Active Analytics: Adapting Web Pages Automatically Based on Analytics Data

Web designers are expected to perform the difficult task of adapting a site’s design to fit changing usage trends. Web analytics tools give designers a window into website usage patterns, but they must be analyzed and applied to a website\u27s user interface design manually. A framework for marrying live analytics data with user interface design could allow for interfaces that adapt dynamically to usage patterns, with little or no action from the designers. The goal of this research is to create a framework that utilizes web analytics data to automatically update and enhance web user interfaces. In this research, we present a solution for extracting analytics data via web services from Google Analytics and transforming them into reporting data that will inform user interface improvements. Once data are extracted and summarized, we expose the summarized reports via our own web services in a form that can be used by our client side User Interface (UI) framework. This client side framework will dynamically update the content and navigation on the page to reflect the data mined from the web usage reports. The resulting system will react to changing usage patterns of a website and update the user interface accordingly. We evaluated our framework by assigning navigation tasks to users on the UNF website and measuring the time it took them to complete those tasks, one group with our framework enabled, and one group using the original website. We found that the group that used the modified version of the site with our framework enabled was able to navigate the site more quickly and effectively

User interface patterns in recommendation-empowered content intensive multimedia applications

Design Patterns (DPs) are acknowledged as powerful conceptual tools to improve design quality and to reduce time and cost of the development process by effect of the reuse of “good” design solutions. In many fields (e.g., software engineering, web engineering, interface design) patterns are widely used by practitioners and are also investigated from a research perspective. Still, they have been seldom explored in the arena of Recommender Systems (RSs). RSs provide suggestions (“recommendations”) for items that are likely to be appropriate for the user profile, and are increasingly adopted in content-intensive multimedia applications to complement traditional forms of search in large information spaces. This paper explores RSs through the lens of User Interface (UI) Design Patterns. We have performed a systematic analysis of 54 recommendation-empowered content-intensive multimedia applications, in order to: (i) discover the occurrences of existing domain independent UI patterns; (ii) identify frequently adopted UI solutions that are not modelled by existing patterns, and define a set of new UI patterns, some of which are specific of the interfaces for recommendation features while others can be useful also in a broader context. The results of our inspection have been discussed with and evaluated by a team of experts, leading to a consolidated set of 14 new patterns that are reported in the paper. Reusing pattern-based design solutions instead of building new solutions from scratch enables novice and expert designers to build good UIs for Recommendation-empowered content intensive multimedia applications more effectively, and ultimately can improve the UX experience in this class of systems. From a broader perspective, our work can stimulate future research bridging Recommender Systems, Web Engineering and Interface Design by means of Design Patterns, and highlights new research directions also discussed in the paper

Analyzing the Egyptian News Websites' Layout According to Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web design is a new concept in the world of web design that serves a successful user experience. It is also a concept that develops continuously to cover many aspects. Egyptian News Websites have been tried to keep pace with the increasing use of small screens and smartphones in browsing websites through the development of elements' distribution patterns for interfaces' design. In this study, it was checked the use of RWD of Egyptian news websites as well as It was tested the most six popular news websites in Egypt. The objectives of the current study were to analyze the presence of responsive web design on the Egyptian daily news websites by checking the elements distribution patterns of purposive sample of these websites interfaces on different display screens, and to evaluate the usability of these sites through responsive web design and users feedback. So, a descriptive design was utilize intended to provide a complete picture about that, which was carried out on two levels (User interface analytical study and survey study of the user's opinions). The study results revealed that the majority of users prefer to browse the news websites through the small screens "smart phones on different sizes". And that the users up tell now didn’t able to recognize the importance of the Responsive Web Design because most of their dealings with screens were limited in one type. Accordingly, the study was recommended that the design of the Egyptian newspapers should be reviewed in order to comply with all responsive web standards and even be able to realize the new concepts of "Adaptive design" which focuses on the user not the browser. Keywords: Responsive Web Design (RWD), Egyptian’s News Websites, User Interface (UI), Laptop, Tablets & smart phones

