1

WWW 6 Trip ReportReport on the Sixth International WWW Conference held in Santa

Clara on April 7-11, 1997

Brian Kelly

UK Web Focus

UKOLN

University of Bath

BA2 7AY

B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.ukhttp://www.ukoln.ac.uk

2

UK Web Focus

UK Web Focus is:• A JISC funded initiative• Based at UKOLN, University of Bath• Involved in various WWW activities:

– Technology watch

– Information dissemination throughout UK HE community

– Coordination of WWW activities

– Represents JISC on W3C

Brian Kelly appointed as UK Web Focus on 1st November 1996

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About WWW 6

WWW 6:• Held at the Santa Clara Convention Centre• Workshops and tutorial sessions on

Monday 7th April• Technical papers from 8-10th April• Developer's Day and History Day on 11th

April• Various other BOFs and meeting (including

Web Accessibility Initiative day

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Before the Conference• Conference details

including online booking available on Web- http://www6conf.org/

• Online conference (ICE) available for delegates before, during and after conference

• Conference proceedings available online http://proceedings.www6conf.org/

http://ice.www6conf.org/

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ICE

ICE (Interactive Conference Environment):• A new facility for WWW conferences• Provided a home page and messaging facilities for

delegates• Providing online registration for conference events

Usefulness:• General conferences not widely used (eg. Web

site design) but specific conferences were (travel tips, social events)

• Usability could be improved

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WAI Day

Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) day:• Held on Sunday 6th April

• About 80 participants

• Morning consisted of presentations including:– US Government support for Initiative (Thomas Kalil,

White House) and National Science Foundation involvement

– Details of the W3C WAI - has been agreed by W3C members (Jim Miller, W3C)

– Other presentations from Kate Seelman (NIDRR), Mike Pacielli (YRIF), Tim Berners-Le (W3C), Peter Bosh (RNIB), Gregg Vanderheiden (Trace Research), Michael Sfyrakis (ICS-Forth) and Murray Maloney (SoftQuad)

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"Opening Windows or Closing Doors"Peter Bosher (RNIB, UK) spoke about the tremendous benefits of IT for the visually impaired, but also the pitfalls that blind people face. e.g.• Times job vacancies page

is usable with Lynx and speech browsers

• London Broadcasting Company pages are poor

Want "cool with content"http://www.lbc.co.uk/

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"Opening Windows or Closing Doors" (2)Other comments Peter made:

• Poorly designed navigation (when you follow several links, and then get back to where you started) is a particular problem for the blind who don't have the visual clues that the sighted have

• When navigating the Hotwired site his browser said "link link link link image image image without caption"

• Tables are difficult to process by speech browsers• Painstakingly competing a form and then getting an

error message because the form was browser specific is annoying

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WAI - Afternoon Session

In the afternoon presentations were given from speakers from Sun and Microsoft.

T.V. Raman (Adobe) spoke about the benefits of "smart documents" - in which the paper document is just one form of rendering. He spoke about the audio cascading style sheet proposal.

Following a panel session the day concluded with breakout sessions on:

• Technology issues• Development of Guidelines• Educational Issues

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Further Information

Further information on the Web Accessibility Initiative, and on general accessibility resources is available at:

http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/

http://weber.u.washington.edu/~doit/Other/design.html

http://www.igs.net/~starling/acces.htm

http://trace.wisc.edu/

http://access.adobe.com/

http://cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/

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Web Collections Workshop

Half day workshops on web collections:• Defining relationships between groups of related

documents• Useful for:

– printing– off-line browsing– indexing

• Presentations on:– Protocols (Web Collections, MCF, Dublin Core)– Applications (HotSauce, WebCutter, WebMapper)

Day 0 - 9 am

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Conclusions

The Web Site Mapping workshop agreed:• Split protocol into three:

– Metadata Model– File Format Syntax– Metadata Manipulation Language

• Further discussions needed on:– Whether a new query language is needed (e.g.

