from Evaluation of Human-Computer Interaction Whilst Using the World Wide Web
by Nicolas J. Blaza · The Buckinghamshire College, a college of Brunel University · May 1996
5.1 Introduction
The author decided to choose two software applications to evaluate: Netscape version 2.01 and NCSA Mosaic version 2.0 beta 1. These software applications are available freely to academic establishments by downloading them from the W.W.W.
This chapter is the author's own evaluation of the applications, along with that of journalists; chapter 6 highlights the opinions of those interviewed in the survey.
When this study started in November 1995, Netscape version 1.1 was the application that the author decided to base his study on. Earlier this year, Netscape 2.01 was released and so it was decided that the evaluation could be twofold: firstly a comparison of Netscape versions 1.1 and 2.01, to assess the changes these two versions of Netscape had undergone; secondly a comparison of two different Web applications, Netscape 2.01 and NCSA Mosaic 2.0 beta 1.
5.2 Adherence to Theories
These applications have been designed to be used by a variety of different levels of user, and both have an icon menu at the top of the screen, and both have the usual Windows commands.
Figure 5.1 — Web browsers' Window commands. NCSA Mosaic (top); Netscape 1.1 (middle); Netscape 2.01 (bottom). N.B. Netscape 1.1 has the HELP menu on the far right of the screen.
Both applications, Netscape and Mosaic, have been designed to run on Windows 3.x machines, and as similarly to other Windows applications the user expects to see a common set of menu bars at the top of the screen in order to navigate, and the commands in the drop-down menus are very similar in all the applications. A full list of the commands is in appendices A, B and C. The drop-down menus have been designed with the traditional Windows view: the most important command being further to the left of the menu bar; and within the drop-down menus the most important, or most used, commands at the top. Shortcut keys are designated to the most important commands, for example Control+S to save the file the user is currently at.
5.3 The GUIs of Netscape and Mosaic
Both Netscape and Mosaic have similarly laid-out GUIs, as shown in figures 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4.
Figure 5.2 — Netscape 1.1.
Figure 5.3a — Netscape version 2.01 (showing the Buckinghamshire College Web page).
First glance at figures 5.2 and 5.3 does not show any significant change, but it is when the user starts to use the new application that the change becomes apparent. The first change the author spotted was the arrangement of the preference menu choices. In Netscape 1.1 the Preference selection (located in both applications under Options) drop-down menu has one page of preferences from which the user has to select preference items from a submenu. In Netscape 2.01 the preferences have been arranged under headings that are "tabbed" at the top (figure 5.3b).
Figure 5.3b — Netscape 2.0's Preference menu (showing "tabs").
Figure 5.4 — NCSA Mosaic 2.0 beta 1 (showing the Buckinghamshire College Web page).
5.4 Icon Menu Bars
Netscape did not change the design or layout of the icon buttons across the two versions; both are shown in figure 5.5.
Figure 5.5 — Netscape's icon menu bar.
Icons have been designed following the guidelines described in chapter 3 — icons are not just descriptive but simple. The icon name describes the purpose of the call.
- Back — Displays the previous page in the history list. A history list references a hierarchy of pages already viewed.
- Forward — Displays the next page in the history list. When the user uses Back or a history menu item to retrieve a page, using Forward gets the proceeding page. (Forward is only available after the Back function.)
- Home — Displays the home page designated in the General Preferences, Appearance panel. The default is the Netscape home page location.
- Reload — Redisplays the current Netscape page, reflecting any changes made prior to the original loading. Netscape checks the network server to see if any change to the page has occurred. If there's no change, the original page is retrieved from the cache. If there's a change, the updated page is retrieved from the network server.
- Images — Loads images into pages.
- Open — Lets the user enter a URL to display the specified page in the content area.
- Print — Prints the content area of the current Netscape page. A dialogue box lets the user select printing characteristics.
- Find — Lets the user specify a word or phrase to locate within the current Netscape page. The user can specify case sensitivity and search direction. If a match is found, the text is selected and displayed.
- Stop — Halts any ongoing transfer of page information.
