms of font and appearance) is set by the user's browser, and the delivery mechanism is the same for all information along the hypertext links of the Web itself. Although access to information on the Web is constrained by awareness of it and the skills necessary to retrieve it, all information is potentially equally accessible. Is the 1948 company report in a storage room as accessible as the memo sitting on a desk today, for example? If delivered over the Web, that 1948 company report becomes not only more accessible to a single user but to any number of other users at the same time.
The form of the Web itself-hypertext-is different from the linear flow of print on paper. Whereas memos and other communications offer themselves as separate objects, branches off a hypertext document can link and thus relate one document or piece of a document to another, resulting in contextual relations among documents. Links from Web documents can be to hypermedia resources, interactive documents, or information-delivery systems.
Web communication takes place within a context much larger than a single site or organization, involving social and cultural structures shaped by traditions, shared meanings, language, and practices developed over time. The Web, like many other forums for computer-mediated communication on networks, rapidly has created specialized information and communication spaces. On computer networks, social and information spaces exist that are, by tradition, set aside for particular purposes. Behavior in these spaces is governed by collective agreement and interaction, as opposed to a single organization's rules of operation.
Community norms developed on networks inhibit advertising in noncommercial spaces. Just as going to a public place and shouting "Buy my widgets!", this method of advertising may bring derision, particularly if it disturbs the decorum the people in that public space previously enjoyed. Although there may be no "Net cops" monitoring what is said and done, inappropriate communication risks invoking the wrath of a community. In contrast, the same widget seller in the market bazaar (or the Web-equivalent virtual mall) would be welcomed, because the users going into that marketplace know that they will see ads. The enthusiastic widget seller may be eagerly approached by those looking for very good widgets.
Examples illustrating appropriate and inappropriate advertising demonstrate the developed sense of community responsibility and tradition that has evolved over time in networked communities. Web traffic occurs in the context of these traditions. In contrast, the interoffice memo and the internal report exist within a closed environment-closed not just by proprietary considerations, but by the space and time limits inherent in the paper memo as a communications medium. This is not to say that there are no private, proprietary spaces on the Web. Indeed, an organization or individual would not even have to link the hypertext to the Web, and servers can support restricted access via passwords and machine names. A local community still can evolve on private, internal webs, however, and display all the cultural and psychological effects that have occurred in computer-mediated communications systems for decades-community building, social practices, emotional interactions, and conflicts.
Because communication on the Web exists within a larger community, the information provider must cope with the relationships arising from these connections. Web communities evolve over time, and relationships may cross national, cultural, language, space, and time borders. The challenge for this larger Web community is to negotiate the norms for individual interactions appropriately.
Web communication processes are dynamic. Traditional information-development practices have long recognized the iterative nature of the process of creating and delivering information. Web communication, however, involves not only iterative development, but offers a delivered artifact that is conceptually and physically very different from that of traditional media. Web communication does not need to be fixed in its delivered form, and it exists within an information flux. Someone preparing a report often goes through the process of editing, revising, reviewing, user testing, and revising again. Eventually, the deadline clock ticks, and the information takes a final form. Although changes can be made, and there are very possibly second, third, and more editions of the work created, the sense by all parties involved is that the work is "completed" when it is etched into a medium, such as paper, a CD-ROM, a computer disk, or a video tape.
On the Web, hypertext links, the multiple interactions with and among users, and the changing Web information universe all mark the Web as a medium attuned to flux rather than to stasis. Although a developer can create a web and deliver it to the world through a Web server, the job as an information developer is not done-in fact, it's just starting. The developer not only must manage the technical operation of a server but also must handle feedback from users and information about the web's place in the constant flow of new information introduced on the Web.
Although the implications for how the Web changes communication go beyond even considerations of space, time, form, delivery methods, context, and information dynamism, these issues are enough to raise awareness of how the Web medium differs from traditional media.