SQL, HyTime Query Language)– Whether we need a metadata query language

or a general document query language– A list of common site mapping operations, to

help define an API• XML is likely to be the preferred syntax

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XML TutorialXML:

• Extensible markup language• An SGML-lite designed for the Internet• Developed by the SGML community• Tools being developed by SGML tool vendors• Microsoft involvement • Two XML draft specs:

– XML– XML-link A richer form of linking

• Stricter than HTML (to reduce client processing):– Attribute quoting <IMG SRC="logo.gif">– End tags needed <P>A paragraph</P>

Day 0 - 2 pm

English

French

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Opening Speeches

Introduction from Gerhard Casper, President of Stanford University

• Delegates from forty countries attended WWW 6, 50% academic and 50% commercial.

• Overall attendance not known at start of conference. Believed to be about 1,800 - this was down on expectations, perhaps due to the JavaOne (8,000) and Microsoft Hardware Developers conference (15,000) held in San Francisco the previous week.

Day 1 - 9 am

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Opening Speeches

Dr Mae Jemison• Mae Jemison, who was an astronaut on

Endeavour, spoke on the social responsibilities of technologists

Thomas Kalil• Thomas Kalil, Director of the National Economic

Council, spoke on US government initiatives to:– Connect people with disabiliities to Web– Connect every student to Web (see http://netday.org/)

– Connect people in Africa to Web• He repeated comments he made in the WAI day

Day 1 - 9 am

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"Beyond HTML"

The technical session on "Beyond HTML"• Took place at 11 am on Tuesday, 8th April• Papers presented on:

– "Bookmarking Service for Organizing and Sharing URLs" by Richard M. Keller et al

– "Extending HTML in a Principled Way with Displets" by Fabio Vitali et al

– "Index-Based Hyperlinks" by John H. Hartman, Todd A. Proebsting, Rajesh Sundaram

– "Metadata Mediation : Representation and Protocol" by Tsuyoshi Sakata, Hiroyuki Tada, Tomohisa Ohtake

Day 1 - 11am

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Bookmarking Service for Organizing and Sharing URLs

This paper outlined limitations in bookmarking (monolithic structure, problems in sharing URLs, ranking long lists and navigation).

WebTagger uses a proxy service which adds buttons at top of pages. These can be use to provide a richer bookmaking service.

See http://www6.nttlabs.com/HyperNews/get/PAPER189.html

Day 1 - 11am

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Extending HTML in a Principled Way with DispletsThis paper describes a Java solution to adding new tags to HTML.

<TAG NAME=CHART .. SRC=chart.class>…</TAG>

<CHART TYPE=BAR>

<TABLE>

<TH> JAN/<TR><TH>125…

</TABLE>

</CHART>

Jan Apr Jul OctSmith 125 257 327 250Green 137 140 110 160

HTML source HTML output

Jan Apr Jul Oct

Day 1 - 11am

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For further information

Extending HTML in a Principled Way with DispletsOther extensions:

Multi-way links

Graphs

Issues:How does this fit in with XML?

How does this fit in with the HTML Math work, which proposes using Java to display Maths output?

Further Information:http://proceedings.www6conf.org/HyperNews/get/PAPER155.html

http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~chchiu/displets.html

Reference informationTutorial

OK Cancel

Day 1 - 11am

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Index-Based Hyperlinks

Problem:• Web pages have too many links for authors

to manage • Web pages have too few links for readers

(e.g. a language student may want every word to be a link - an author would not want to maintain such a document)

• Only one URL per link allows• The URL name provides little meaning• Link can only be created by the author

Day 1 - 11am

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Index-Based HyperlinksPossible solutions include:• Automatic generation of links (can be

inaccurate)

• Use Javascript (heavy weight)

In Index-based Hyperlinks:• Indices associate attributes with

phrases

• Browsers can implement the linking policy (i.e. link on first occurrence of phrase)

• Indexes are separate from document

• Prototype in HotJava

Day 1 - 11am

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Index-Based Hyperlinks

Further Informationhttp://www6.nttlabs.com/HyperNews/get/PAPER248.html

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/sumatra/

Day 1 - 11am

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"Leading the Evolution of HTML"This W3C session:

• Took place at 2 pm on Tuesday, 8th April• Talks by Dave Raggett, Arnaud LeHors and Rob

Miner• Covered:

HTML developments Metadata

XML Maths• Technical discussion on HTML takes place on www-html list.

