Existing Web Sites Research Articles

Generating voice user interfaces from web sites

ABSTRACT Virtual assistants allow users to interact with apps using a conversational mode. A particular kind of device supporting virtual assistants is the smart speaker, which allows end users to access contents and services, perform searches and command smart environments via voice interaction. These devices are gaining relevance among users, and the number of apps available for giving them more conversational capabilities grows constantly. However, there is a gap between what can be achieved using these devices and the information available on the web, i.e. most web apps don't have one smart speaker app counterpart. In this work, we present a two-step approach to defining conversational interfaces for virtual assistants based on existing web sites. During the first step, the user creates web content blocks, which describe target contents and the strategy for retrieving them. In the second step, the user uses web content blocks to specify the conversational interface. Although the approach could be considered generic enough for any kind of conversational interface, we focus our research on voice user interfaces, considering smart speaker apps as a major target. With our approach, apps based on voice user interfaces for smart speakers may be developed in a no-code manner. We describe and illustrate the approach by presenting usage examples and an evaluation using the Alexa service and an Amazon Echo device. The evaluation shows promising results for two case studies where there is no significant difference between the user experience when comparing solutions developed using the Alexa SDK versus apps using our approach.

ANDES: An approach to embed search services on the Web browser

This article addresses search tasks, which are the most frequent type of tasks users do nowadays on the Web. We suggest that the customization of search services would improve the user’s searching experience, and it also might make search tasks more effective and efficient. We analyze user tasks for performing searches and types of search services. Then, we distinguish between primary search tasks (related to the initial user goal) and ancillary search tasks (those that are performed to find additional information necessary to understand how to achieve a primary search task). We also explain different types of search services, including global search services (which has an extensive search scope, possibly the whole Web) and in-site search services (which has a narrow scope of search focused on a specific Web site or data set). We also discuss features embedded into Web browsers to support search tasks and how Web browsers can support extensions allowing users to integrate customized search services. We propose an approach called ANDES that allows users to integrate into the Web browser new search services that are created by customizing search services offered by existing Web sites. By means of Web augmentation techniques, we demonstrate how users can customize the browser to trigger search services to any Web site and integrate the Web page results. We report on two evaluations showing that end-users can specify and use search services following our approach and that the proposed interaction is more convenient in contrast to traditional mechanisms. Beyond the tool used to demonstrate the feasibility of the ANDES approach, this paper aims to discuss new strategies for end-user programming that allow users to customize search services over the Web.

Disability and access to courts: Assessing the accessibility of U.S. federal judiciary homepages thirty years after the ADA

Using basic accessibility standards, the presence or absence of essential usability features, and site accessibility statements, this study evaluates the accessibility of the home pages of the federal judiciary — those of the U.S. district, Appellate and specialty courts, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts (AO), the Federal Judicial Center (FJC), and the main homepage of PACER, the federal judiciary’s e-filing and e-records access system. Software evaluations reveal detected instances of a narrow set of accessibility issues, including scripts with no accompanying functional text, images/server-side image maps with no text equivalents/descriptors, and inaccessible forms. Manual evaluations of Web sites show a high proportion (about 67 percent) of the home pages provided skip navigation links, whereas smaller proportions provided direct or indirect links to accessibility information — about 15 percent and 12 percent, respectively, as well as controls for manipulating font size (about 12 percent). Notably, a sizeable proportion (about 45 percent) of home pages provided direct or indirect links to a “BrowseAloud” explanation and download page, apparently in lieu of information on accessibility. Finally, content analysis of existing Web site accessibility pages and policy statements show a high degree of variation, with some being exceptionally detailed and informative, and some less so.

Systematic Review of Quality of Patient Information on Phalloplasty in the Internet.

An increasing number of patients, considering aesthetic surgery, use Internet health information as their first source of information. However, the quality of information available in the Internet on phalloplasty is currently unknown. This study aimed to assess the quality of patient information on phalloplasty available in the Internet. The assessment of the Web sites was based on the modified Ensuring Quality Information for Patients (EQIP) instrument (36 items). Three hundred Web sites were identified by the most popular Web search engines. Ninety Web sites were assessed after, duplicates, irrelevant sources and Web sites in other languages rather than English were excluded. Only 16 (18%) Web sites addressed >21 items, and scores tended to be higher for Web sites developed by academic centers and the industry than for Web sites developed by private practicing surgeons. The EQIP score achieved by Web sites ranged between 4 and 29 of the total 36 points, with a median value of 17.5 points (interquartile range, 13-21). The top 5 Web sites with the highest scores were identified. The quality of patient information on phalloplasty in the Internet is substandard, and the existing Web sites present inadequate information. There is a dire need to improve the quality of Internet phalloplasty resources for potential patients who might consider this procedure. This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