Humans have been shaping information and expressions for millennia and have adopted, adapted, and invented expressive strategies for each new medium. Because the Web combines text, graphics, and hypermedia, web developers can borrow from a large body of knowledge about crafting information from the ancient art of discovering the means of persuasion (rhetoric) to the relatively modern field of technical communication. These fields, rooted in static or noninteractive media such as paper, film, or recorded sound, can enrich the process of developing a web.
This section outlines a web-development methodology based on characteristics and qualities of the Web and user needs, experiences, and communications processes outlined earlier. The key to this methodology is that it continuously strives to develop and improve information structures to meet user needs.
This section previews a web-development methodology that serves as the basis for the next six chapters in Part II. These chapters cover the planning, analysis, design, implementation, promotion, and innovation processes for developing a web. Although these processes might seem like an encumbering amount of work to go through, a well-developed web has a far greater value than one that is hastily put together, particularly if a web is for business or professional communication. For casual web developers, the methodology still might help to illuminate possibilities for structuring information and techniques to improve the overall effectiveness of a web. The methodology is patterned after design and development processes similar to those used by many technical communicators, writers, designers, and software developers.
Figure 4.5 illustrates a methodology that can be used to develop webs. The web-development method contains many of the same elements as a traditional information-development process, but web-development processes are more open-ended because the final product (an operating web) is often not as permanently fixed as traditional media.
Figure 4.5 : Web development methodology.
Web elements and processes are interconnected, and decisions that web developers make rely on these interconnections. As such, there is redundancy in the methodology. If any one element or process is weak, another stronger element or process might be able to compensate. A good implementation sometimes can make up for a bad design, for example. A good objective statement can make up for a poor purpose statement. The goal is not to have these weaknesses but to counter the inevitable problems that result. The elements of the web-development methodology follow:
Audience information A store of knowledge about the target audience for the web as well as the actual audience who uses the information. This information includes the audience's background, interests, proclivities, and all detail helpful to shaping the information to suit the users' needs. All this information might not be complete at any time during the web-development process; a store of information develops over time. The audience information might be very useful and accurate at one time; it then might pass out of currency as different users start accessing the web.
Purpose statement An articulation of the reason for and scope of the web's existence. At all times during development, a developer should have a succinct purpose statement for the web. This statement might be in general terms, such as "To create a presence for our company in cyberspace," or it might be very specific, such as "To provide information about our company's new line of modems." This purpose statement itself is dynamic; over time, an organization that started a web to "establish presence in cyberspace" might want to make that web serve another, more specific purpose. A succinct statement of this purpose, however general, serves as a guidepost for the web-development processes.
Objective statement Flows from the purpose statement and defines what specific goals the web should accomplish. An objective statement based on the purpose used in the preceding paragraph, "To provide information about our company's new line of modems," might include a statement of the modems the company offers and the kind of information that should be given (pictures, prices, schematics, and so on). Like the audience information and purpose statements, the objective statement is dynamic, and it might become necessary later in web development to define still other statements. Therefore, the objective statement changes as the purpose of the web changes, but also as the information about the audience changes. The audience looking at the modems suddenly might become very concerned about display buttons on the devices themselves, for example. In that case, an objective might be created to include pictures of modems on the web itself.
Domain information A collection of knowledge and information about the subject domain that the web covers, both in terms of information provided to users of the web and information that the web developers need. A web offering modems for sale also might necessarily draw on a variety of information about the use, mechanics, principles, and specifications for modems. Although not all this information would necessarily be made available to the users of the web, this domain knowledge might be essential for the web developers to have. Often, this domain knowledge makes a good complement to the information the web already offers. A modem manufacturer with a good collection of modem facts, for example, might find that interested buyers visit that web for technical information about modems and, in the course of this visit, are informed of a company's products.
Web specification A detailed description of the constraints and elements that will go into the web. The specification statement lists what pieces of information will be presented as well as any limitations on the presentation. One part of a specification might state that the picture of the modem must be placed on the same hypertext page as a link to an order form, for example. The specification, as with all the other elements of the web, might be in constant flux.
