webLyzard technology gmbh

Describes an approach automatically to classify and evaluate publicly accessible World Wide Web sites. The suggested methodology is equally valuable for analyzing content and hypertext structures of commercial, educational and nonprofit organizations. Outlines a research methodology for model building and validation and defines the most relevant attributes of such a process. A set of operational criteria for classifying Web sites is developed. The introduced software tool supports the automated gathering of these parameters, and thereby assures the necessary ``critical mass'' of empirical data. Based on the preprocessed information, a multi-methodological approach is chosen that comprises statistical clustering, textual analysis, supervised and nonsupervised neural networks and manual classification for validation purposes

Bauer, Christian

Scharl, Arno

Quantitive Evaluation of Web site Content and Structure

Evolutionary Web Development examines the evolution of Web information systems, paying particular attention to the emergent attributes of electronic markets. It identifies four categories of architecture and demonstrates their virtues and limitations: static, interactive, adaptive, and agent-mediated systems. Advanced systems require the developer to truly understand the needs and preferences of customers. As well as such personal attributes, the availability of empirical data about the structure and content of Web information systems is a precondition for their effective assessment. Most previous evaluation frameworks rely on expert judgements. Arno Scharl extends and complements these efforts, and presents an automated and scalable approach to Web assessment. He emphasizes the role of feedback in an iterative cycle of design, implementation, usage, and analysis. Evolutionary Web Development blends a strong theoretical background with state-of-the-art research and several industry analyses. This makes it a valuable resource for researchers and students, which will also be welcomed by practitioners looking for effective methods and tools

