User choice [was: Best Practices document - not best practices]

Hi,

Probably we do not need only a controlled vocabulary for device 
capabilities description. We *run the risk* of stealing freedom to our 
users if we delegate all the work to formal descriptions of device and 
context distribution.

We need something that could let the user choose the quality and the 
quantity of information. It can be a menu putted on home page, a browser 
button or a server module.

I think that one thing on it is possible to work is the rendering of the 
element <link /> by user agents. It may be used to give information 
about relationship between the actual page and the other information 
units of the web. Something like:

<link rel="headlines" href="/headlines.php" title="Headlines only 
version" />

I know that Opera Browser recognizes this kind of tag and creates a 
navigation bar. Firefox (with some extension) do the same.

A mobile browser can perform in the same way: it looks for these tag and 
build a menu (or a button) and the user can make use of it.

An other way to reach a similar goal is develop a sort of "Rosetta 
stone" that could relate terms written in various languages. It could be 
a controlled vocabulary used by servers, proxies or clients for give the 
same meaning to different words. I do not know if it could be name 
"onthology"...

Let's imagine: this element receive a request by a client, that is - for 
example - http://www.bbc.co.uk/solotitoli/ ("only headlines", in italian 
:) ). This request is processed trying to find any occurrence in a data 
repository (a database, an xml file...). Imagine that - in our example - 
  our module finds that "solotitoli" is an *alias* of "headlinesonly". 
It translate the request in a standard form and passes it to the origin 
server.

The <link> strategy is a client-side strategy, the second one could be 
performed by a proxy or by a server.

What are your opinions?

Andrea

Received on Tuesday, 9 August 2005 08:09:16 UTC