Showing papers on "Web standards published in 1999"

Designing Web Usability

Abstract: Preface. 1. Introduction: Why Web Usability? 2. Page Design. 3. Content Design. 4. Site Design. 5. Intranet Design. 6. Accessibility for Users with Disabilities. 7. International Use: Serving A Global Audience. 8. Future Predictions: The Only Web Constant Is Change. 9. Conclusion: Simplicity in Web Design. Recommended Readings. Index.

Building Web applications with UML

Abstract: Building Web Applications with UML is a guide to building robust, scalable, and feature-rich web applications using proven object-oriented techniques. Written for the project manager, architect, analyst, designer, and programmer of web applications, this book examines the unique aspects of modeling web applications with the Web Application Extension (WAE) for the Unified Modeling Language (UML). The UML has been widely accepted as the standard modeling language for software systems, and as a result is often the best option for modeling web application designs.The WAE extends the UML notation with semantics and constraints enabling developers to model web-specific architectural elements using the Rational Unified Process or an alternative methodology. Using UML allows developers to model their web applications as a part of the complete system and the business logic that must be reflected in the application. Readers will gain not only an understanding of the modeling process, but also the ability to map models directly into code.Key topics include: A basic introduction to web servers, browsers, HTTP, and HTML Gathering requirements and defining the system's use cases Transforming requirements into a model and then a design that maps directly into components of the system Defining the architecture of a web application with an examination of three architectural patterns describing architectures for thin web client, thick web client, and web delivery designs Modeling, at the appropriate level of abstraction and detail, the appropriate artifacts, including web application pages, page relationships, navigate routes, client-side scripts, and server-side generation Creating code from UML models using ASP and VBScript Client-side scripting using DHTML, Java Script, VBScript, Applets, ActiveX controls, and DOM Using client/server protocols including DCOM, CORBA/IIOP, and Java's RMI Securing a web application with SET, SSL, PGP, Certificates, and Certificate Authorities 0201615770B04062001

Towards adaptive Web sites: conceptual framework and case study

Abstract: The creation of a complex Web site is a thorny problem in user interface design. In this paper we explore the notion of adaptive Web sites : sites that semi-automatically improve their organization and presentation by learning from visitor access patterns. It is easy to imagine and implement Web sites that offer shortcuts to popular pages. Are more sophisticated adaptive Web sites feasible? What degree of automation can we achieve? To address the questions above, we describe the design space of adaptive Web sites and consider a case study: the problem of synthesizing new index pages that facilitate navigation of a Web site. We present the PageGather algorithm, which automatically identifies candidate link sets to include in index pages based on user access logs. We demonstrate experimentally that PageGather outperforms the Apriori data mining algorithm on this task. In addition, we compare PageGather's link sets to pre-existing, human-authored index pages.

Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites

Abstract: From the Publisher: This essential guide for Web site designers provides practical, concise advice on creating well-designed and effective Web sites and pages. Focusing on the interface and graphic design principles that underlie the best Web site design, this book offers invaluable help on a full range of issues, from planning and organizing goals to design strategies for a site to the elements of individual page design. This second edition includes guidelines on designing for accessibility, strategies for maintaining a Web site, details on using style sheets, and much more. This book grew out of the widely used and highly praised Web site on site design created by the Center for Advanced Instructional Media at Yale University (info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/). At this site, readers will continue to find updated color illustrations and examples to complement and demonstrate points made in the book, as well as useful and current online references. Author Biography: Patrick J. Lynch is director of Web Design and Development at the Yale University School of Medicine. Sarah Horton is instructional technology specialist in Curricular Computing at Dartmouth College. She is also the author of Web Teaching Guide, available from Yale University Press.