Adaptive UIX Layer for University Information SOA-BUS

IntroductionThe development of User Interfaces (UI) has been a topic of interest both for academia and industry since the early 1980s. During the time a constant evolution has occurred in the field and such an evolution has been coupled with a continuous effort to develop new methods and strategies to create UIs in effective and efficient ways [3].UIX (User Interface XML) is a set of technologies that constitute a framework for building web applications. The main focus of UIX is the user presentation layer of an application, with additional functionality for managing events and the state of the application flow. UIX is designed to create applications with page-based navigation, such as an online human resources application, rather than full-featured applications requiring advanced interaction, such as an integrated development environment (IDE) [4].An application can interact with UIX in predefined places called decision points, where a decision is made by the operator or a certain action routine is automatically triggered. Execution of an action terminates in a new decision point. The application's structure is provided to UIX in configuration files, which can be ASCII files, databases, or resource files. UIX includes Java class libraries, APIs, XML languages, and other technologies for developing different aspects of web-based applications [5].2Responsive Web Design (RWD)Nowadays, responsive design has become a major trend in web development due to the high diversity of devices used for web browsing. According to [6] applying responsive design to existing web sites implies major reengineering due to the underlying fluid grid process. Likewise, responsive design is limited to desktop-tomobile adaptation.The expression 'responsive web design' has earned popularity in 2010 when the web designer and developer Ethan Marcotte wrote an article on the subject [7]. The same author considers that the goal of RWD consists in making a web page look equally good no matter the screen size of a device. Before the introduction of responsive web design, web designers and developers created most websites by following the principles of pixelperfect web design. Pixel-perfect web design treats a web page like a page from a magazine. In this approach, the mock-up of a web page is first created in Photoshop, and then a developer recreates that design to fit a web browser. The goal of pixel-perfect web design is to make a web page resemble the original mock-up as much as possible. But a web page is not printed on a piece of paper but viewed in a web browser. Unlike paper, a web browser is a dynamic medium. It allows a user to re-size the browser window itself, and users can also change the size of the font as well. And when this happens, web pages created with pixel-perfect web design principles often break. If a web page was optimized for a 1024 x 768 pixel screen size, for example, that web page will look quite wrong in a smaller or bigger screen [8].As the number of mobile devices that have a variety of screen sizes grows, pixel-perfect web design has become problematic. Responsive web design is an attempt to solve this problem with the following three tools [9]:* a flexible, grid-based layout;* flexible images;* media queries.Flexible grids are created by using percentage (a relative unit) instead of pixel (an absolute unit). Media queries make it possible to apply different cascading style sheets (CSS) depending on the media type and the maximum width of the device screen. With cascading style sheets, one can control images and other fixed-width elements so that they stay contained in their container blocks.Responsive web design makes a web page adjust itself in response to the screen size of a device. This means that there is no longer one fixed layout in which the elements of a web page are permanently placed. Instead, as the size of the screen changes, the layout of a web page adjusts itself and rearranges the elements of the page. …

Systematic Review of Quality of Patient Information on Liposuction in the Internet.

Background:A large number of patients who are interested in esthetic surgery actively search the Internet, which represents nowadays the first source of information. However, the quality of information available in the Internet on liposuction is currently unknown. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of patient information on liposuction available in the Internet.Methods:The quantitative and qualitative assessment of Web sites was based on a modified Ensuring Quality Information for Patients tool (36 items). Five hundred Web sites were identified by the most popular web search engines.Results:Two hundred forty-five Web sites were assessed after duplicates and irrelevant sources were excluded. Only 72 (29%) Web sites addressed >16 items, and scores tended to be higher for professional societies, portals, patient groups, health departments, and academic centers than for Web sites developed by physicians, respectively. The Ensuring Quality Information for Patients score achieved by Web sites ranged between 8 and 29 of total 36 points, with a median value of 16 points (interquartile range, 14–18). The top 10 Web sites with the highest scores were identified.Conclusions:The quality of patient information on liposuction available in the Internet is poor, and existing Web sites show substantial shortcomings. There is an urgent need for improvement in offering superior quality information on liposuction for patients intending to undergo this procedure.

