World Wide Web Interfaces and Design for the Emergence of Knowledge

Abstract

Introduction We have entered into a new era in which our lives increasingly are being mediated by the computer. This mediation exists from advanced computational scenarios, such as intelligent software agents and immerses virtual reality environments, to more simple scenes, such as browsing for books or purchasing insurance online. Within these moments of computational mediation, our interaction, and subsequently our experience, is powered by the processor and viewed through the screen. Disturbingly, these computationally mediated experiences all too often are completely unsatisfying. Interactivity often is reduced to clicking a button on the screen. Perhaps the greatest amount of control we are given over the content and experience of our computational environment is the ability to turn the computer off. There already is a history and an established bibliography addressing the use of computational media for learning. The literature on interface and interaction design is overwhelming. However, investigations of the interface design of museums as sites of applied innovation have been limited to dialog within and among cultural institutions. Museums are an intriguing place to seek out innovations in design and technology. As institutions, they tend to attract sophisticated designers, have a wealth of content, limited technological resources, and a drive to create compelling educational experiences. They do not represent the mainstream, but can be looked at as places where investigation that trickles into the mainstream occurs. This effect is apparent in the interface projects that they have undertaken. Over the past twenty years, museums have actively engaged information technologies. For the most part, this effort has centered on the field of museum informatics, specifically the creation of libraries and the documentation of collections. With the advent of the World Wide Web and its capability for the relatively easy and low cost mass distribution of information, museums began to explore the use of the www as a site for exhibitions and related projects. Many of these exhibitions and projects did, and continue to, present the information in an online gallery format. In this