| meta-matic theoretical Studies 1 2 3 4 | |||
| Definitions for Browser |
Browse 'Brauz Transitive senses intransitive senses A browser is an application program that provides
a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide
Web. The word "browser" seems to have originated prior to the
Web as a generic term for user interfaces that let you browse text files
online. Technically, a Web browser is a client program that uses the Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to make requests of Web servers throughout the
Internet on behalf of the browser user. - What is? "It's the detail that's always there, it's the protocol, the go-between. It's the browser." - browser.art "The Web is an information architecture that extends in three dimensions. The browser is the technological means that makes experience there possible. The browser is the means of transportation for following links in virtual space, the instrument for charting them, and the sense (and the lens) with which the user observes space. In theory every browser can give its own interpretation of the HTML elements, and place these in a configuration of its own. The representation is different, but the information architecture read by Netscape and Explorer remains the same". - the browser is dead "Software that provides the interface for viewing the web is designed for, as we are constantly reminded, "browsing," a traditionally passive role that we unproblematically equate with reading a printed text. "Browsers" are discouraged by the technology from (re)placing text on the Web, unless asked explicitly to do so".- http://omni.cc.purdue.edu/~davidswf/tds.link.html
Geert Lovink's definition A simple but clever device when it comes to visualization of data. An extension of the ftp function, asks for file transfers. It is able to transfer the data into a "frame". The data is independet (html) with the exception of browser specific tags (the result of the browser wars). The same war is going on between mediaplayer and real player. Originally browsers were scientific, hence data visualization
oriented. Now they are being developed for entertainment and according
to market (owner) strategies which aim at increasing corporate profits.
As a result the browser is becoming analogous to a TV which only shows
some programs but not others. With the coming of video the browser becomes
a cashing in system with which the user pays for access to video content.
Considering the media format specialization of the browser it could be said thatbrowsers are about bandwidth and also about access. Quicktime player and Real player are examples of a new generation of browsers. The players have a search feature for finding and accessing music and movies, mime types that Netscape and Internet Explorer do not support natively. On the other hand the players do not display html pages.
Features and functions The WWW Browser is : For the multimedia WWW we have the browser for |
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WWW-layers
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* Internet access layer with various protocols for communicating with remote websites, ranging from simple HTTP to various types of encryption and rating services (e.g., for avoiding pornography). The access layer has been improved substantially over the years: the keep-alive feature in HTTP 1.1 cuts load time in half for many pages; secure transmission of credit card numbers and other sensitive data helps people feel safe online. * Navigation layer that keeps track of where users have been on the Web and helps them go where they want to go today. * Presentation layer that takes a page from the navigation layer and renders it on the screen for users to enjoy. Most of the efforts in upgrading Web browsers have focused on this layer, introducing many options for fancy layout ranging from the annoying (animated GIFs) to the useful (style sheets). Jakob Nielsen |
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| Bias & User Experience |
"The early browsers created behavioral patterns that define the way we think about the network," Maciej Wisniewski
Defining Bias and User Experience Bias bi·as (bs) n. Source: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=bias Friedman (1996) considers a computer technology biased
"if it systematically and unfairly discriminates against certain
individuals or groups of individuals in favor of others". "A
technology discriminates unfairly if it denies an opportunity or a good,
or if it assigns an undesirable outcome to an individual or group of individuals
on grounds that are unreasonable or inappropriate". In this work "bias" is used in the usage
problem sense of the word. Biased design intentionally and unintentionally,
conciously and unconciously takes for granted the prevailing design issues
and platforms. The aforementioned bias limits the scope of possibilities
- the user experience - inherent in the media. In particular, the alt.browsers
elucidate the emergent bias, bias which emerges some time after a design
is complete as a result of a change in societal knowledge, user population,
or cultural values (Friedman, 1996). Tied to bias is the notion of values.
User experience Another central concept in this research is user experience.
User experience refers to the user interaction that happens with the interface
and the content, which together form the environment for experience. The browser hosts the Internet content. It is the means of transportation in the Internet data space. According to Altena (1999) "around the means of transport arises a specific organisation of the experience of space" and "we organise space by the choice of transport." Undestanding the biases in browser helps us better understand the user experience of the Internet.