• Feedback should be sent to www-html-editor@w3.org

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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HTML Developments

Cougar:• Code name for next version of HTML• Needed as "forces driving evolution of HTML are

threatening media independence"• First draft available summer 97• Some parts already released:

WD-htmllink WD-script

WD-frames WD-forms

WD-object WD-entities

WD-fileupload

• See http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Cougar/

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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WD-htmllink

WD-htmllink• Hypertext links in HTML. • Defines link relationships (e.g. <LINK REL=Next>

could be used to facilitate printing in a single document split into several files)

• Related to Style Sheet work

<LINK REL=Stylesheet MEDIA=print HREF=ukoln-print.css>

• Define TITLE attribute for hints for accessibility e.g. <A HREF="welcome.html" TITLE="The Welcome page for ACME Ltd">text</A>In this example a browser could display the text in, say, a pop-up window.

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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WD-htmllink

WD-htmllink (continued)• Defines uses of META tag (e.g. for use with PICS)• Define language(s) for documents • Define pages which can be indexed by robots

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">

prohibits robots from indexing and following links

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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WD-style

WD-style• HTML and Style Sheets • Defines relationships between HTML document

and stylesheet• Single style sheet can be defined by:<LINK REL=stylesheet HREF="corporate.css">

• Cascading style sheets can be defined by:<LINK REL=stylesheet HREF="corporate.css"><LINK REL=stylesheet HREF="techreport.css">

• Can define alternate style sheets for media types:<LINK REL=stylesheet MEDIA=screen …>

• MEDIA types can include Print, Screen, Aural, Braille,...

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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WD-script

WD-script• Client-side Scripting and HTML• Defines mechanism for embedding scripting

languages in HTML:<SCRIPT type="text/javascript">document.write ("<EM>This will work</EM>")</SCRIPT>

•<SCRIPT SRC="url"> used for external scripts• Default script language can be defined: <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Script-Type" CONTENT="text/tcl">

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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WD-script

WD-script (continued)• Self-modifying documents and event

handlers can be written<SCRIPT TYPE="text/vbscript">Sub edit1_changed()

If edit1.value = "abc" Thenbutton1.enabled = True

Elsebutton1.enabled = False

End IfEnd Sub</SCRIPT>

• Events include onLoad, onClick, MouseOver, onSelect, ...

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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WD-frames

WD-frames• Defines existing usage of FRAME tag• Includes IFRAME proposal for inclusion of frames

inline in body of HTML documents (FRAME tag replaces BODY tag):<BODY><P>This document contains an inline frame <IFRAME src="foo.html" width=400 height=500> that unfortunately your user agent doesn't support. Alternatively you can get the related document <A href="foo.html">here </A>.</IFRAME> That's all folks!</BODY>

• Initial release of FRAMES caused problems, and there are still accessibility concerns

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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Dynamic HTML

• Based on work of the Document Object Model (DOM) working group

• Provides an API (applications programming interface) for HTML page structure and style

• Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 implements many features of Dynamic HTML

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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XML

XML:• Is a clean subset of SGML• It is felt that XML and HTML will coexist for

some time• Further information on XML is given

elsewhere in this presentation

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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IETF and ISO and HTML

IETF are working on various aspects associated with HTML

• MHTML (email encapsulation of HTML)• WEBDAV (The Web Distributed Authoring

and Versioning working group)

ISO• The ISO/JTC1/SC18 work on HTML 3.2

Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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HTML Math

The HTML Math spec:• Is due out in May 97• Core standard covering presentation and markup• Will contain 20 presentation tags with 40 attributes• Will contain 50 content tags (roughly equivalent to

functions on scientific calculator)• Initially will be implemented using embedded

elements (ActiveX, Java) enabling 3rd parties to develop the rendering tools (won't need to wait for Netscape or Microsoft)

• Software will be available in June 97• Full implementation requires better browser APIs

(e.g. DOM)Day 1 - 2pm

W3C Session

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CSS

The CSS1 (Cascading Style Sheet) spec:• Replaces all HTML extensions• Can replace most uses of tables• Provides floating text elements• Provides control over background

History:Sept 94 - Initial CSS proposal

June 96 - MS IE 3 released supporting CSS

Dec 96 - CSS1 draft finished

CSS logo available for pages using style sheets (see http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Style/CSS/Buttons/Menu/

Day 1 - 2.45pm

W3C Session

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CSSQ How closely matched are the CSS and XML?

