Internet Applications

Spring 2008

Review

• Last week– Information Architecture– Approaches to application development– Programming basics– Introduction to Unix

This week

• Internet Application presentations

• Information Organization– What is information– How is information organized– How do we create applications that use

these structures

Microsoft offer for yahoo

• The press release, the buzz, reactions, and more– “Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the

same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?” asked David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, writing on the company’s blog.

Application presentations

• Things to consider:– What type of document or resource are

these applications trying to represent?– What organization structure underlies the

application?– What interactivity structures are in place for

the user – how do we know how to use it?

Application review

• What types of resources/documents were represented?

• Who are the intended users? Were they well defined?

• What elements of interactivity were used?• What elements of automation were used?• Based on what we saw, what was good/bad

about these applications?

Information

• Definitions– Bateson

• Any difference that makes a difference

– Buckland• Process, Knowledge, Thing

– Dervin• Internal, External, Sensemaking

– McCreadie and Rice• Resource/commodity, environment,

representation, communication

Documents & Information Objects

• Buckland – “any phenomena that someone may wish to observe:

events, processes, images, and objects as well as texts.” (Buckland, 1997)

• Otlet– “objects themselves can be regarded as documents if

you are informed by observation of them”, 3 dimensionality (Buckland, 1997)

• Briet – “evidence in support of a fact” (Buckland, 1997)

• Greenberg– “Any entity, form or mode for which contextual data

can be recorded” (Greenberg, 2002, 2003)

Information Objects, W3C

• W3C/IETF definition of resource is“…anything that has identity. Familiar examples include an

electronic document, an image, a service (e.g., "today's weather report for Los Angeles"), and a collection of other resources. Not all resources are network "retrievable"; e.g., human beings, corporations, and bound books in a library can also be considered resources.”

• i.e. a resource is “anything”– physical things (books, cars, people)– digital things (Web pages, digital images)– conceptual things (colours,

points in time, subjects)

Document Representation

• Why represent? For what purpose?– Index and retrieval, discovery– Distillation, reduction of scale– Knowledge management, semantic automation

• What does it look like?– Organization system, document surrogate,

representation• By what method?

– Metadata structures– Indexes, Relational databases– Structured abstracts

Web-based Examples• Text based:

– The Webpage– Social-Network profiles– The Newspaper article– Blog posting– The item record– E-Book

• Audio/Video– YouTube, YahooVideo

• VR Interactive– Second Life– 3D modeling applications

• Print equivalents– ?– ?– Newspaper/Encyc.– Diary entry?– Card catalog– Books

• A/V– VHS tapes, movies, etc

• VR– ?

IA - Components

• Content– Data, documents, structures– System design, internal structures

• Context– Organization, user-perspective, need,

system purpose– Interface design, external organization

structures

• Internal / external design considerations

Theoretical concepts

• Ambiguity / disambiguation

• Homogeneity / heterogeneity

• Perspectives – users, developers, catalogers

• Internal / external systems

• Specificity & Granularity

Classification

• Roots– Foundation of knowledge (debatable)

• Related disciplines– Psychology, cognitive science– Education– Library/information science

• Knowledge Management

Types of systems

• Enumerative systems

• Faceted Systems

• Hierarchies

• Database/Hypertext

• Social systems

Categorization vs classification

• Wordnet doesn’t differentiate

• Is it – description (categorization) vs primary

topicality (classification)?– Relevant only for print resources which

require a “place”? (notation system)– Order matters in classification but not

categorization?

Classification Definitions

– “The arrangement of knowledge into specific groups or systems” wur.nl

– “A classification is the separation or ordering of objects (or specimens) into classes. Classifications that are created non-empirically are called a priori classifications. Classifications that are created empirically by looking at the data are called a posteriori classifications” – ee.oulu.fi

– Lumping & splitting based on a root or principle – Weinberger

Models of organization

• Based on descriptive metadata• Alphabetical, chronological, geographic, element (title, author,

etc)

• Topical / Subject based• LCSH, ACM, etc

• Task/action• Ebay – buyers/sellers

• Audience / user centric• The Imaginon, Library Loft

• Metaphor • The desktop metaphor for example, Sesame Street, or the world

metaphor in Second Life

• Hybrid models– Yahoo, cbeebies

Types of systems• Enumerative systems

– Lists of objects grouped under headings• Alphabetic, chronological, geographic systems

• Hierarchical systems– Entries based on a tree structure, inheritance,

child/descendant/ancestor– Top-down, bottom-up

• Taxonomies (tree structures, XML)• Faceted systems

– Multiple relationships• Ontologies (typed relationships) think RDF

• Database/Hypertext• Google, Airline reservation systems

• Social systems• Folksonomies (flickr, del.icio.us)

Enumerative systems

• Alphabetic– Spice index

• Chronological– Women Mathematicians

• Geographic– Political graveyard

• Super-ordinate and sub-ordinate• Genus/species• Class/member

More flexible application in classification systems than in terminological tools (thesauri, ontologies, etc.)