Biases in browsers and the nature of the Internet What do the alt.browsers teach us about the biases
of the mainstream browsers and the nature of the Internet as media? Through
the tactic of defamiliarization of browsing the alt.browsers promote awareness
of the following:
Page metaphor Since the early WWW browsers the Internet has been
presented to users as collection of static pages which are authored. The
functionality of the browsers has been based on translation of <html>,
the document structure description language used for creating WWW content,
into "pages." The page metaphor is one of the main biases that
the alt.browsers attack. None of the alt.browsers examined in this research
use the page metaphor for constructing views of the Internet data space.
The page is not the "destination" for navigation. From a HCI perspective the use of the page metaphor
for designing navigation features in browsers has resulted in usability
problems: Most of the problems with browser navigation can
be traced to a single phenomenon: browsers still view individual pages
as the fundamental units of navigation and have no support for treating
multiple pages as a structure. Users are much more likely to get lost
when they are not shown the relationships between the various pages they
visit. Jakob Nielsen
The page metaphor does not allow a broader view of
the interrelationship of links which in itself is essential information
in the hypermedia domain. This problems has been addressed in numerous
alternative browser concepts presented in the Browser Day browser design
contest organized since 1998 by the Waag, the Society of Old and New Media. For new media artists like Mark Napier the maker of Riot and Maciej Wisniewski the maker of Netomat, the page metaphor inhibits user experience of the web on a visual, aesthetic and legal level: "An especially good example of this is the
World Wide Web were the thinking in most web design is that of the magazine,
newspaper, book, or catalog. Visually, aesthetically, legally, the web
is treated as a physical page upon which text and images are written"
Napier, 1998. The idea of page implies the use of text and images
leaving other media out. This has infact been the case with mime types
for audio and video requiring plug-ins inorder to be viewed and heard.
Home Page & Search engines The page metaphor reinforces the idea of the Internet
as docuverse - a universe of documents. The task of searching is inherent
to the idea of documents or pages and this in turn implies a starting
point for the search process. Browsers reinforce the idea of a starting point (Home)
and search engine as the primary way to use the web. Channeling users to websites to increase traffic and
advertising revenues has resulted in the proliferation of banners, redirects
and the use of frames.
Browser as determinant of aesthetic As long a content requires the browser to be rendered its aesthetics is influenced by the browser. The mainstream browsers do not render <html> compatibly. There are differences in how tags are parsed which affect the layout of the page, the appearance of form elements, etc... There are differences between browsers in how different media formats like shockwave are rendered.
The Internet is a collection of static pages. Currently,
browsers do not give users opportunities to contribute in a cumulative
or editorial way to the information they come across in browsing the Internet.
This bias directly affects user autonomy. Autonomy
is protected when users are given control over the right things at the
right time (Friedman, 1996). The only customization that user can make is purely
superficial: they can influence the presentation layer in the browser:
Segmentation of user population bias ~ "The
4.0 Web experience" Some of the fiercest battles over technological
standards now bear directly on Web browsers. A skirmish over who has the
last word on Java, for example, prompted Sun to sue Microsoft this past
fall. While the real issues are sufficiently arcane to be incomprehensible
to the average Web user, the outcomes will determine her experience of
the Internet and the Web (Wired). The Internet user experience is technology driven.
A positive correlation between bandwidth, CPU power and the diversity
of user experience exists. Updating the browser every so often has become
the norm. With each mainstream browser version supporting newer scripts
and media formatssuch as shockwave, the user
population has begun to fragment. Only a small group of users regularly has the latest software at home. Choosing to make a site that can only be viewed with 4.0 browsers means choosing a target audience. It does not include, for example, scholars and students who only have access through school. http://www.mediamatic.nl/magazine/9_4/altena_browser/altena_2gb.html
HCI bias To understand the experience "mainstream"
browsers afford it is necessary to look at the factors and values at the
foundation of Human Computer Interaction design, the field browser design
belongs to. HCI prescribes a cognitivist approach to user interface
design. The cognitivist approach is based on the idea of the normalized
user which is defined by human information processing theory. The quality
of the user interface is described by the notion of usability. The "price" end users pay for these design
and functionality standards becomes evident in the homogeneity of the
browsing experience. The usability approach to developing the browser
assumes that the current situation as a good basis for further development.
The motivation for the usability approach is that there is room for improving
the usability of browsers and the way to do it is to "fine tuned"
the current browser. The effectiveness of the usability approach can be
seen in the historical development of the graphical user inteface of the
computer. Nothing has changed in the last 15 years. Similarly with the
browsers mo major changes have take place since 1992. Usability Problems in browsers (circa 1995) |
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