A They are a good match

Q Features such as side bars (e.g. <P CLASS=side>) are likely to be widely used. Should such attributes be registered?

A It's likely that a set of standard style sheet definitions will be released, and they'll be widely used

Q Will CSS held to reduce network bandwidth?

A Yes, see http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Protocols/NL-PerfNote.html

Q What about headers and footers?

A In next release

Day 1 - 2.45pm

W3C Session

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CSS - The Next Wave

In next version of CSS:• Multiple media (using @media)• Improved printing support (headers, footers,

margins, etc.)• Better control over positioning (e.g. out-of-flow

elements, navigational bars, layering)• Better font control (mixed fonts - e.g. helvetica and

cyrillic for, say, language dictionaries)• Aural cascading style sheets (as well as for

visually impaired also for in car-use, industrial and medical systems, entertainment, illiterate):

– <STRONG> rendered as loud voice, pause-before– Left column in table spoken in left speaker

Day 1 - 2.45pm

W3C Session

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"Multidimensional Web Search"The technical session on "Multidimensional Web Search"

• Took place at 4 pm on Tuesday, 8th April

• Papers presented on:

– "Towards a Multimedia World-Wide Web Information Retrieval Engine" by Sougata Mukherjea et al

– "Dynamic Reference Sifting: A Case Study in the Homepage Domain" by Jonathan Shakes et al

– "ParaSite: Mining Structural Information on the Web" by Ellen Spertus

Day 1 - 4 pm

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Towards a Multimedia World-Wide Web Information Retrieval Engine (1)

Paper that integrates searching for text with searching for images.• Search for "baseball player"• Select one of the images retrieved,

and search for others similar to this one

• Give schematic drawing (as shown)• Provide 3D visualisation of search

results using VRML

Find an image that looks like this will find Mickey Mouse from the Disney Web site

Day 1 - 4 pm

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Towards a Multimedia World-Wide Web Information Retrieval Engine (2)

The software is called AMORE.

Prototype available at

http://www.ccrl.neclab.com/amore/

See http://www6.nttlabs.com/HyperNews/get/PAPER3.html

Day 1 - 4 pm

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Dynamic Reference Sifting: A Case Study Described Ahoy! - a Web application used for finding personal home pages based on recognition of likely hits from directory naming conventions.

Day 1 - 4 pmhttp://www.cs.washington.edu/research/ahoy

See http://www6.nttlabs.com/HyperNews/get/PAPER39.html

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Parasite: Mining Structural Information on the WebBased on heuristic assumptions including:

Hypertext Linking• A linked page is likely to be on the same topic as the

original page (esp. for Yahoo type resources)

Directory Structure• A URL containing a directory below a personal home page

(PHP) is likely to be authored by the person identified in the PHP

Page Structure• Links "near" each other on a page are likely to have similar

topics

Day 1 - 4 pm

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Parasite: Mining Structural Information on the WebUsed these assumptions to propose applications for finding:

• moved pages• related pages• people

Comments• Brute strength approach• This and preceding paper (on Ahoy!) show

importance of directory naming conventions (directory names provide metadata - what can we guess from the URL www.cs.acme.edu/staff/jsmith)

Day 1 - 4 pm

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Plenary Session

All Authored Works Online: A Global Infrastructure for Universal Access to Information

Raj Reddy, Dean of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon spoke on the Universal Library project - when "All Authored Works of the Human Race will be available to anyone in the world instantaneously".

His talk is available at http://www.ul.cs.cmu.edu/rr/aaw/aaw.html

Accessibility of EverythingMichael Dertouzos ...

Day 2 - 9 am

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MBONE Link With Germany

Dave Ingham (Computer Science, Newcastle University) was asked to deliver his paper (on Supporting Highly Manageable Web Services) to the Conference in High Energy Physics using the MBONE

Day 2 - 10.30 am

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Good Web Design

Good Web Design Panel Session• A very popular session on Web design• Panelists included Jakob Neilson (Sun),

David Seigel (a leading web designer and author of the 1 bit clear GIF used to provide spacing), Cathy Gill (HTML Writer's Guild) and others

• Strong disagreements between the design community (David Seigel) and the structuralist community (Jakon Neilson)

• I attended the start and end of this session

Day 2 - 2 pm

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Good Web DesignWhat is Good Design?

• No frames - Jakob Neilson's response (see his paper on 10 top mistakes in web design)

• The design must be related to a user's tasks

• A well-designed site downloads quickly

• A good design doesn't break browsers

• No gratuitous backgrounds or animation

• Should be internally consistent

• Should be externally consistent in use of navigation (Jakob Neilson's comments on need for standard navigational aids such as not changing colours of hypertext links)

• Variety in navigational aids (David Siegel's response)Day 2 - 2 pm

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Good Web Design

Other Comments• "Designers shouldn't be used as shields in the

browser wars"• Web sites need (automated) feedback

mechanisms• There aren't enough good web designers, so we

need guidelines • We need good example of web design (and

commentary on the design)• See Highfive (David Seigel) - http://www.highfive.com/

• See http://eunisis.com/resources/??• See ACM/Interactions (May/June 97) for a critique

of Web designDay 2 - 2 pm

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Bad Web Design?

There was much disagreement over the Seigel "hack" illustrated

• Image on the next page stored in a 1 pixel by 1 pixel

• The image is downloaded while main image is being examined

• Moving to the next image it appears to load quickly

• "Neat trick" - David Seigel• "Hack", "future maintenance

problems" "no semantics"

<IMG SRC=image5.gif height=1 width=1>

image4.gif

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Site Mapping and Syntactic AnalysisThe technical session on "Site Mapping and Syntactic Analysis"

• Took place at 2 pm on Wednesday, 9th April

• Papers presented on:

– "Finding Salient Features for Personal Web Page Categories" by Marilyn R. Wulfekuhler, William F. Punch

– "Syntactic Clustering of the Web" by Andrei Z. Broder et al

– "Analysis and Design of Web-based Information Systems" by Takahashi and Liang

Day 2 - 2 pm

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Syntactic Clustering of the WebAward winning paper

Using a clustering algorithm to find "similar" documents

Can be used to:

• In response to a 404 not found message, find similar versions of a resource

• Observe how resources change over time (find new and out-of -date versions)

• Find plagiarisms

Results

Tested on 30,000,000 documents in Alta Vista

60% of documents are unique

Most clusters of similar documents are small

Day 2 - 2 pm

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Microsoft IE 4.0

Presentation in the Industrial Presentations track on Internet Explorer's implementation of Dynamic HTML

HTML is limited:• Animation using animated GIFs is limited• Can't position or layer elements• The web is slow - interaction with server needed

Dynamic HTML:• Based on emerging W3C proposals• Covers:

– Dynamic styles and dynamic contents– CSS positioning - Data binding

• See http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/aplatfrm/dynhtml-f.htm

Day 2 - 4 pm

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Microsoft IE 4.0

Dynamic HTML• Positioning control (in

X, Y and Z planes)• Position can be

changed at run time (e.g. on mouseOver event)

Day 2 - 4 pm

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Microsoft IE 4.0

Dynamic Style SheetsCSS properties can be changed at run time:

<H1 onMouseOver {color: red;} onMouseOut {color: yellow;}>

A more elegant way is to store the Javascript code in the document HEAD (or externally)

CSS PositioningElements can be positioned absolutely or relative to each other

<IMG SRC="smiley.gif" : top: 25% ; zindex=1>

<DIV zindex =2>Text on top of image</DIV>

Day 2 - 4 pmText on top of image

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Microsoft IE 4.0

Dynamic ContentThe Document Object Model (DOM) can be used to change the content at runtime:

function change() "new header"

...