Applied Computing Springer-Verlag London Ltd. The Springer-Verlag Series on Applied Computing is an advanced series of innovative text-books that span the full range of topics in applied computing technology.Books in the series provide a grounding in theoretical concepts in computer science along-side real-world examples of how those concepts can be applied in the development of effec-tive computer systems.The series should be essential reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate studentsin computing and information systems.Books in this series are contributed by international specialist researchers and educators inapplied computing who draw together the full range of issues in their specialist area into oneconcise authoritative textbook.Titles already available:Deryn Graham and Anthony BarrettKnowledge-Based Image Processing Systems3-540-76027-XDerrick Morris, Gareth Evans, Peter Green, Colin TheakerObject Orientated Computer Systems Engineering3-540-76020-2John HuntJava and Object Orientation: An Introduction3-540-76148-9David GrayIntroduction to the Formal Design ofReal-Time Systems3-540-76140-3Mike Holcombe and Florentin IpateCorrect Systems: Building A Business Process Solution3-540-76246-9Jan Noyes and Chris BaberUser-Centred Design ofSystems3-540-76007-5Arturo TrujilloTranslation Engines: Techniques for Machine Translation1-85233-057-0Ulrich NehmzowMobile Robotics: A Practical Introduction1-85233-173-9Fabio PaternoModel-Based Design and Evaluation of Interactive Applications1-85233-155-0Tim MorrisMultimedia Systems: Delivering, Generating and Interacting with Multimedia1-85233-248-4Arno ScharlEvolutionary WebDevelopmentSpringerArno Scharl Department of Information Systems, University of Economics and Business Administration, Augasse 2-6, A-l 090 Vienna, Austria Series Editors Professor Ray J. Paul, BSc MSc PhD Dean of the Faculty of Science, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlescx UB8 3PH, UK Professor Peter J. Thomas, MIEE MBCS CEng FRSA Centre for Personal Information Management, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK Dr Jasna Kuljis, PhD MS Dipl Ing Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK ISBN 978-1-85233-310-2 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Scharl, Arno Evolutionary web development. - (Applied computing) l.World wide web 2.Web-site design I.Tide 005.2'76 ISBN 978-1-85233-310-2 ISBN 978-1-4471-0517-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-0517-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as per-mitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copy-right Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the pub-lishers. © Springer-Verlag London 2000 Originally published by Springer-Verlag London Berlin Heidelberg in 2000 The use of registered names, trademarks etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the informa-tion contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omis-sions that may be made. Typesetting: PostScript files by author 34/3830-543210 Printed on acid-free paper SPIN 10765393 PrefaceWith the continuing evolution and convergence of previously disparatetechnologies around electronic commerce, the World Wide Web is in-creasingly pervasive in the corporate value chain. Most business proc-esses, from procurement and inbound logistics to marketing and after-sales service, create and use information (Porter 1998, 167f.). They areconnected via networked information systems, which have become thebasic infrastructure for global transaction-oriented applications. Everytransaction process occurring in such an electronic marketplace goeshand in hand with the access, absorption, arrangement, and selling ofinformation in heterogeneous ways (Zakon 1999).Despite these technological and organizational changes, the custom-ers' information needs provide a uniform purpose for Web informationsystems. Accordingly, developers of such systems have to analyze therequirements of the newly empowered and technologically savvy cus-tomers in order to exploit the potential of online trading of information,services, and physical goods.This book presents a methodology for analyzing and developing Webinformation systems that considers the structural changes in electronicmarkets outlined above. Chapter 1 defines the field and introduces theterm "ergodic literature" for textual material whose access and utiliza-tion requires non-trivial efforts by the reader. It identifies navigationaland textual features of interactive Web applications, a subset of ergodicliterature, and compares these features with those of printed media. Ananalysis of the multifaceted term "interactivity" then sets the stage forChapter 2, which investigates the life-cycle economies and diffusioncharacteristics of traditional and Web-based applications. The subse-quent sections delineate the evolution of electronic markets in generaland the World Wide Web in particular from both Darwinian and meth-odological perspectives. To investigate this process, an evolutionaryframework based on system adaptivity and the underlying communica-tion patterns is introduced. It classifies Web information systems andanalyzes their ability to support the various phases of electronic busi-ness transactions. Only advanced system architectures can fully leveragethe potential of the World Wide Web to deliver additional customervalue. The framework specifies the following four categories: Static Webinformation systems that provide basic information of limited value forthe average customer (4 Chapter 3), interactive systems that enableexplicit customer feedback and transaction processing (4 Chapter 4),adaptive systems that instantly and automatically generate the hyper-vvi Evolutionary Web Developmenttext structure according to embedded user models (,+ Chapter 5), andagent-mediated architectures that allow individual negotiations re-garding product and non-product attributes (,+ Chapter 6).Chapter 3 summarizes the characteristics of static Web informationsystems. These collections of rudimentary hypertext documents are stillcommon for many small and medium-sized companies. More in linewith current business practices of larger organizations, Chapter 4 fo-cuses