Transcript Document 7132545

Pres 4
Publishing Web Magazines,
e-Journals and WebZines:
Reader Requirements
Brian Kelly
[email protected]
UKOLN is funded by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries,
the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher and Further
Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the
European Union.
BK
UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.
Session Aims
In this session we will:
• Discuss what readers might expect from our Web
publication(s)
• Highlight any issues which will need to be resolved
in order to satisfy these requirements
• Look at some examples
2
Exercise
Complete exercise on “Reader Requirements”
What reader requirements have you identified?
What issues need to be addressed?
3
Reader Requirements
Format
Navigation
Table of Contents
Access to individual articles
Access to complete issues
Searchable (in various ways)
Innovative
Accessible (to blind /
no plugins needed)
Available on Web
Available by email,
on PDA, etc.
Findable (via search engine)
Reader
Content
Requirements
Interface
Good, relevant content
Usable interface
Citable and bookmarkable
Attractive design
Persistent
Functionality
Customisable
Quality
Ease of printing
No adverts
Articles maintained
Feedback mechanism
(no broken links)
Annotation / discussion
Notification when released
Everything works
4
Innovative
Contents
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Identifying Reader Requirements
Design Issues
Identifiers
Notification
Printing
Searching
Handling:
• Out-of-date content
• Broken links
• Architecture
• Identifiers
5
User Interface
Cultivate Interactive and Exploit Interactive:
• Design brief produced
• Design outsourced
• Simple but usable interface
• Uses CSS and (X)HTML
• Accessible to all browsers & robots
• E-Book format being evaluated
6
Design of Electronic Publications
What type of interface should you
use for the home page:
• Preamble
• Menu
• News
• Content “teaser”
• Flash screen
7 • …
Attractive Design
http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue5/mag-features/
“Having had a look around at several
web sites and e-journals, we found
that you have managed to combine
simplicity, elegance, completeness
and advanced technical backing.”
8
Susan
Leech O'Neale, CERN, Sep 99
http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue5/indicators/
Design Brief
Design brief for Exploit Interactive produced:
• Background about publication
• Definition of structure (Feature Articles, Regular
Columns, News & Events, Etc.)
• Preferred solutions (standards based, no use of
Flash, PDF, etc.)
• Importance of accessible design
• Available budget
• Design solution provided by ILRT, University of
Bristol
9
Issue:
Do you outsource the design (and
information architecture) or do it inhouse?
Design
Features
Local navigation (here
in Features section)
Global navigation
(home & search page)
Indented margins
(IE only)
<h2> with grey
background
Internal links
to references
Footer navigation
Acknowledgments
10
Flagging external
(and broken) links
[added later]
Footer (enhanced during
lifetime)
Cultivate Interactive Design
http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/vakhum/
Key features
Logo
Site-wide
navigation
Lead-in /
abstract:
used as
metadata
Issue
navigation
Indented
margin
Similar approach taken for Cultivate Interactive with minor differences
11
Cultivate Interactive Design
Internal
links to
references
References
can be
followed
from print
12
External links
flagged
Cultivate Interactive Design
Author
details,
including
photo,
contact
info. and
biography
Citation details
Link to
translation
service
13
Changing Look and Feel
Use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) makes it easier:
• Support new media types (e.g. print)
• For publisher to change appearance (single file)
• To allow reader to change appearance either using browser
options or by selection of CSS
14
Note we provide different style sheets for IE and Netscape
Changing The Look-and-Feel
A Style Sheet Selector is being
developed to allow readers to
change the appearance. Of use for:
• Visually impaired
• Specialist devices
Issues:
• Should we allow readers to be
able to chose an ugly
appearance
• Shouldn’t this be done in the
15
browser?
User Control Over Look and Feel
Giving users control over the look and feel:
 Is good for accessibility (visually impaired, colour
blind, etc.)
 Can provide support for new devices (digital TV,
…)
 Can be useful for standard device in unusual
conditions (PCs in bright conditions, use in lecture
theatre - with red gun broken!, …)
But:
 Lose control over branding
 Users can do silly things
16
User control – what do you think?
 Good idea
 Bad idea
Design - Issues To Consider
Design Brief
• It’s needed. But should it be outsourced?
Design Technologies
• What formats and technologies, should you specify in
the design brief – Flash, Shockwave, JavaScript, …
Testing The Interface
• How should you test the design?