Penerapan User Interface Design Pattern untuk Situs Web Katalog Seni Pertunjukan Indonesia

Performing arts play a significant role in the cultural diversity of Indonesia. However, there are still few media outlets that publish information related to performing arts in one centralized platform. Based on the described issue, a performing arts website is needed to display information related to performing arts and have a well-designed user interface. In this study, an interface design for a performing arts website is developed by applying user interface design patterns as a solution in the interface design process. To achieve a user-centered design that meets users' expectations, the User-Centered Design (UCD) method is employed in the interface design process. The test results indicate that the interface design has a high level of effectiveness and efficiency, with an effectiveness score of 97.85% and an efficiency score of 96.94%. Additionally, website testing was conducted using the System Usability Scale (SUS) method, which resulted in a usability score of 82.87 for the performing arts website. The obtained results indicate that the performing arts website is well-received and effectively used by users.Seni pertunjukan memainkan peran penting dalam keragaman budaya Indonesia. Namun, masih belum banyak media yang mempublikasikan informasi terkait seni pertunjukan kedalam satu pusat informasi. Berdasarkan permasalahan yang dijelaskan, maka diperlukan situs web seni pertunjukan yang dapat menampilkan informasi terkait seni pertunjukan dan memiliki desain antarmuka yang baik. Pada penelitian ini, dilakukan perancangan antarmuka untuk situs web seni pertunjukan dengan menerapkan pola desain antarmuka pengguna sebagai solusi dalam perancangan antarmuka. Untuk menghasilkan desain antarmuka yang dapat memenuhi harapan pengguna, digunakan metode User Centered Design (UCD) dalam melakukan proses perancangan antarmuka. Hasil pengujian menunjukan bahwa desain antarmuka memiliki tingkat efektivitas dan efisiensi yang baik, dengan nilai efektivitas sebesar 97.85% dan nilai efisiensi sebesar 96.94%. Selain itu, pengujian situs web dilakukan menggunakan metode SUS yang mendapatkan tingkat kebergunaan untuk situs web seni pertunjukan sebesar 82.87. Dari hasil yang didapatkan mengindikasikan bahwa situs web seni pertunjukan dapat diterima dan digunakan dengan baik oleh pengguna

A new model for cross-cultural web design

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.People from different cultures use web interface in different ways, expect different visual representation, navigation, interaction, mental model, and layouts etc., and have different communication patterns and expectation. In the context of globalisation, web localisation becomes a powerful strategy to acquire an audience in a global market. Therefore, web developers and designers have to make adaptations to fit the needs of people from different cultures, and the way cultural factors are integrated into web interface design needs to be improved. Most previous research lacks an appropriate way to apply cultural factors into web development. No empirical study of the web interface has been carried out to support the cross-cultural web design model. It is noted that no single model can support all cross-cultural web communication but a new model is needed to bridge the gap and improve the limitations. Thus the research aim was to build a new model of cross-cultural web design to contribute to effective communication. Following an extensive literature review, a local web audit was conducted, then a series of experiments with users to gather and evaluate data and build and validate the new model. A new model, based on a study of British and Taiwanese users, was formulated and validated demonstrating that content and message remain the core of web design but the performance of the selected users is influenced by the cultural dimension and cultural preferences and this, in turn impacts on the effectiveness of the web communication. For the British user sample, ease of using the website was seen to be strongly related to desirability. Taiwanese users showed preference for visual pleasure but no relationship between efficient performance and desirability. The resultant model contributes to the knowledge of how to design effective web interfaces for British and Taiwanese cultures and is replicable for the purpose of comparing approaches to designing for other cultures

Implementation of uMMp using the localization of web objects in user interface design

Websites play an important role as a communication tool between people around the world. This phenomenon introduces the medium of communication, the user interface (UI), between humans and machines as a key player. The existing web development process recognizes this importance but does not follow any precise guidelines for the construction of UI as an activity within the system development life cycle. This paper describes a method for constructing UI based on users’ Mental Model patterns (uMMp) from the localization of web objects. This method can be incorporated into the development process in order to better fulfill users’ expectations. The uMMp describe interface design solutions favouring the development of a UI