Web presentation The means by which the information is delivered to the user. The presentation is the result of design and implementation processes that build on the web specification. In these processes, creative choices are made among design and presentation techniques to achieve the web specification; considerations for efficiency, aesthetics, and known web-usage patterns also are made.
This list of the elements involved in the web-development methodology shows that there are many interactions and relationships among them. In fact, all the elements depend on the best information being available about the other elements in order to be successful. A web developer, for example, needs to know whether the objective is to sell modems or to educate people about modems when designing a particular piece of a web. Similarly, the elements interact with the processes of the methodology.
The six processes of the methodology follow:
Planning The process of choosing among competing opportunities for communication so that overall goals for the web can be set. These goals include anticipating and deciding on targets for the audience, purpose, and objectives for the information. Planning also is done for domain information through a process of defining and specifying the supporting information that must be collected, how it will be collected, and how the information will be updated. A web planner anticipates the skills called for by the web specification as well as the skills needed for constructing particular parts of a web. If a specification for a design calls for using a forms interface (a feature supported by HTML), for example, the web planner must identify the need for web implementers to have these skills. The web planner also anticipates other resources needed to support the operation and development of the web. If user access statistics will be gathered, for example, the plan for the web must account for the need to procure and install a web statistics program.
Analysis A process of gathering and comparing information about the web and its operation in order to improve the web's overall quality. An important operation is one in which a web analyst examines information gathered about the audience for its relevance to some other elements or processes in web development. Information about the audience's level of technical interest can have a great deal of impact on what information should be provided to a user about a particular product or topic, for example. Similarly, analyzing the web's purpose in light of other new developments, such as the contents of a competitor's web, must be an ongoing process. An analyst weighs alternatives and gathers information to help with a decision in the other processes of planning, design, implementation, or development.
Design The process by which a web designer, working within the web's specification, makes decisions about how a web's actual components should be constructed. This process involves taking into account the web's purpose, audience, objective, and domain information. A good designer knows how to achieve the effects called for by the specification in the most flexible, efficient, and elegant way. Because it relies so heavily on the other processes and elements in web development, however, the design process is not more important than any of the others, but it requires a thorough grounding in implementation possibilities as well as knowledge about how particular web structures affect an audience.
Implementation The process of actually building the web using HyperText Markup Language (HTML or improvements on it). The implementation process is perhaps most like software development because it involves using a specific syntax for encoding web structures in a formal language in computer files. Although automated tools are available to help with the construction of HTML documents, a thorough grounding in HTML as well as an awareness of how designs can best be implemented in HTML enriches the web implementer's expertise.
Promotion The process of handling all the public-relations issues of a web. These include making the existence of a web known to on-line communities through publicity, as well as forming business or other information relationships with other webs. Promotion might involve using specific marketing strategies or creating business models.
Innovation The process of making sure that the other development processes continue and improve. This includes monitoring technologies for new innovations that might be appropriate for the web, as well as finding creative or unique ways to improve the elements of the web or engage the web's audience in its success. Innovation also involves seeking to continuously improve the usability and quality of the web and exceed user expectations.
Although the methodology outlined here for developing a web won't
work flawlessly in all situations, it can serve as a basis for
looking at many issues of web development. The actual processes
and elements used in web development for any particular project
might be a variation on these. Being aware of what elements and
processes can be involved in web development is key; developers,
once aware of what they might face, can most flexibly grow successful
webs.
| Web Development Web |
I've created a web describing my methodology for web development at http://www.december.com/web/develop.html. You can use this for support information on topics discussed in Part II. |
The Web offers many unique characteristics and qualities as a medium of expression, and a user's experience of the Web is shaped by navigational needs as well as experiences of information space, texture, and cues. This chapter presented the general principles and an overview of web development, with emphasis on the following: