information repository
The Web is becoming a universal repository of human knowledge and culture, which has allowed unprecedented sharing of ideas and information in a scale never seen before.
browsing & navigation
To satisfy his information need, the user might navigate the hyperspace of web links searching for information of interest. However, since the hyperspace is vast and almost unknown, such a navigation task is usually inefficient.
data model
The main obstacle is the absence of a well-defined data model for the Web, which implies that information definition and structure is frequently of low quality.
[ IR] .
that aims at producing the technology for ontology-based
information exchange for both knowledge management
and electronic commerce.
Such technology allows for adding descriptive information
and, equally important, to reason with such information.
Moreover, it allows for dealing with information formulated
in disparate terminologies by using so-called ontologies,
which may be regarded as formalized perspectives or world views.
information agent
presentation agent
PERsonal and SOcial NAvigation through information spaceS
the use of agents commenting on people navigating information
space(s) is explored.
As a note, the plural form of spaces is mine,
to do justice to the plurality of
information spaces.
investigating a new approach to navigation through information spaces, based on a personalised and social navigational paradigm.
The AGNETA & FRIDA system seeks to integrate web-browsing and narrative
into a joint mode. Below the browser window (on the desktop) are placed two
female characters, sitting in their livingroom chairs, watching the browser during the
session (more or less like watching television). Agneta and Frida (mother and
daughter) physically react, comment, make ironic remarks about and develop
stories around the information presented in the browser (primarily to each other),
but are also sensitive to what the navigator is doing and possible malfunctions of the
browser or server.
In this way they seek to attach emotional, comical or
anecdotal connotations to the information and happenings in the browsing session. Through an activity slider, the navigator can
decide on how active she wants the characters to be, depending on the purpose of the browsing session (serious information
seeking, wayfinding, exploration or entertainment browsing).
draft version 1 (16/5/2003)
Information agents are used to gather information.
In addition, they filter
the information and select those items that are relevant
for the user.
A key problem in developing information agents, however,
is to find a proper representation of what the user considers to be
relevant.
Complementary to the information agent is a
presentation agent (having access to the information gathered)
that displays the relevant information in a suitable way.
Such a presentation agent can have many forms.
To appetize your phantasy, you may look at the
vision of angelic guidance presented in navigating information spaces
The novel idea pursued in this project is to have agents
(Agneta and Frieda)
that are not helpful, but instead just give comments,
sometimes with humor, but sometimes ironic or even sarcastic comments
on the user's activities, in particular navigating
an information space or (plain)
web browsing.
As can be read on the PERSONAS web site:
In one of her talks, Kristina Höök observed
that some users get really fed up with the comments
delivered by
Agneta and Frieda.
So, as a compromise, the level of interference
can be adjusted by the user,
dependent on the task at hand.
As you may gather, looking at the presentations accompanying
this introduction to multimedia
and
[]
readme
preface
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
appendix
checklist
powerpoint
resources
director
eliens@cs.vu.nl