Web Wisdom: How To Evaluate and Create Information Quality on the Web

Abstract: From the Publisher: Here is the essential reference for anyone needing to evaluate or establish information quality on the World Wide Web. Web Wisdom: How to Evaluate and Create Information Quality on the Web addresses the key concerns of Web users and Web page authors regarding reliable and useful information on the Internet. Authors Janet E. Alexander and Marsha Ann Tate introduce critical Web evaluation principles and present the theoretical background necessary to evaluate and create quality information on the Web. They include easy-to-use checklists for step-by-step quality evaluations of virtually any Web site. Alexander and Tate also address important issues related to information on the Web, such as understanding the ways that advertising and sponsorship may effect the quality of information found on the Web.

System and method for focussed web crawling

Abstract: A focussed Web crawler learns to recognize Web pages that are relevant to the interest of one or more users, from a set of examples provided by the users It then explores the Web starting from the example set, using the statistics collected from the examples and other analysis on the link graph of the growing crawl database, to guide itself towards relevant, valuable resources and away from irrelevant and/or low quality material on the Web Thereby, the Web crawler builds a comprehensive topic-specific library for the benefit of specific users

Research Issues in Web Data Mining

Abstract: In this paper, we discuss mining with respect to web data referred here as web data mining. In particular, our focus is on web data mining research in context of our web warehousing project called WHOWEDA (Warehouse of Web Data). We have categorized web data mining into threes areas; web content mining, web structure mining and web usage mining. We have highlighted and discussed various research issues involved in each of these web data mining category. We believe that web data mining will be the topic of exploratory research in near future.

WebOQL: restructuring documents, databases, and webs

Abstract: The widespread use of the Web has originated several new data management problems, such as extracting data from Web pages and making databases accessible from Web browsers, and has renewed the interest in problems that had appeared before in other contexts, such as querying graphs, semistructured data and structured documents. Several systems and languages have been proposed for solving each of these Web data management problems, but none of these systems addresses all the problems from a unified perspective. Many of these problems essentially amount to data restructuring: we have information represented according to a certain structure and we want to construct another representation of (part of it) using a different structure. We present the WebOQL system, which supports a general class of data restructuring operations in the context of the Web. WebOQL synthesizes ideas from query languages for the Web, for semistructured data and for Website restructuring.

Building a Web-based Education System

Abstract: Spend your few moment to read a book even only few pages. Reading book is not obligation and force for everybody. When you don't want to read, you can get punishment from the publisher. Read a book becomes a choice of your different characteristics. Many people with reading habit will always be enjoyable to read, or on the contrary. For some reasons, this building a web based education system tends to be the representative book in this website.

Exploiting Geographical Location Information of Web Pages

Abstract: Many information resources on the web are relevant primarily to limited geographical communities. For instance, web sites containing information on restaurants, theaters, and apartment rentals are relevant primarily to web users in geographical proximity to these locations. In contrast, other information resources are relevant to a broader geographical community. For instance, an on-line newspaper may be relevant to users across the United States. Unfortunately, the geographical scope of web resources is largely ignored by web search engines. We make the case for identifying and exploiting the geographical location information of web sites so that web search engines can rank resources in a geographically sensitive fashion, in addition to using more traditional information-retrieval strategies. In this paper, we first consider how to compute the geographical location of web pages. Subsequently, we consider how to exploit such information in one specific "proof-of-concept" application we implemented in JAVA, and discuss other examples as well.

The World Wide Web as a Resource for Example-Based Machine Translation Tasks

Abstract: The WWW is two orders of magnitude larger than the largest corpora. Although noisy, web text presents language as it is used, and statistics derived from the Web can have practical uses in many NLP applications. For this reason, the WWW should be seen and studied as any other computationally available linguistic resource. In this article, we illustrate this by showing that an Example-Based approach to lexical choice for machine translation can use the Web as an adequate and free resource.