Research and Design of Webpage Adaptive Matching Platform Based on Mobile Phone

Mobile learning with smart phone can offer learners a better platform for communicating and learning. Constructing Webpage automatic matching platform based on existing Web site could converted Webpage into Wap page, and the converted Wap page is pushed to the mobile phone. Web information content is extracted through HttpClient, JTidy, DOM4J and XSLT technology and then is converted to a XML file, realizing Wap page template clustering through tag attribute of Webpage clustering algorithm. The Wap template and the data are displayed on the mobile phone by 3G network, so as to realize the Webpage adaptive matching function.

Evaluation of the Content and Accessibility of Web Sites for Accredited Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Fellowships

The Internet is a common source of information for orthopaedic residents applying for sports medicine fellowships, with the web sites of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) and the San Francisco Match serving as central databases. We sought to evaluate the web sites for accredited orthopaedic sports medicine fellowships with regard to content and accessibility. We reviewed the existing web sites of the ninety-five accredited orthopaedic sports medicine fellowships included in the AOSSM and San Francisco Match databases from February to March 2012. A Google search was performed to determine the overall accessibility of program web sites and to supplement information obtained from the AOSSM and San Francisco Match web sites. The study sample consisted of the eighty-seven programs whose web sites connected to information about the fellowship. Each web site was evaluated for its informational value. Of the ninety-five programs, fifty-one (54%) had links listed in the AOSSM database. Three (3%) of all accredited programs had web sites that were linked directly to information about the fellowship. Eighty-eight (93%) had links listed in the San Francisco Match database; however, only five (5%) had links that connected directly to information about the fellowship. Of the eighty-seven programs analyzed in our study, all eighty-seven web sites (100%) provided a description of the program and seventy-six web sites (87%) included information about the application process. Twenty-one web sites (24%) included a list of current fellows. Fifty-six web sites (64%) described the didactic instruction, seventy (80%) described team coverage responsibilities, forty-seven (54%) included a description of cases routinely performed by fellows, forty-one (47%) described the role of the fellow in seeing patients in the office, eleven (13%) included call responsibilities, and seventeen (20%) described a rotation schedule. Two Google searches identified direct links for 67% to 71% of all accredited programs. Most accredited orthopaedic sports medicine fellowships lack easily accessible or complete web sites in the AOSSM or San Francisco Match databases. Improvement in the accessibility and quality of information on orthopaedic sports medicine fellowship web sites would facilitate the ability of applicants to obtain useful information.

A language for end-user web augmentation

Web augmentation is to the Web what augmented reality is to the physical world: layering relevant content/layout/navigation over the existing Web to customize the user experience. This is achieved through JavaScript (JS) using browser weavers (e.g., Greasemonkey). To date, over 43 million of downloads of Greasemonkey scripts ground the vitality of this movement. However, Web augmentation is hindered by being programming intensive and prone to malware. This prevents end-users from participating as both producers and consumers of scripts: producers need to know JS, consumers need to trust JS. This article aims at promoting end-user participation in both roles. The vision is for end-users to prosume (the act of simultaneously caring for producing and consuming) scripts as easily as they currently prosume their pictures or videos. Encouraging production requires more “natural” and abstract constructs. Promoting consumption calls for augmentation scripts to be easier to understand, share, and trust upon. To this end, we explore the use of Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) by introducing Sticklet . Sticklet is an internal DSL on JS, where JS generality is reduced for the sake of learnability and reliability. Specifically, Web augmentation is conceived as fixing in existing web sites (i.e., the wall ) HTML fragments extracted from either other sites or Web services (i.e., the stickers ). Sticklet targets hobby programmers as producers, and computer literates as consumers. From a producer perspective, benefits are threefold. As a restricted grammar on top of JS, Sticklet expressions are domain oriented and more declarative than their JS counterparts, hence speeding up development. As syntactically correct JS expressions, Sticklet scripts can be installed as traditional scripts and hence, programmers can continue using existing JS tools. As declarative expressions, they are easier to maintain, and amenable for optimization. From a consumer perspective, domain specificity brings understandability (due to declarativeness), reliability (due to built-in security), and “consumability” (i.e., installation/enactment/sharing of Sticklet expressions are tuned to the shortage of time and skills of the target audience). Preliminary evaluations indicate that 77% of the subjects were able to develop new Sticklet scripts in less than thirty minutes while 84% were able to consume these scripts in less than ten minutes. Sticklet is available to download as a Mozilla add-on.