on gathering customer feedback and its immediate analysis withinan iterative cycle of design, implementation, usage, and analysis. Theemergent attributes of modern organizations suggest such an evolu-tionary approach to Web development. Analytic activities are no longercaptured within the early stages of a system's life-cycle but represent acontinuing task of system maintenance. Analysis, operation, and main-tenance activities become parallel but highly interrelated processes.Cyclical planning is rendered obsolete, since the results of the ongoinganalysis are continuously fed into the maintenance phase. Section 4.2outlines the current state of Web engineering with special regard todesign methodologies, conceptual modeling approaches, and relatedvisualization techniques. It introduces a symbolic modeling languagefor the construction of both reference and customized models duringthe development process of commercial Web information systems (,+Section 4.3). This graphical notation helps analysts to visualize individ-ual and aggregated access patterns of online customers derived from logfIle data of corporate Web servers. It enhances the limited, statisticallyoriented representations of commercially available Web-tracking soft-ware with a map-like overview similar to customer tracking in tradi-tional retailing outlets (,+ Section 4.4).Numerous tools support the structured design of Web informationsystems, ranging from rudimentary layout products for individualdocuments to sophisticated Web site management solutions that facili-tate conceptual authoring-in-the-Iarge. Structured analysis, by contrast,has largely been neglected by both theory and practice but belongs tothe most relevant questions in formulating business strategies for elec-tronic commerce. This comes as a surprise, since analysis is less con-strained by the technical limitations of existing architectures. Section4.5 intends to fill this gap by suggesting a methodology for the auto-mated analysis of Web information systems. The chapter summarizesempirical results covering several business sectors, namely informationtechnology, travel and tourism, retail banking, and environmentallyoriented non-profit organizations. Classifications, comparative sectorassessments, longitudinal studies, and exploratory textual analyses helppractitioners chart the industry evolution and compare the perform-ance of their own Web information system with those of competingorganizations.Preface viiChapter 5 introduces adaptive Web information systems that prom-ise a sustainable competitive advantage in an environment where in-formation redundancy becomes increasingly evident. Such a competi-tive advantage can only be achieved through customizing products,services, and communications. Key elements of customization are theseparation of product and process life-cycles as described in Section 5.1.The resulting "classic loop of adaptation", delineated in Section 5.2, isfounded on the continuing gathering of information regarding the cus-tomers' current needs and preferences. Sections 5.3 and 5.4 compareexplicit and implicit acquisition methods and describe ways to combinethe various information sources and transform the resulting body ofknowledge into consistent user models. On the basis of such embeddeduser models, adaptive Web information systems can automatically gen-erate the content of documents, the primary navigational system com-prising links between and within these documents, and supplementalnavigational systems such as index pages, trails, guided tours, or inter-active site maps. Many prototypes that incorporate adaptive compo-nents are developed without a clear model of the components' function-ality. Therefore, Section 5.5 provides a conceptual guideline for thedevelopment process by classifying the various mechanisms into con-tent-level, link-level, and meta-level adaptation.In the fourth and last stage of Web evolution, which is portrayed inChapter 6, efforts to automate and optimize electronic business-to-consumer transactions gradually transfer certain tasks from adaptiveWeb information systems to agent-mediated architectures. Many de-ployed applications use content-based information agents and collabo-rative fIltering systems for general information retrieval or specificproduct recommendations ('+ Sections 6.1 and 6.2). By contrast, mosttransaction agents are only available as prototypical implementationsup until now ('+ Section 6.3). Transaction agents allow multidimen-sional negotiations regarding a variety of product and non-productattributes. Once the necessary infrastructure is in place ('+ Section 6.4),their customizability and remarkable flexibility promise to change theinherent characteristics of doing business electronically.AcknowledgementsI have been helped in various ways with the conceptual planning of thisbook, the gathering of the empirical data, the compilation of results,and with the production of the final manuscript. My first debt of grati-tude is to Hans Robert Hansen and Hannes Werthner for encouragingand helping me through the process of writing this book. Their sugges-tions and critical observations have led to innumerable improvements. Iviii Evolutionary Web Developmentalso owe special thanks to Bernard Glasson and Arie Segev for theirgenerous support during my time as visiting research fellow at theCurtin University of Technology and the University of California atBerkeley, respectively.The successful completion of a project such as this is not possiblewithout the feedback of many colleagues. First of all, I would like tomention Christian Bauer, to whom I am greatly indebted for his invalu-able help. Several analyses presented in this book originate from ourjoint research efforts over the last two years. I would also like to thankmy home institution, the Information Systems Department of the Vi-enna University of Economics and Business Administration, for grant-ing me the resources and intellectual support necessary to finish thisproject. The cooperation with my colleagues Martin Bichler, RomanBrandtweiner, and Marion Kaukal contributed to important aspects ofmy research. Thanks also go to Judith Gebauer, with whom I have beenfortunate to work at the University of California at Berkeley.I apologize to the people I have omitted to acknowledge, and also - inthe event that their ideas have been misrepresented - to those whom Ihave acknowledged. I would also like to recognize the considerablefinancial support from the Austrian Science Fund and the AustrianNational Bank. Finally, I would like to thank Rebecca Mowat and thestaff at Springer London for their support and help in the materializa-tion of this book.Vienna, July 2000 Arno ScharlTable of Contents1 Introduction .....................................................................................