Changing communication on researchgate through interface updates

Informal scholarly communication across the Web is a growing component of the scholarly communication infrastructure. This study describes the effects of three different interfaces on these informal channels. Interface design has a widely studied effect on user behavior, and new users often encounter barriers during accessing social media tools. Using a mixed methods approach, we collected and grouped 413 posts across three distinct interfaces of ResearchGate's communication platform. Our results show that scholars were more polite in the initial group discussion interface but that user interface design did not change the core communication patterns of sharing information and opinions among scholars. The site also transitioned from one-to-many discussions to one-to-one posts, but new users were generally welcomed to the scholarly communications

Slacker News

Modern web applications incorporate a vast number of technologies and programming paradigms, often presenting an overwhelming landscape of foreign concepts and design patterns. The primary goal of this project is to explore a suite of modern web technologies and concepts through the implementation of a minimalistic Hacker News clone, which is a popular link aggregation site focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. The primary technologies used in this project are Java and the Spring Boot framework, which provides a simpler interface to the more cumbersome Spring framework, with the goal of allowing for more rapid development

A survey of UK university web management: staffing, systems and issues

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to summarize the findings of a survey of UK universities about how their web site is managed and resourced, which technologies are in use and what are seen as the main issues and priorities. Methodology/approach: The paper is based on a web based questionnaire distributed in summer 2006, and which received 104 usable responses from 87 insitutions. Findings: The survey showed that some web teams were based in IT and some in external relations, yet in both cases the site typically served internal and external audiences. The role of web manager is partly management of resources, time and people, partly about marketing and liaison and partly also concerned with more technical aspects including interface design and HTML. But it is a diverse role with a wide spread of responsibilities. On the whole web teams were relatively small. Three quarters of responding institutions had a CMS, but specific systems in use were diverse. 60% had a portal. There was evidence of increasing use of blogs and wikis. The key driver for the web site is student recruitment, with instituitional reputation and information to stakeholders also being important. The biggest perceived weaknesses were maintaining consistency with devolved content creation and currency of content; lack of resourcing a key threat while comprehensiveness was a key strength. Current and wished for projects pointed again to the diversity of the sector. Research implications/limitations: The lack of comparative data and difficulties of interpreting responses to closed questions where respondents could have quite different status (partly reflecting divergent patterns of governance of the web across the sector) create issues with the reliability of the research. Practical implications: Data about resourcing of web management, technology in use etc at comparable institutions is invaluable for practitioners in their efforts to gain resource in their own context. Originality/value of paper: The paper adds more systematic, current data to our limited knowledge about how university web sites are managed

Applying patterns to hypermedia instructional design (APHID)

This research addresses the issue of automatically generating instructional hypermedia documents (in the form of web sites). Our hypothesis is that, for certain types of hypermedia, an automated approach can produce satisfactory hypermedia applications more efficiently than humans are able to create them. We propose a method (APHID) that guides a hypermedia creator through the design process and partially automates the creation of hypermedia applications. Our method uses concept maps and instructional design patterns, as well as the more common domain and presentation models, to support partial automation for creating instructional hypermedia. Most hypermedia application developers follow basic graphical design principles, but few commonly accepted principles exist for the structuring of hypermedia applications. The design of instructional hypermedia imposes the additional requirement that the designer be expert both in hypermedia design and in instructional design. APHID supports designers through the use of patterns to describe and clarify design concepts for both instructional design and interface design. This thesis describes the design and development of the APHID approach and a prototype software tool that supports the development of instructional hypermedia using the APHID approach. The thesis also presents a study in which web sites created with APHID are compared (by an independent evaluator) to web sites created by instructional technologists. The study shows that good instructional web sites can be generated semi-automatically with less expenditure of time on the part of the instructional designer