From the Publisher:
Written by the author of the best-selling HyperText & HyperMedia, this book provides an excellent guide to the methods of usability engineering. Special features: emphasizes cost-effective methods that will help developers improve their user interfaces immediately, shows you how to avoid the four most frequently listed reasons for delay in software projects, provides step-by-step information about which methods to use at various stages during the development life cycle, and offers information on the unique issues relating to informational usability. You do not need to have previous knowledge of usability to implement the methods provided, yet all of the latest research is covered.

Usability Engineering

This is a survey on graph visualization and navigation techniques, as used in information visualization. Graphs appear in numerous applications such as Web browsing, state-transition diagrams, and data structures. The ability to visualize and to navigate in these potentially large, abstract graphs is often a crucial part of an application. Information visualization has specific requirements, which means that this survey approaches the results of traditional graph drawing from a different perspective.

/pdf/graph-visualization-and-navigation-in-information-24tisrjfna.pdf

Graph visualization and navigation in information visualization: A survey

Designing and maintaining Web applications is one of the major challenges for the software industry of the year 2000. In this paper we present Web Modeling Language (WebML), a notation for specifying complex Web sites at the conceptual level. WebML enables the high-level description of a Web site under distinct orthogonal dimensions: its data content (structural model), the pages that compose it (composition model), the topology of links between pages (navigation model), the layout and graphic requirements for page rendering (presentation model), and the customization features for one-to-one content delivery (personalization model). All the concepts of WebML are associated with a graphic notation and a textual XML syntax. WebML specifications are independent of both the client-side language used for delivering the application to users, and of the server-side platform used to bind data to pages, but they can be effectively used to produce a site implementation in a specific technological setting. WebML guarantees a model-driven approach to Web site development, which is a key factor for defining a novel generation of CASE tools for the construction of complex sites, supporting advanced features like multi-device access, personalization, and evolution management. The WebML language and its accompanying design method are fully implemented in a pre-competitive Web design tool suite, called ToriiSoft.

Web Modeling Language (WebML): a modeling language for designing Web sites

A system and method for communicating information among members of a distributed discussion group having peripheral communication devices involves communication between the peripheral communication devices and a central agent. The central agent receives and stores messages intended for at least one other group member. It creates a notice informing the at least one other group member that such a message exists and containing a channel (e.g., a hyperlink) directly to the memory location of the message. The at least one other group member may then elect to retrieve the message and may also elect to reply to the message. Such replies are transmitted from the peripheral device of the at least one other group member to the central agent, where it is stored and associated with the original message. Messages are retained in memory, thereby causing discussions to be maintained.

Centrifugal communication and collaboration method

A comprehensive, clearly written overview of hypertext, this book gives broad coverage of different hypertext systems, as well as their features and applications using many concrete examples and illustrations of real systems. Nielsen provides a history of the subject and explores the social issues related to hypertext.

Hypertext and Hypermedia

IRIS hypermedia services

From Memex to hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the mind's machine

Reuse is increasingly strategic for reducing cost and improving quality of hypermedia design and development. In this paper, based on the design and development of a real hypermedia application, we classify and explore different types of reuse in hypermedia design. We show how constructive templates constitute a practical technique for capturing the specification of reusable structures and components and enabling the automation of the production process. We also discuss connections between constructive templates and design patterns.

Pushing reuse in hypermedia design: golden rules, design patterns and constructive templates

The MAPA system provides improved navigation facilities for large web sites. It extracts a hierarchical structure from an arbitrary web site, with no or minimal human assistance, and creates an interactive map of that site that can be used for orientation and navigation. MAPA is designed and most useful for large web sites of from 500 to 50,000 pages. We present an overview of the mapping problem, with a list of 10 important user facilities that maps can offer. Then we describe how the MAPA system analyzes the link structure of a site, and provides effective aids for the navigation of large hypertexts. We also compare MAPA with a number of other web-mapping systems, and conclude with a review of how MAPA stands with respect to our wish-list of map features.

MAPA: a system for inducing and visualizing hierarchy in Websites

The user of a hypermedia publication needs to be supported in two interrelated tasks: local and global navigation. Local navigation involves following hypertext connections between pairs of specific nodes. Global navigation involves movements within a collection of information that spans many nodes. Local and global navigation are directly related to the underlying concepts of local and global coherence, as defined in the article by Thuring et al. in this issue. To maintain a user’s sense of orientation and facilitate navigation, the designer of a hypermedia publication must support both at the visual level. The World-Wide Web (WWW), while providing a simple and effective form of creating and displaying links between nodes, challenges the author/designer to present any global context at all. There is no way to distinguish between local and global link structures in HTML, the markup language used to create WWW documents. The WWW browser provides three pieces of orientation information: (a) the title of the current document; (b) the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of the current document; and (c) the URL of a link destination. None of

Paul Kahn

Papers

IRIS hypermedia services

From Memex to hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the mind's machine

Pushing reuse in hypermedia design: golden rules, design patterns and constructive templates

MAPA: a system for inducing and visualizing hierarchy in Websites

Visual cues for local and global coherence in the WWW