•..•...•.•..11.1 Formal Definitions of Text 21.1.1 The Metaphysics ofWritten Text 21.1.2 Technological Implications for the DiscursiveSpace 41.2 Ergodic Literature 51.3 Hypertext and Hypermedia 61.3.1 History 71.3.2 Adaptability versus Adaptivity 91.4 Web Information Systems 101.4.1 Theories of Communication 111.4.2 Media Characteristics of the WorId Wide Web 131.4.3 Evolving Web Genres 141.4.4 Structure and Navigation 151.4.4.1 The Myth about Linearity 161.4.4.2 The Labyrinth Metaphor 171.4.5 Textual Characteristics 181.4.5.1 Differences between Printed and ElectronicMedia 201.4.5.2 Mapping Textons to Scriptons 221.4.6 Interactivity: An Ambiguous Term 231.4.6.1 Media Permeability 241.4.6.2 Communication Patterns 251.4.6.3 Discourse Structure 252 The Evolution ofElectronic Markets 272.1 Darwinian versus Technological Evolution 282.1.1 Alternative Life-Cycle Economies 322.1.1.1 Prototyping 322.1.1.2 Organizational Emergence 332.1.1.3 Types ofMaintenance 342.1.1.4 Stable System Drag 362.1.2 Electronic Business Ecosystems 372.1.2.1 Autopoietic Self-Reference 382.1.2.2 Chronological Development andDemarcation 382.1.2.3 Critical Mass of Content and Adopters 40ixx Evolutionary Web Development2.2 ABriefHistory ofWeb Adaptivity 402.2.1 Stage Models for Describing Web Evolution 422.2.2 Diffusion ofWeb Technology 452.2.2.1 Temporal Pattern of the Diffusion Process 452.2.2.2 Rate of Adoption 472.3 Electronic Market Transactions 492.3.1 Evaluating Transactional Infrastructures 532.3.2 Redefining the Customer-Delivered Value 552.3.3 Extending the Evaluation Model 592.3.4 Electronic Customer Relations 612.3.4.1 Customizing Corporate Communication 612.3.4.2 Gathering and Representing CustomerInformation 633 A Static Worid 674 The Emergence of Interactivity 714.1 Overview 724.1.1 Development Process 724.1.2 Database Connectivity 734.1.3 Presentational versus Semantic Markup Languages 744.1.4 Traversal Functions 764.2 Design: The Current State ofWeb Engineering 774.2.1 Processing and Visualizing Complex Information 774.2.2 Cooperative Web Development. 804.2.3 Review ofExisting Design Methodologies 824.2.4 The Extended WorId Wide Web Design Technique 844.2.4.1 Information Object Types 874.2.4.2 Diagram Structuring 894.2.4.3 Navigation Design 904.2.5 Application of eW3DT (Electronic Shopping Mall) 914.3 Implementation: Industry-Specific Reference Models 944.3.1 Definition and Overview 944.3.2 Deducing Customized and Technical Models 944.3.3 Removing Communication Barriers 964.4 Usage: Visualizing Topology and Access Patterns 984.4.1 Categories of Perceptualization 984.4.2 Observing and Visualizing Human Behavior 994.4.3 Units ofAnalysis 1004.4.4 Tool Support 103Table ofContents xi4.5 Analysis: Gathering, Extracting, and Processing ofMultidimensional Web Data 1064.5.1 Overview and Analytical Objectives 1074.5.2 Manual versus Automated Evaluation 1094.5.2.1 Previous Web Evaluation Projects 1094.5.2.2 Web Classification Frameworks 1134.5.2.3 Integrative Analysis ofContent and Form 1154.5.3 Methodology 1164.5.3.1 Sampling Process 1184.5.3.2 Mirroring and Archiving Web Data 1214.5.3.3 Structural Parameters 1224.5.3.4 Textual Parameters 1264.5.3.5 Combining and Pre-Processing theExtracted Parameters 1274.5.4 Validating Manual Evaluations of the LSE/NovellSurvey 1314.5.4.1 Introduction to Neural Networks 1314.5.4.2 Test Design 1334.5.4.3 Results 1354.5.4.4 Discussion 1374.5.5 Snapshot Analysis (Classification) 1394.5.5.1 Partitioning Clustering 1404.5.5.2 Results 1424.5.5.3 Discussion 1454.5.5.4 Hierarchical Clustering 1464.5.6 Cross-Sectional Analysis 1474.5.6.1 Structure and Navigation 1484.5.6.2 Interface Representation 1504.5.6.3 Content and Strategy 1524.5.7 Longitudinal Analysis 1544.5.8 Exploratory Textual Analysis 1564.5.8.1 Types of Content 1594.5.8.2 Common Methods for Describing andAnalyzing Textual Data 1604.5.8.3 Word List Generation 1614.5.8.4 Lemmatization 1644.5.8.5 Keyword Analysis 1654.5.8.6 Concordance Analysis and Collocation 1704.5.8.7 Analysis of Contingency Tables 1735 Adaptive Solutions 1835.1 Separating Product and Process Life-Cycles 185xii Evolutionary Web Development5.2 Classic Loop of Adaptation 1885.3 Collecting Information About Users 1905.3.1 Available Online Sources 1925.3.2 Explicit Acquisition Methods 1935.3.3 Implicit Acquisition Methods 1945.4 User Modeling 1975.4.1 Characteristics ofUser Models 1995.4.2 Typology of the Extra-Linguistic Context 2025.4.3 Building and Initializing User Models 2045.5 Adaptive Web Presentation Techniques 2065.5.1 Annotations 2075.5.1.1 Historical Background 2085.5.1.2 Automated Document Annotation 2095.5.2 Content-Level Adaptation 2105.5.2.1 Deictic Expressions 2115.5.2.2 Expressing Shared Meaning 2115.5.2.3 Techniques for Generating and ArrangingScriptons 2125.5.3 Link-Level Adaptation 2145.5.4 Meta-Level Adaptation 2175.5.4.1 Site Maps 2195.5.4.2 View Types 2215.5.4.3 View Transformations 2265.5.4.4 Implications for Hypertext Navigation 2276 Agent-Mediated Architectures 2336.1 Content-Based Information Agents 2346.2 Collaborative Filtering 2366.3 Transaction Agents 2386.4 Developing Digital Agents 2426.4.1 Agent Communication Models 2426.4.2 Traversal Functions ofAgent-MediatedArchitectures 2446.4.3 Modeling Multilateral Interactions 2457 Conclusion and Outlook 2478 References 251Index 293

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Quantitive Evaluation of Web site Content and Structure

Evolutionary Web Development - Automated Analysis, Adaptive Design, and Interactive Visualization of Commercial Web Information Systems

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