Results and challenges in Web search evaluation

Abstract: A frozen 18.5 million page snapshot of part of the Web has been created to enable and encourage meaningful and reproducible evaluation of Web search systems and techniques. This collection is being used in an evaluation framework within the Text Retrieval Conference (TREC) and will hopefully provide convincing answers to questions such as, “Can link information result in better rankings?”, “Do longer queries result in better answers?”, and, “Do TREC systems work well on Web data?” The snapshot and associated evaluation methods are described and an invitation is extended to participate. Preliminary results are presented for an effectivess comparison of six TREC systems working on the snapshot collection against five well-known Web search systems working over the current Web. These suggest that the standard of document rankings produced by public Web search engines is by no means state-of-the-art.

Going with the flow: Web sites and customer involvement

Abstract: This paper investigates a structure of commercial Web sites, and then attempts to analyse various patterns that emerge which may be of future use as a guideline to businesses that intend establishing a Web presence. Key to the understanding of these patterns is a clearer grasp of the implications of human interaction with the new medium. The focus is on an experiential construct, namely flow, and how this might vary by Web site, and on using this to begin to unravel the secrets of good commercial Web site design and its implications for business.

Readability Levels of Patient Education Material on the World Wide Web

Abstract: BACKGROUND Patient education is an important component of family practice. Pamphlets, verbal instructions, and physicians' self-created materials have been the most common resources for patient education. Today, however, the popularity of the World Wide Web (Web) as a ready source of educational materials is increasing. The reading skills required by a patient to understand that information has not been determined. The objective of our study was to assess the readability of medical information on the Web that is specifically intended for patients. METHODS An investigator downloaded 50 sequential samples of patient education material from the Web. This information was then evaluated for readability using the Flesch reading score and Flesch-Kinkaid reading level. RESULTS On average, the patient information from the Web in our sample is written at a 10th grade, 2nd month reading level. Previous studies have shown that this readability level is not comprehensible to the majority of patients. CONCLUSIONS Much of the medical information targeted for the general public on the Web is written at a reading level higher than is easily understood by much of the patient population.

Object-oriented Web application development

Abstract: Most Web applications are still developed ad hoc. One reason is the gap between established software design concepts and the low-level Web implementation model. We summarize work on WebComposition, a model for Web application development, then introduce the WebComposition Markup Language, an XML-based language that implements the model. WCML embodies object-oriented principles such as modularity, abstraction and encapsulation.

Using the Web in your courses: what can you do? what should you do?

Abstract: This paper gives an overview on the topic of control education on the Web. Accompanied by a Web page, the material is partly tutorial, enabling readers to step in at their current levels and move forward in their Web usage. For those readers who have not yet made use of the Web in their courses, we will demonstrate models of Web sites for consideration to suggest what can be done, and offer introductory steps for implementation. Experienced Web users and developers may use some of the more sophisticated models, identify what it means to manage a course with a Web site, improve their own design, and hear some tips on the hurdles to avoid. Specific applications to the control field are discussed, including software demonstrations and virtual and remote labs. In the end, it is hoped that readers will find information to move them a step forward from their current level.

Websites that satisfy users: a theoretical framework for Web user interface design and evaluation

Abstract: With the fast development and increasing use of the World Wide Web as both an information seeking and an electronic commerce tool, Web usability studies are growing in importance. While Web designers have largely focused on the functional aspects of Web sites, there has been little systematic attention to (1) the motivational issues of Web user interface design or (2) a theoretically-driven approach to Web user satisfaction studies. The objective of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework and foundation for systematically investigating features in the Web environment that contribute to user satisfaction with a Web interface. This research uses F. Herzberg's (1966) motivation-hygiene theory to guide the identification of these features. Among the implications and contributions of this research are the identification of Web design features that may maximize the likelihood of user satisfaction and return visits to the Web site.

