Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine / Volume 1, Number 6 / October 1, 1994 / Page 14
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Challenges for Web Information Providers

by John December (decemj@rpi.edu)

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What Information Providers Need to Increase Quality

The Web has the potential to help people articulate and arrange information more expressively than any other information delivery system in history. In order to tap into this potential, and to ensure and develop notions of quality such as those outlined earlier in this chapter, the following methodologies and tools for information providers might be developed:

• Tools to assist in web design and implementation:
• Automated tools for maintaining HTML files or to create and enforce web "look and feel" design decisions.
• Automated tools for web link maintenance (to verify link freshness) and assist in other tasks of web development and maintenance.
• Higher-level languages that articulate web constructs and structures above the HTML level, capturing notions of inheritance (from object-oriented design methodologies), packaging (module concept from procedural programming languages), and information-shaping (from rhetoric, composition, and technical communication techniques). These higher-level languages might include a logical level over Uniform Resource Locators (or Identifiers), that captures abstraction in naming. For example, a link to a national Network Information Center (NIC) could be expressed as a generic term within an anchor that is instantiated in a web-generation scheme to an appropriate URL or URI which is specific to a given parameter (for example, yielding a a specific link for a web for Europe, another link for a web for Australia).
• Automated tools to help a designer evaluate a web's performance--accesses by page, perhaps graphically represented, to alert web designers to how the web's information is actually being used (See the WebViz approach to this.)
• Methodologies to support web planning, analysis, design, and development.
• Techniques for web usability testing.
• Methods for web audience analysis.
• Strategies for planning and developing webs within a variety of constraints.
• Techniques for information presentation that help a diverse audience of users find different "ways into" or views of a body of information.

While some of the preceding tools and methods might involve computer-assistance or automation (for example, link freshness checks), the key element in successful webs is human intelligence and judgment. We need to leverage automated tools to free up humans to contribute to a web what they can do best.

A management system for information providers should thus include automated procedures along with ways for information providers to contribute add value to information as a result of their judgment and knowledge. For example, in information discovery, hand-crafted indexes are costly in terms of time, but can lead to valuable results for specialized uses. While automated methods (WAIS, Veronica, Archie, WWW Search engines) can scan a large amount of information, the raw search results can bewilder an inexperienced user. Combining human judgment with the strength of automated tools may ultimately lead to more powerful ways to gather and shape information.

Ultimately, web information providers also need an information-literate audience. Information literacy includes the ability to access, evaluate, and use networked information in the pursuit of a goal. Helping a user gain this literacy and progress from using information to gaining knowledge involves presenting the right information at the right time in the right context. Often, web developers can do this by providing a variety of ways to access, view, and understand the continually changing resources on the Internet.

What Information Providers Can Do to Increase Quality

Specifically, the growth of Web information challenges information providers to increase quality in these areas:

Content

1. Draw on domain experts to judge and critique information, and to suggest content development and improvements.
2. Tirelessly work for authoritative sources and fresh links to them in the web.
3. Use the power of collaborating experts to fuel content development and improvements.

Presentation

1. Use techniques to cue users to the purpose, offerings, status, and usability of web information.
2. Use HTML design techniques that exploit the power of hypertext. "Chunk" information into manageable pieces. Use links to refer to concepts and information rather than reproducing it.
3. Keep graphics, multimedia and other features serving the best interests of the users. This includes minimizing where necessary, and including where appropriate.

Discovery

1. Keep aware of subject-oriented collections as well as indexes on the Web. Publicize your web's information so that it is included in appropriate indexes and subject trees.
2. Be aware of schemes for spider indexing. Design document hotspots, titles, and other features to provide the best information for spiders.
3. Provide your web's information within the context and communities of its intended audience so that your users (and potential users) know your web's offerings and new developments.

Innovation

1. Unceasingly work for innovative techniques used for your web's presentation and content so that it meets and exceeds your users' changing needs.
2. Creatively experiment in nontraditional expression to exploit new hypermedia features and techniques that meet your users' needs.
3. Adjust your web development processes to allow for new ideas, approaches, and techniques, so that creativity can flourish.

Summary

If there were only a few Web resources, users could easily find and compare them to identify the most useful ones for their needs. However, with an increasingly large and diverse universe of Web servers, traffic, documents, and audiences, even smart Web spiders can't identify the resources that are correct, complete, or most useful for a given purpose.

The Web itself is a means of expression, not just a conduit for delivering information or a collection of protocols and tools to be adjusted for maximum technical efficiency. The challenge for Web information providers is to recognize this and to increase the quality of information they deliver--both in terms of its content and methods of presentation. Therefore, Web information providers must examine the processes by which they gather, present, and improve their web's information.

By refining skills and techniques for gathering and presenting information and tapping into the wisdom of experts for critical review, Web information providers can engage in a continuous process of quality improvement. Methods for presenting Web information can draw from fields such as technical communication, rhetoric, and composition to shape information. Web information providers can also draw on concepts and practices from software engineering to inform design and implementation techniques. Automated tools and higher-level hypertext languages can provide more abstract levels above HTML, so that larger units of thought and web structure can be articulated. Ultimately, the challenge for a Web information provider is to acknowledge the dynamic nature of Web information and recognize that information quality is not just a set of outward characteristics or design decisions, but a part of a continuous process in which content and presentation are adjusted to meet user needs. Webs that more completely articulate information so that it can become knowledge may be the key to the Web's continued growth. ¤

This article appears as a chapter in the forthcoming book, The World Wide Web Unleashed by John December, Neil Randall, and others (Sams Publishing, 1994).

Copyright © 1994 Sams Publishing. All rights reserved. Printed by Permission.