<H1 id=foo onclick=change()>Old Header</H1>

For example a table of contents could be built dynamically

Day 2 - 4 pm

56

Microsoft IE 4.0

Data BindingCurrently data binding (merged data from database with HTML code) is done on the server

Data binding proposal enables it to be done on the client so that, for example, the output from a search engine can be resorted on the client)

Day 2 - 4 pm

http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/browser/bestweb/

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Microsoft IE 4.0Dynamic HTML Multimedia EffectsUses IE4 control to provide multimedia effects

Removes need for animated GIF

Variety of effects available:• Transitions, filters,

structured graphics, sequencing

• sprite control (scripted animated GIFs)

• Example - e rotating in 3D

Day 2 - 4 pm

How will Powerpoint be marketed if this is possible in HTML?

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Microsoft IE 4.0

Document Object Model (DOM)• DOM enables every HTML element to be

processed as an object (i.e. DOM is an API for accessing HTML elements)

Day 2 - 4 pm

• DOM is not a set of tags or a new language (it is language independent)

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Microsoft IE 4.0

Standards• IE 4.0 conforms to HTML 3.2 and CSS1• Implements new W3C drafts (e.g. DOM, forms)• Javascript is being standardised by ECMA

Support for legacy browsers?• Don't use new features• New features degrade gracefully• New features won't work (e.g. Tetris example -

10K HTML file, which used no ActiveX controls)

Security• Based on domains (pages from one domain can't

read pages from other domains)Day 2 - 4 pm

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Plenary SessionYuri Rubinsky Memorial WWW Award

• Murray Mahloney presented the award to Gregg Vanderheiden for his involvement with disability work

• Apple and Microsoft have been strongly influenced by the work of the TRACE centre

The Social Web• Howard Rheingold, author of Virtual Communities

and execuitve editor of Hot Wired spoke about the collaborative Web

• "Convergence sucks!" The Web shouldn't be like the TV, it should be like the phone.

• See Electric Minds at http://www.minds.com/

Day 3 - 9 am

61

Plenary Session

MBONE Session With Hypertext 97A live panel discussion using video link

Robert Cailliau (CERN), Terry Winograd (Stanford), Ora Goldstein (HP) and Howard Rheingold from WWW 6 conference

Wendy Hall (Southanpton Univ), ??? Electronic Telegraph, Cathy Marshall (Xerox) and Ted Nelson from Hypertext 97 conference

Day 3 - 9 am

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Plenary Session

Panelists discussed question "Why both with research? Let's leave the web to the marketplace"

Robert Cailliau - "The original NeXT browser provided collaborative authoring. This still hasn't been implemented by commercial browsers. As will be seen a the History Day there have been many research prototypes which haven't yet been implemented commercially. The question should be 'Can the commercial world keep up with the research community?' The commercial world has brought us frames, but the worthy research prototypes from 1990 have been lost"

63

Plenary Session??, Electronic Telegraph: Commercial products can't be

expected to keep up with research developments. Carry on researching.

Terry Vinograd: Researchers are carrying out valuable exploratory design work - design something, make it available and see if it flies.

Howard Rheingold: There is a need to legitimise social science research

Ted Nelson: The hypertext community's view of the Web is "Where did we go wrong!" The Web community is failing to look at the history of hypertext, standardisation (cf. the browser wars), etc. We need a stable reusable Web which facilitates long term use.

64

Automatic Interface GenerationThe technical session on "Automatic Interface Generation"

• Took place at 4 pm on Thursday, 10th April• Papers presented on:

– "Transforming Command-Line Driven Systems to Web Applications" by Phanouriou and Abrams

– "Responsive Interaction for a Large Web Application The Meteor Shower Architecture in the WebWriter II Editor" by Crespo et al

– "The Message Is the Medium" by Seligmann et al

– "Seamless Integration of Interactive Forms into the Web" by Girgensohn and Lee

Day 3 - 2 pm

65

Transforming Command-Line Driven Systems to Web Applications

This paper described work which used Java to provide access to a legacy command line application (a monolithic Fortran 77 program) on the Web:• Input to application

via Java form• Output in Java

applet window• Commercial product

available soon

Day 3 - 2 pm

66

Responsive Interaction for a Large Web Application The Meteor Shower Architecture in the WebWriter II Editor

An HTML authoring tool with server and client side processing.

Makes use of frames.