Searching the Web: general and scientific information access

Abstract: The World Wide Web has revolutionized the way that people access information, and has opened up new possibilities in areas such as digital libraries, general and scientific information dissemination and retrieval, education, commerce, entertainment, government and health care. There are many avenues for improvement of the Web, for example in the areas of locating and organizing information. Current techniques for access to both general and scientific information on the Web provide much room for improvement, search engines do not provide comprehensive indices of the Web and have difficulty in accurately ranking the relevance of results. Scientific information on the Web is very disorganized. We discuss the effectiveness of Web search engines, including results that show that the major Web search engines cover only a fraction of the "publicly indexable Web". Current research into improved searching of the Web is discussed, including new techniques for ranking the relevance of results, and new techniques in metasearch that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Web search. The creation of digital libraries incorporating autonomous citation indexing is discussed for improved access to scientific information on the Web.

Trajectories from today's WWW to a powerful educational infrastructure

Abstract: Two previous Research News and Comment articles in Educational Researcher have examined the potential impact of the World Wide Web (web) in education. Owston (1997) offers a optimistic view of potential benefits of the today’s web, utilizing a framework that emphasizes: (a) making learning more accessible; (b) promoting improved learning; and (c) containing costs. Fetterman (1998) reviews the tools currently available on the web (such as search, video conferencing, and file sharing) and suggests potential uses among educational researchers. Although these articles offer valuable advice about today’s web capabilities, both authors acknowledge that the web is changing rapidly. They do not provide a sense of where the web is going, and how its trajectory of development may more fully meet educational needs. Such prospective information about emerging web technologies is important for the educational research community, and it is our intention to briefly highlight key trajectories of web development for learning communities. We recently hosted a workshop on “Tools for Learning Communities” under the auspices of the NSF-funded Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT, which is pronounced like “silt”), bringing together 125 leading researchers and developers from a balanced mix of 50 institutions, including universities, nonprofit organizations, corporations and schools. For example, corporate participants included IBM Global Education, Apple Computer, Netscape, Coopers-Lybrand, NetSchools, and Electric Schoolhouse, LLC as well as many smaller firms. Academic and non-profit participants included researchers from the four CILT partner institutions, SRI International, UC Berkeley, Vanderbilt University, and Concord Consortium, as well as organizations, universities and high schools from all over North America. The innovative format of this workshop encouraged rapid information exchange, followed by brainstorming about educational issues and opportunities, and concluded with the formation of cross-institutional teams to seek joint innovation. Over the course of two days, the participants generated a wealth of ideas about the limitations of today’s web, its near-term trajectories, and

An analysis of Web page and Web site constancy and permanence

Abstract: We recognize that documents on the World Wide Web are ephemeral and changing. We also recognize that Web documents can be categorized along a number of dimensions, including “publisher,” size, object mix, as well as purpose, meaning, and content. This study is first a preliminary exploration into Web page and Web site mortality rates. It then considers two types of change: Content and structural. Finally, the study is concerned with understanding those constancy and permanence phenomena for different Web document classes. It is suggested that, from the perspective of information maintenance and retrieval, the WWW does not represent revolutionary change. In fact, in some ways the Web is a less sophisticated form than traditional publication practices. Finally, this study explores the “short memory” and “mind changing” of the World Wide Web.

Transference as a means of building trust in World Wide Web sites

Abstract: This paper uses cognitive balance theory (Heider 1958) to develop the proposition that transference is a means by which initial trust in unknown organizations doing business on the World Wide Web (WWW) may be established. Trust transfer across hypertext links and from physical to virtual stores is explored. Hypotheses are developed to suggest that consumers’ willingness to buy from a web site is an outcome of both trust in that web site and perceived systemic (i.e., WWW-related) risk. An experiment to test the hypotheses is described. Expected contributions, limitations, and possibilities for future research are noted.

Benchmarking: a tool for Web site evaluation and improvement

Abstract: Although benchmarking has touched many areas of an organization, including information systems, very few examples are available on how this powerful methodology can be used to specifically address one of the fastest growing elements within information systems – the World Wide Web. This paper presents a case study on how benchmarking was used to determine how one organization’s Web site compared to Web sites of related schools and professional organizations. The results of the benchmarking study provided a measure of how our Web site compares to the sites of related organizations, ideas on how we may further enhance our site, and also a way to regularly evaluate our site.