(Adapted from the Netscape online handbook.)
5.5 Review of Commands from Netscape 2.0
The following commands can be found in the drop-down menus, and are shown in Appendix B:
- History items in the Go menu display pages previously viewed.
- Bookmark items in the Bookmarks menu display pages the user has designated as worthy of easy access. The user can add a bookmark menu item for the page being viewed by choosing Bookmarks, Add Bookmark. The Window, Bookmarks menu item lets the user establish lists of bookmarks for themselves.
- Directory items in the Directory menu display pages that help the user use Netscape and Internet features.
- Back displays the previous page in the history list. The history list is a reference to pages that have been viewed in that particular session.
- Forward displays the next page in the history list.
- Home displays the home page designated in the user's preferences.
- Open displays a dialogue box where the user can enter any URL.
- Items from the Directory and Help menus display pages with up-to-date information on Netscape software.
A pop-up menu offers utility features and a shortcut for certain links. The user can click on the right mouse button to produce the pop-up menu. When the mouse button is pressed over a link or image, pop-up menu items let the user go to pages, view individual images, save files onto disk, and copy locations to the clipboard.
5.6 Using History and Bookmark Lists
The metaphor of a bookmark is used in Netscape 1.1 and 2.01 to signify the marking of a useful Web site with a tag. Navigator 1.1's Bookmarks feature really didn't simplify things much. Bookmarks piled up in drop-down menu style, unless the user takes time to arrange them, using a complex dialogue box; they soon became a mess.
"Navigator 2.0 thankfully organises the user's favourite sites in a Finder-style list that enables the user to drag and drop bookmarks into nested folders and display them in a hierarchical menu list" (Snell, 1996). Pulling down a menu that contains history or bookmark items, the user can see a list of page titles. To bring a page to the screen, the title of the page has to be selected.
Bookmarks offer a permanent means of page retrieval. Once a bookmark is added to the list, the title stays until the user removes it or changes the lists. The permanence and accessibility of bookmarks make them invaluable for personalising the user's Internet access.
Because bookmarks offer such ease of retrieval, the Netscape application offers many options for creating a bookmark list. Basic options let the user add access to a page through a menu item. More advanced options let the user create hierarchical menus, partial menu displays, multiple and shared bookmark files, list descriptions, and list searches.
The Bookmarks window, displayed by choosing the Window, Bookmarks menu item, gives the user tools to manage bookmark lists (figure 5.6).
Figure 5.6 — Basic Bookmark structure in Netscape.
These bookmarks can then be viewed from a drop-down menu, which lets the user categorise them into groups (figure 5.7).
Figure 5.7 — Personalised Bookmark drop-down menu from Netscape.
Users find bookmarks and folders (a folder represents a hierarchical menu header) arranged like files and folders on the hard disk. Users can double-click bookmarks to access pages, drag and drop icons to arrange bookmarks, and use bookmark menu items to create new bookmark items and manipulate bookmark lists.
5.7 Status Indicator
Figure 5.8 — Netscape's company logo (animated when a page is downloading).
5.8 Progress Bar
The progress bar animates to show the progress of the current operation. The bar shows the percentage done of document layout as a page loads, and the percentage of kilobytes loaded as an external image loads.
5.9 Security Indicators
The security indicator below the content area shows whether a document is secure (door-key icon on blue) or insecure (broken door-key icon on grey — figure 5.9). The secure door-key icon shows two teeth for high-grade encryption and one tooth for medium-grade. A colour bar above the content area indicates a secure document. A grey colour bar indicates an insecure document.
Figure 5.9 — Netscape's "broken door-key" representing an unsecured Web site.
An icon that cannot be used at any time is shown as a grey button, as opposed to black; for example, if the user is at their home page and has not visited any other sites, they obviously cannot go "back", so this button would be grey.
5.10 Directory Buttons
As well as having the icon menu bar, Netscape also has directory buttons (which can also be accessed from the Directory or Help menus) — figure 5.10.
Figure 5.10 — Netscape's directory buttons.