• What if it’s not acceptable?
Personalisation
• Should readers be able to change the design?
17
URL Naming Scheme
Entry Point
• Main entry point is <http://www.cultivate-int.org/>:
– Memorable address
– More manageable Web site
Issues
• Issue has URL of form:
<http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue1/>
Articles
• Article has URL of form:
<http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/vakhum/>
Avoidance of File Names
• URLs make use of default file name i.e. not:
<http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/vakhum/default.htm>
<http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/vakhum/default.asp>
18
Notification
How do users find out when a
new issue is available?
“Spamming” lists can be
irritating
http://www.cultivate-int.org/notify/
19
http://www.cultivate-int.org/notification/
Cultivate Interactive has 2
notification services:
• Netmind service (email
sent when page changes)
• Local database of
interested readers
Which is best?
Print All
The “Print All”
feature:
• Allows all
articles to be
viewed on
single page
• Developed to
allow single
printout of all
articles to be
produced
easily
20
http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/print-all/
Search Facility
You should provide a
search facility for
your online
publication
If resources aren’t
available, try a third
party service, such as
Atmoz or Google
If resources are
available, try to use
metadata and
configure the search
facility to reflect the
Webzine structure
21
http://www.cultivate-int.org/cat-search/
Find articles in all issues published as
Feature Articles which concern projects
funded by DIGICULT
Out-Of-Date Articles
What do you do when
an article becomes outof-date?
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue5/
metadata-masses/intro.html
What parts of an article
are we discussing?
What are the pros and
cons of different
approaches?
22
Published 11 September 1996
Widely cited and linked to
Annotations
You could allow the
author to annotate the
article
For example, see
Jakob’s Nielson’s
Alertbox column
What are the pros and
cons of this
approach?
23
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9709a.html
User Feedback
http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue5/fd/
You could provide a
general article feedback
mechanism
What are the pros and
cons of this approach?
24
Updating Broken Links
Links in Exploit Interactive articles were breaking.
Should they:
• Be fixed:
– Articles provide historic information and updating broken
links would be rewriting history
– Readers of articles simply want links to work
• Be left
– Fixing links is time-consuming
– If you fix them, will you (the editor) know that the link is
pointing to the correct resource?
• Be annotated:
– Annotated links so that end users get working links, but
are also aware that a change has been made?
25
• Use some new piece of magic?
Updating Broken Links
Links in Exploit
Interactive articles
were becoming
broken
Broken links in
references:
• Contained icon
indicating they
were a link
• Icon updated once
broken link spotted
26
http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue5/exploit-audit/
People Information
Case Study:
• A regular contributor to Ariadne marries and changes her name.
Her email name is also changed.
• What should we do to the contact email address in old articles?
In General
Information about people is volatile:
• Names change (marriage, etc.)
• Email addresses change
• Postal addresses and affiliation changes
• Status change (Miss, Mrs, Dr., etc.)
Possible problems:
• A search by Author will not find full set of articles
27
• Contacting authors via email or post may not work
From Locators to Identifiers
The effectiveness of the Web to provide access to
quality information is deteriorating:
• Increasing numbers of links are becoming broken
• Resources change address as Web sites are
reorganised to:
– Reflect organisational changes
– Exploit new technologies (e.g. content management
systems, databases, etc.)
• Resources are moved when authors move to new
jobs
A move from locators to (more stable)
identifiers is needed in order to provide end
users with more reliable services and to
ensure that important resources are not lost
28
From Static HTML To
Databases
A move from storing information in HTML files to use of
structured databases is needed:
• In order to be able to update information in a
manageable way (e.g. Jane Smith has married,
John Brown is a Professor, etc.)
• In order to be able to deploy new technologies
These architectural issues are needed in order
to provide more robust user services.
They will be discussed in the Publisher
Session
29
Future Developments
Ideas for new functionality for the readers:
• Automated news feeds (summaries of articles) which
can be embedded in third party Web sites
• Summary information available using WAP phones
[to evaluate ease of conversion of other XML types]
• Email access to newsletter
• View similar articles (using search and metadata)
• Personalised interface
• VRML, simulation, multimedia, …
New author / editorial board functions could also be
added:
• If cookie=“editor” display validation checks
• If cookie=“author” display statistics
30