– Yahoo! example: Directory > Science > Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence > Fuzzy Logic

Hierarchical Systems

Hierarchical examples

• LC Headings– History

• History of the Americas– British America

» Canada

• Scientific history– ......

• ACM– E. Data

• E.2 Data Storage Representations– Object Representations

• Definitions:– “One side of a many sided body” (OED)

• Basis– Analytico-synthetic

• System: Fundamental concepts are analyzed and grouped together into facets

• Concepts are combined or “synthesized” as necessary to form more complex subjects

Faceted Classification Systems

• Flamenco Project– http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/index.html

• AAT (Art and Architecture Thesaurus)» “The conceptual framework of facets and hierarchies

in the AAT is designed to allow a general classification scheme for art and architecture. The framework is not subject-specific; for example, there is no defined portion of the AAT that is specific only

for Renaissance painting.” from AAT site

– Associated Concepts, Physical Attributes, Styles and Periods, Agents, Activities, Materials, Objects

Faceted Classification Examples

Database/hypertext systems

• Rely on relationships/links

• Focused on “point of need” approach– User searches for information they need– User follows links that are relevant

• Based on structure and relationships but not necessarily “a priori”

• Examples– Google, kayak.com

Social Systems

• User assigned tags – not really ‘classification’.

• Is structured classification is really as good as we think? Is this as good / better?– Del.icio.us– Flickr– 2008 State of the union

Internal site design

• Document structure• What are you representing? • What level of description/representation is

required?

• Site organization• Hierarchical, faceted, flat/linked

• Data model• How can you approach the needed level of

specificity/granularity?

External site design

• Document structure– How do you represent the resource to the user?

• Cohesion• Understandability• Use/Reuse

• Organization– Where does the document exist in the user’s information

sphere?• Findability• Categorization

• Labeling and navigation– How and when would the user interact with this resource?

• Actions• Navigation• Context

Labeling system

• Types– Contextual links, headings, navigation systems,

indexing terms

• Guidelines– Labeling systems should be user focused

(personas!)– Stay consistent

• Follow the metaphor, descriptive model, or action model• Labels should be a public representation of a well

structured internal system• Elements of style, presentation, consistency, accessibility

are as important as syntax, granularity, scope.

Sources of labeling systems

• Controlled vocabularies• User-centered design

– Card sorting – organize existing terms– Free listing – brainstorm terms

• Content analysis– Site structures– Server logs (see what urls people are looking for)

• Author centered design– How are your authors labeling things?– How would subject matter experts label?

Card sorting• Overview

– In card sorting, identify general concepts, site structures, documents, activities, etc and put them on cards

– A good guide• Types

– Open• User write their own categories & labels (discovery)

– Closed• Users use pre-labeled cards and categories (validation)

• Process– Give the cards to a user/group of users along with sticky notes and

ask them to group the cards and label their groups using the sticky notes

– Users can use the sticky notes to create new categories, identify connecting relationships, create new cards, etc.

– Review output, usually card sorting is best when done a few times to see what trends develop

Card Sorting exercise• Using the cards which have the general navigation topics from

the SILS website, create a site structure considering:• Your user – take on a persona & sort the cards according to that user• Topic presence – are there topics missing?• Topic granularity – are topics specific enough?• Cross Listing – What fits in hierarchies & what does not?• Contents – What resources would be listed?

• Take 25 minutes to group cards & make connections• Find a space on the white board & sketch out your top level

organization structure (no need to use every topic)• Be prepared to report:

• An overview of your user perspective• Your overall label structure (hierarchical, faceted, hyperlinked,

enumerative)• New topics/removed topics• Any ideas you have for ramifications on internal site design• Ideas about different users & how they would approach the site

Next week

• Interactivity and Human Computer Interaction

• Site navigation

• Guest speaker Jackson Fox