The following is a brief breakdown of the commands:
- What's New! (Directory, What's New?) — Information describing what's new on the Internet.
- What's Cool? (Directory, What's Cool?) — Information describing what's cool on the Internet.
- Handbook (Help, Handbook) — The Netscape Navigator Handbook online.
- Net Search (Directory, Internet Search) — A directory of Internet search engines.
- Net Directory (Directory, Internet Directory) — A master directory of other Internet directories.
- Software (Help, Software) — Information on Netscape Navigator software upgrades.
5.11 Other Applications within Netscape 2.01
An interesting feature of Netscape is the status messages it presents when downloading large images and complex HTML pages. For instance, the following line will appear in the bottom-right of the page:
40% of 116k (at 697 bytes/sec, 01:14 remaining)
A moving bar also shows the status.
As the user grabs a page, Netscape renders portions of the page as they come in. For instance, Netscape shows partial images rather than awaiting the full download (see appendix G, Ben Shneiderman's Web site with half-downloaded image). Graphical images on Netscape's corporate home page start out grainy and then gradually become more detailed — this improves interactivity because the user can see the gist of the image before the image appears fully. If the user decides the document isn't worth downloading, Netscape's STOP icon immediately ends the transfer.
Netscape 2.01 includes a feature that allows the user to break the Web site into frames, or viewing windows, via JavaScript. Snell writes that these frame tags, which let authors split Navigator's window into independent panes, are scrollable screen panels with unique addresses. "They aren't particularly compelling or useful; they're difficult for authors to create and even more difficult for users to navigate" (Snell, 1996).
Each frame is an independent Navigator window-within-the-main-window, which creates confusion about master navigational controls. The author found himself reflexively clicking on the Back button to retrace links in a frame, only to watch in frustration as the entire main window disappeared! At the moment, frame tags are being used by the big search engines such as InfoSeek to hold the advertiser's product in: as the main screen scrolls down, the embedded frame stays in place, displaying the advert. From a design point, Callaway (1996) advises designers to "keep the use of frames simple and to a minimum".
Netscape's frames, in addition, or multiple windows on the same screen, enable the user to view information and navigate simultaneously. This means less reloading time, because every type of information is held in its own window and does not require constant refreshing. But it is also "a hassle: browsing a site written to support frames works only when each image is correctly placed" (Losbin, 1996).
5.12 Plug-ins
One of Navigator's most innovative new features is its ability to view multimedia objects embedded in a page. Through the use of plug-ins, objects such as Adobe Acrobat documents, Macromedia Director files, QuickTime movies, RealAudio sound files, and VDOLive video can be viewed without having to load a separate helper application (Gaebel, 1996).
5.13 JavaScript
Navigator also has in-line support for Java applets written with Sun Microsystems' JavaScript. These platform-independent applications can include anything from animation, interactive games, video, and audio, to continually updated information like sports scores, traffic reports, weather information, stock-market data, and general news. When the user finds one of these with Navigator 2.0, simply click on it and the applet begins; a Java-enabled browser will automatically download and execute, making the Web more interactive than ever before.
Java applets will eventually allow live data updates and direct two-way interaction on the Web.
5.14 Security
Navigator also has several strong security features. It includes support for Secure Socket Layers for transferring encrypted form data and the Secure Courier Payment Protocol for making financial transactions. Another useful security feature is support for Digital ID services from VeriSign, which gives servers a way to verify the identity of its users.
5.15 e-mail from Netscape 2.01
Not content to let Navigator be just a Web browser, Netscape has turned Navigator 2.0 into a POP/SMTP e-mail reader as well. From within a three-paned window, users can send, receive, and file e-mail messages. Netscape says that its new e-mail client supports Secure MIME, which allows the user to encrypt and digitally sign messages. Netscape's support of Secure Courier should enhance Internet commerce, though a similar technology, CyberCash digital wallet software, has been available since early 1995 (Mills, 1996).
5.16 Conclusion on Netscape 2.01
Because Netscape is a very easy product to get accustomed to, and the fact that it is available on the Internet means that there is no reference manual available with the application. An online version is available from the Netscape home page, which the author used to get the correct terminology for the descriptive comments on the commands.