Uses <BLINK> to define flashing cursor

Day 3 - 2 pm

http://www6.nttlabs.com/HyperNews/get/PAPER86.html

67

The Message Is the MediumThis paper described a number of approaches to using visual imagery in Web interfaces.

The user interfaces can be accessed in the Metaphorium which is available athttp://www.multimedia.bell-labs.com/Metaphorium/

68

Seamless Integration of Interactive Forms into the WebThis paper described limitations of existing forms on the Web and described how Dynamic Forms would overcome these limitations.

Dynamic Forms is based on Java.

But what about W3C work on HTML (new DOM and Forms specs)?

http://www6.nttlabs.com/HyperNews/get/PAPER83.html

69

Strategies for Resource LocationThe technical session on "Strategies for Resource Location"

• Took place at 4 pm on Thursday, 10th April• Papers presented on:

– "SiteHelper: A Localized Agent that Helps Incremental Exploration of the World Wide Web" by Ngu and Wu

– "WebQuery: Searching and Visualizing the Web through Connectivity" by Carrière and Kazman

– "WebCutter: A System for Dynamic and Tailorable Site Mapping" by Maarek et al

Day 3 - 2 pm

70

WebQuery

Paper on various visualisation techniques for searching.

Based on structural information to find "hot spots"

http://www6.nttlabs.com/HyperNews/get/PAPER96.html

Day 3 - 2 pm

71

WebCutter: A System for Dynamic and Tailorable Site Mapping

Paper on IBM/Lotus product for website visualisation

• Implemented in Java• Map generated on

the fly • Map can be edited

by end user (to define user's view of web site)

Day 3 - 2 pm

http://www6.nttlabs.com/HyperNews/get/PAPER40.html

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Closing Session

• John Gage, Sun, gave a talk on Java

• Gregg Vanderheiden spoke on the importance of accessibility issues

• Bob Metcalfe gave an entertaining speech. Two years ago he predicted the collapse of the Internet. Conceding that it hadn’t collapsed, he literally ate his words.

Day 3 - 2 pm

73

Closing Session

Robert Cailliau awarded the prizes Best Tutorial

Steve Lewontin - Doing things With The Web: Where Application Execute

Best Paper

Andrei Brider et al - Syntactic Clustering of the Web

Runner-up

Jonathon Shakes et al - Dynamic Reference Sifting: A Case Study in Homepage Domain

Day 3 - 2 pm

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Developer's Day Opening

Opened with wakeup call by Ted Nelson (video link)

"Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it" - theme of Ted's talk (and the History Day).

He concluded by saying:"my past is your future"

Tim Berners-Lee then reviewed developments of the Web and outlined the road ahead.

Day 4 - 9 am

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Developer's Day - HTTPTransparent Content Negotiation (TCN)

• IETF draft• Enables:

– Deployment of new data formats and tags– Tailoring of content for new platforms– Internationalisation

• See ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-http-negotiation-01.txt

• TCN spec server sends list of variants:

Day 4 - 9 am

<IMG SRC="logo"> {logo.gif type image.png}{logo.png type image.png}HTML source

Variant list sent by server

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Developer's Day - HTTP

Feature Negotiation• IETF draft• Part of TCN, addressing extensibility• No more "Click here from frames, here for

tables" buttons• Universal agreement on new features not

needed• See ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-http-feature-reg-00.txt

Day 4 - 9 am

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Developer's Day - XML

• Report on XML workshop given by Eve Maher.

• Discussed "Where to from here?"

Day 4 - 2 pm

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WWW 6 - The Good Points

Some of the good things about WWW 6 were:• Use of the Web to support the conference (online

registration, conferencing system, proceedings, etc.)

• High profile for accessibility issues• W3C sessions on web protocol developments• Meeting old and new faces

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WWW 6 - The Bad Points

Some of the failings of WWW 6 were:• Local organisation:

– Catering (lack of coffee in afternoon, lunches)– Failure to notify session chairs before conference– Technical support in sessions (e.g. sound quality)– Evaluation form– Lack of list of delegates

• Numbers of participants was down on last year• Lack of standardisation of presentations

(compared with WWW5)• Presentations not being made available on WWW

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Conclusions

• Conferencing system such as ICE should be provided for future WWW conferences

• Accessibility is important