장애인을 위한 정보 서비스 시스템의 설계 및 구현

Smart phones mixed with mobile devices and computers are biggest change of information technology and user-installed applications of them provide various information and services which were only possible on PC and Internet in the past. They are expected to be used by thirty million people in 2012 and people with disabilities can get easily information and location of disabled facilities using them. In this paper, we design a mobile information service system for person with disabilities, which provides various information and location of disabled facilities. We build information of disabled facilities using acquisition information through existing web sites and provide location based service with user`s location. We also implement and service the proposed system and we show efficiency of our system.

Advertising in Social Networks

The advertising efforts in social networks grow every year. Since their appearance in the late 1990s Social Network Web Sites were considered as a uniform group. The only differentiation factors were the number of users and the amount of traffic passed through the site. This paper classifies the existing web sites into four major categories: (1) Pure Social Network, (2) Grouped Social Networks, (3) Content Social Networks and (4) Broadcast Social Networks. The paper shows the possibilities of advertising in each of these groups as well as the disadvantages of using the sites of the particular group for the advertising purposes.

Assessment of Usability Benchmarks: Combining Standardized Scales with Specific Questions

The usability of Web sites and online services is of rising importance. When creating a completely new Web site, qualitative data are adequate for identifying the most usability problems. However, changes of an existing Web site should be evaluated by a quantitative benchmarking process. The proposed paper describes the creation of a questionnaire that allows a quantitative usability benchmarking, i.e. a direct comparison of the different versions of a Web site and an orientation on general standards of usability. The questionnaire is also open for qualitative data. The methodology will be explained by the digital library services of the ZBW.

Sharing and hiding online secrets

PurposeThis paper aims to manage access control tasks to satisfy the user privacy needs of online information resources according to social relations and tags.Design/methodology/approachThe study proposes a method for access control management in the online social context. The proposed method includes the access control policy management process, metadata of access control policies, the data of ontologies, tags, and social relations, and conflict detection rules.FindingsOnline information sharing and hiding, which needs to consider social relations and mentioned topics, is a unique context and needs a novel access control mechanism. Ontologies are powerful and expressive enough to identify conflicts in access control policies. The paper provides a method using ontologies to control the access control activities based on social relations and tags on web content. The effectiveness of the method's conflict detection rules is validated through several scenarios.Research limitations/implicationsTo make the proposed method suitable for widespread usage, further work is required to develop an access control policy specification and conflict detection tool. The proposed method introduces relatively novel usage scenarios, which consider social relationships, and tags compared with existing access control methods for online information sharing.Practical implicationsThe proposed access control mechanism can be integrated into existing web sites. Online users can use this method to share information more easily than at present.Originality/valueThe method enables flexible access control in social contexts and handles unavoidable conflicts. It also opens the way to new access control scenarios in online social activities. The method can be used to keep secrets hidden from selected people.

디지털교과서 내용 구성에 관한 사용자 선호도 분석

This paper analyzes user preferences on the basic structure of digital textbook contents based on the PDF and HTML formats. This was conducted by analysing the data from an online survey on user preferences for the representative structures of the PDF- and HTML-based digital textbook contents that are currently used on the Web. Results show that in the PDF format, the structure with TOC(Table Of Contents) links on the left screen and the main content on the right was most preferred by 82% of the respondents. In terms of the viewing method, the one that presents one page of the textbook fitted to the width of the computer screen in a single-page view was regarded as the best. Similarly, in the HTML format, the structure with TOC links on the left frame and the main content on the right using 2-frames was revealed as the most preferred by 84% of the respondents. However, the structures of the PDF- and HTML-based digital textbook contents employed by most existing Web sites go against the users` preferences. Accordingly, for digital textbook development in the future, user preferences must be considered to allow students to read the contents more easily and conveniently.

The usability analysis with heuristic evaluation and analytic hierarchy process

Today people increasingly expect more from the functionality of a web site, so the web usability has emerged as an important topic. It is generally hard to renew the existing web sites to meet the changing demands of users. Therefore, the present study is aimed at detailing the usability problems of web sites. To this end, Heuristic Evaluation (HE) is used to identify the usability problems, and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to rate their severity. Finally, for a more user-friendly web site, a new approach to judging severity of usability problems is developed by integrating AHP into HE. Relevance to industry There is an increasing importance for higher usability in the web development industry and communities. Different usability evaluation techniques have been developed and incorporated into the process of web site design and development. This study proposes a new approach to reveal usability problems on a web site and to define solution priority of these problems.