Netscape Navigator is the only product in its class. It is clearly the best Mac Web browser available right now, and its new plug-in architecture will transform the Web into a much richer multimedia environment (Snell, 1996).
One big addition in Navigator 2.0 is the Plug-Ins folder. Navigator can use third-party plug-ins to display data types the browser itself doesn't support.
5.17 Netscape — The Future
Navigator 3.0 will be released during 2nd quarter 1996, and the Web browser will provide support for VRML-viewing-based 3D applications, Java and JavaScript 3D extensions as well as audio- and video-streaming. Navigator 3.0, code-named Atlas, and Version 4.0, code-named Dogbert, will include support for TrueType fonts (Dunlap & Mardesich, 1996).
Navigator Gold, the commercial version of Netscape, adds WYSIWYG document creation, running on Windows, Mac, and X Windows.
Future versions of the Navigator browser will retain a feature that gives World Wide Web sites information about user activity. Each site can only update and get information out of cookies files that the site's server generated. The feature allows electronic merchants to learn about the user's habits and preferences and to tailor a page for the user (Mills, 1996).
5.18 NCSA Mosaic 2.0 beta 1
The latest version of "the world's first Web browser" (Terdeman, 1996) is available for Windows NT as well as '95 and 3.x. However, it is designed for 16-bit operating systems, and the author had to install the Win32s libraries and support for OLE; and because of the College network set-up, this had to be installed every time the author wished to use it.
Figure 5.4 shows how similar Mosaic and Netscape are. Mosaic also supports an "attractive and intuitive interface" (Terdeman, 1996) with similar properties to Netscape.
The difference between Mosaic and Netscape is that Mosaic, the original GUI interface for the Web, treats the documents more as text files. It does not have the plug-ins function that Netscape 2.0 boasts, and the icon bar has more of a "text editor" approach to it.
The first command on the icon bar OPENS a document or URL, and the second SAVES files, like a word processor; the third icon sends the loaded file to the PRINTER, and the fourth shows a PREVIEW of the document.
The next two icons have the same functions as a text editor — COPY and PASTE. Netscape has all these functions but has them in drop-down menu form.
The next four icons have functions involved with navigation — BACK and FORWARD, just like Netscape, and RELOAD and HOME.
The HOME icon and the FIND icon are very similar to Netscape's; they both have a home sketch and a pair of binoculars, respectively.
In Mosaic, bookmarks are named HotLists, hence the icon of a burning page. This allows the Mosaic user to create multiple HotList files using a standard folder metaphor. These operate in the same way as Netscape's: the user can open up folders one at a time, or open them all up simultaneously with a single mouse click. Mosaic also finds out which of the HotList sites have changed since they were last visited.
Mosaic does not have a set of directory buttons — these are all situated within drop-down menus (Appendix C) — but it does have an icon that takes the user to newsgroup pages on the Web.
Mosaic has focused on the E-mail side of the Internet, integrating an icon to send mail out, which when pressed brings up a standard mail file in which the user writes the message to send.
Mosaic also thought it important to have an icon explaining what Mosaic, the Web and the Internet are about, and have a question-mark icon to take the user to the information. (When the author first used Mosaic he thought this button was a help button for all the commands in Mosaic.)
Netscape has a stop icon to stop the flow of information being downloaded; in Mosaic this is incorporated into the Mosaic company logo.
Mosaic supports context-sensitive right-mouse-button capabilities. Depending on the context, the user can change fonts, save links to disk, and spawn multiple instances of NCSA Mosaic.
5.19 Conclusion to Mosaic 2.0 beta 1
While its lack of some popular features may be a drawback, NCSA Mosaic has no trouble rendering most sites as they were intended, even those optimised for Netscape. "The world's prototypical browser is still a great way to access the W.W.W." (Terdeman, 1996).
© 1996 Nicolas J. Blaza. Reconstructed online edition, 2026.
Best viewed in Netscape Navigator 2.0 or higher at 800×600 resolution.
