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
"The richness of the human condition and the growing richness of technological opportunities means there is no easy solution for HCI" (Preece et al., 1994).
Basic research in industrial and academic centres is beginning to yield guidelines for interactive systems designers. Industrial and governmental system developers employ empirical techniques by conducting informal pilot studies, evaluations of early prototypes, and rigorous acceptance testing, as well as continuous performance evaluation during the system's active use.
Successful system managers understand that they must work hard to establish a relationship of trust with the user community, in addition to providing a properly functioning system or application. Developers are also beginning to realise the need to create mechanisms for feedback, such as online surveys.
The Web is only in its infancy. In the past two years it has grown from a small network of academic computers to the giant mass-media tool it is today. As this project has highlighted, there is no one ideal interface set of rules for designing Web pages, but designers can use past experience, and the wealth of knowledge from the user.
The designers of Web applications have a very hard job on their hands, because the product needs to appeal to a variety of different people. Various sources stress that the W.W.W. is the application that will bring the masses to the Internet, and so in order to help it on its way, Web applications need to be (a) very user-friendly and (b) appeal to a wide number of people.
The progression from being a novice at Web applications and becoming something of an expert is very quick indeed, and these applications have been designed in such a way, as explained in chapter 5, that the layout of key function icons for both Netscape and Mosaic is such that the user never feels lost within the W.W.W.
In chapter 4 the author discussed interacting with the user at all stages of design. In Netscape's and Mosaic's applications there are online comment boards for users to pass on design faults β all part of the process of beta testing.
User interface design is still an art, not a science. Most of the time there is no scientific evidence to support one application against another. In the case of Netscape and Mosaic the factor that separates them is what can be added on to the application in order to make it more usable.
Another factor that will be used to see how usable a Web application is, is how many of the Web sites from around the world support its standards. Mosaic cannot support all the functions that Netscape 2.01 can, for example multi-frame pages. Using Mosaic on the UNIX Windows system is impossible, as the graphics format is not supported.
If a product is to do well on the Web it will need the full support of designers, programmers and users, and in the author's opinion a new product online every 3 to 6 months. As the author writes this conclusion, Netscape 3.0 Gold is ready to be released, as long as the user has the system capabilities to run itβ¦
© 1996 Nicolas J. Blaza. Reconstructed online edition, 2026.
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