AAFP SUBSIDIARIES LAUNCH NEW, REVAMPED WEB SITES

In August, 2 AAFP subsidiaries—TransforMED LLC, and Peers for Progress, an AAFP Foundation program—launched new and revamped Web sites respectively. TransforMED launched Delta-Exchange, a new social networking site that primary care physicians can use to speed up their progress toward practice transformation and the patient-centered medical home. Peers for Progress revamped its existing Web site to make it more user friendly for individuals interested in peer support programs.

Trust Influencers on the Web

The purpose of this study is to develop and empirically test a model of Web trust based on the previously proposed models of trust. Influencers on Web trust studied here are disposition to trust, attitude toward the Web, experience with the Web, anxiety toward the Web, innovativeness toward information technology, and Web ability. The findings indicate that a strong disposition to trust and increased years of Web experience positively influence Web trust. High anxiety toward the Web, positive attitude toward the Web, high innovativeness toward information technology, and high Web ability do not influence Web trust in this study. The designers of new Web sites and redesigners of existing Web sites, pages, or advertisements should consider these factors in order to promote trust in their representative company.

Wine and web marketing strategies

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the level of internet marketing in use and the web marketing strategies models implemented by the Italian Speciality Wineries (ISWs).Design/methodology/approachThe paper surveyed a sample of 272 high quality wineries. The analysis of the existing web sites has been conducted through an adapted 7Cs model. The 7Cs model data analysis has been developed both at a univariate and a multivariate level. The entrepreneur's perception of internet marketing has been analysed through a market research questionnaire.FindingsThe use of internet marketing by the ISWs is at an initial stage. “Show‐case” is the main purpose while functionality is the most important web site characteristic. Five groups of wineries have been identified through cluster analysis. The web marketing approaches implemented revolve around the choice to effect online sales. The web marketing strategies map highlights that the future development of the ISWs web marketing models goes in two different directions. The entrepreneur's perception of quality of the web site is identified in navigability parameters.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to a greater knowledge of the strategic web marketing models utilized by Italian speciality wineries. It also discusses the entrepreneur's perception of internet marketing.

Evaluation of community web sites

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore an evaluation approach and to develop a model of web site evaluation that includes the specification of evaluation criteria, key issues to discuss and recommendations for improving the web site – in this case, that of the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto (CSPC‐T).Design/methodology/approachThe research consisted of three phases: phase 1 involved selection of the general evaluation criteria for web sites, based on a review of the literature plus the collection of factual data on information systems related to the CSPC‐T web site; phase 2 included a step‐by‐step evaluation of the existing CSPC‐T web site based on the general criteria presented in phase 1; and phase 3 provided recommendations in association with the key issues identified in phase 2 in order to improve the CSPC‐T web site, and developed the key components of the evaluation model.FindingsThe evaluation of the CSPC‐T web site found mostly positive results in terms of the content of the site and its ability to deliver information to the residents and local communities of Toronto. However, the design of the web site had some negative points requiring improvement, including site structure, page layout and interface design.Practical implicationsThe paper demonstrates a step‐by‐step, practical evaluation of community web sites. The research provided a detailed report to CSPC‐T about its existing web site. This should be useful to CSPC‐T in considering how to improve its web site or whether to redesign it to deliver information and services more effectively.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the knowledge base in the fields of community networks and web site evaluation, and to the improvement of the quality of information and service delivery to local communities via the web.

Online Tourism Communities on the Path to Web 2.0: An Evaluation

In recent years a technological and sociological paradigm shift has taken place in the Internet that is often referred to as Web 2.0. Companies and individuals have started to adapt existing Web sites to the new standards and principles and created new types of Web services and communities. The tourism domain is no exception to this trend new tourism communities emerged and long-established ones integrated new features to keep up with this trend. In this paper we are evaluating eight tourism communities with respect to Web 2.0. Each community is evaluated based on a criteria catalogue that draws ideas from online community studies. The findings are discussed in the context of the tourist life cycle that is structured in a pre-trip, on-site and after-trip phase. The value for the traveller is highlighted for each phase and potential problems are discussed.