BITS: a method for bilingual text search over the Web

Abstract: Parallel corpus are valuable resource for machine translation, multi-lingual text retrieval, language education and other applications, but for various reasons, its availability is very limited at present Noticed that the World Word Web is a potential source to mine parallel text, researchers are making their efforts to explore the Web in order to get a big collection of bitext This paper presents BITS (Bilingual Internet Text Search), a system which harvests multilingual texts over the World Wide Web with virtually no human intervention The technique is simple, easy to port to any language pairs, and with high accuracy The results of the experiments on German - English pair proved that the method is very successful

Formal features of cyberspace: relationships between Web page complexity and site traffic

Abstract: Although the Internet is not without its critics, many popular and academic writers are particularly effusive in their praise of the World Wide Web's interactive features. A content analysis of the formal features of 496 Web sites, drawn randomly from a sample of the top 5,000 most visited sites determined by 100hot.com, was performed to explore whether the capabilities of the World Wide Web are being exploited by Web page designers to the extent that the literature suggests they are. Specifically, the study examines the differences between the formal features of commercial versus non-commercial sites as well as the relationship between Web page complexity and the amount of traffic a site receives. Findings indicate that, although most pages in this stage of the Web's development remain technologically simple and noninteractive, there are significant relationships between site traffic and home-page structure for Web sites in the commercial (.com) as well as educational (.edu) domains. As the Web continues to expand and the amount of information redundancy increases, it is argued that a site's information packaging will become increasingly important in gaining users' attention and interest.

Improving the Effectiveness of a Web Site with Web Usage Mining

Abstract: For many companies, effective web presence is indispensable for their success to the global market. In recent years, several methods have been developed for measuring and improving the effectiveness of commercial sites. However, they mostly concentrate on web page design and on access analysis. In this study, we propose a methodology of assessing the quality of a web site in turning its users into customers. Our methodology is based on the discovery and comparison of navigation patterns of customers and non-customers. This comparison leads to rules on how the site's topology should be improved. We further propose a technique for dynamically adapting the site according to those rules.

Survey research and the World Wide Web

Abstract: From the Publisher: B> Survey Research and the World Wide Web helps readers learn how to construct a survey or use the Web as a medium for targeting and surveying well-focused populations. The authors provide readers with specific approaches for collecting representative data from a variety of groups, populations and resources as well as practical, straightforward exercises that include numerous examples. Step-by-step instructions are provided to guide readers to accomplish each activity and screen shots and real-life vignettes highlighting the application if concepts and programs discussed in the text. This book is not a technical manual on how to program HTML or master Microsoft FrontPage, rather it is designed to help readers become proficient at using Web survey research tools. For anyone interested in building web research skills.

Finding near-replicas of documents on the Web

Abstract: We consider how to efficiently compute the overlap between all pairs of web documents. This information can be used to improve web crawlers, web archivers and in the presentation of search results, among others. We report statistics on how common replication is on the web, and on the cost of computing the above information for a relatively large subset of the web - about 24 million web pages which corresponds to about 150 Gigabytes of textual information.

Measuring Web performance in the wide area

Abstract: One of the most vexing questions facing researchers interested in the World Wide Web is why users often experience long delays in document retrieval. The Internet's size, complexity, and continued growth make this a difficult question to answer. We describe the Wide Area Web Measurement project (WAWM) which uses an infrastructure distributed across the Internet to study Web performance. The infrastructure enables simultaneous measurements of Web client performance, network performance and Web server performance. The infrastructure uses a Web traffic generator to create representative workloads on servers, and both active and passive tools to measure performance characteristics. Initial results based on a prototype installation of the infrastructure are presented in this paper.