Re: state of the art

Duane

Thanks a lot for the summary and linx, I think we should post this on
the wiki somewher as it is, as food for thoughts, I will try to
articulate some of the info that you provide into a paragraph

I agree with most of what you say, I do still think that we have an
'approach' issue, that I will try to write up in my paper, casue thats
the next important deadline, I ll try come up with some useful
analsyis and method

One point I d like to make, is that usability is not just about user
interfaces, and if we carry out usability using appropriate methods
and early enough, we may end up with a totally different product and
functionalities being offered. The w3c is now saying here is the
semantic web, which works doing SPARQL queries using data expressed in
RDF, however, if we build a user requiremnt upfront, maybe we end up
getting a semantic web that works using different constructs. I just
want to make this point cause I think if we find an appropriate method
to do usability it may also help us overcome some of the corners the
sw is stuck in a bit at the moment

Also, I want to say that we need people to work collaboratively on
SWUI. I expect only by working with every possible single user/would
be user we can come up with something.

I think, Duane, this is the gist of our brief conversation that we had
standing in front of your poster in Florence, and I wonder whether we
may start where we left it,

Plan: get every single user/would be user of SW to sign up to this
list, as well as developers and other interested, to work
collaboratively on improving U
Method: I am putting together some thoughts for my paper then we can
discuss/trash them


I hope that the outcome of a solid exercise could strenghten the case
for different approaches to SW, that hopefullly W3C could embrace in
addition to RDF, which is what the floor is crying for, in addition to
'better interfaces'

soon

P





On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 11:47 PM, Duane Degler <ddegler@ipgems.com> wrote:
> Hi Paola,
>
> There is a lot of substance in the space, although those of us in the SWUI
> community have not yet made a concerted effort to collate (can I blame the
> intrusion of the 'day job'?). Lloyd and I in particular are open for
> volunteers to help with web collation activity - I have some initial designs
> for restructuring existing material into a more coherent reference...
>
> Here are some answers to your questions and some reference links, as they
> may help inform your workshop. I would suggest that notes/outcomes from your
> workshop are captured into the SWUI wiki, so our collective discussions are
> more easily connected. Alongside the wiki is also the SWUI workshop archive:
> http://swui.webscience.org/
>
> First, SWUI/usability may or may not be 'notional.' To meet the real needs
> of users with a formative technology, we have to consider the Process
> challenge as much - or more - than the interaction technology or
> 'guidelines' challenge. Core usability and interaction design processes are
> an important starting point, not yet well adopted in the relevant
> communities. Do we need to re-invent that wheel? Also, you might want to
> take a look at page 13 of "The Usability Imperative Inherent in the Semantic
> Web" (2004),
> http://www.designforcontext.com/publications/dd_usability-in-semweb_20040610
> .pdf. While now fairly old, a lot of the goals and questions remain relevant
> for consideration when measuring the state of the art.
>
> How do we understand and articulate people's goals and tasks in a way that
> helps us identify the unique capabilities of the medium to respond? The
> third SWUI workshop in 2006 was particularly rich in discussion of that
> question. Unfortunately, we don't have a recording of the panel discussion
> (a clear call-to-arms from Tim Berners-Lee, Nigel Shadbolt, Jim Hendler, and
> David Karger, as well as Wendy Hall), but we do have papers from that
> workshop focused on assessing usable design questions in particular.
> Battle, "Preliminary Analysis of Users and Tasks for the Semantic Web,"
> http://www.designforcontext.com/publications/lb_users_tasks_semantic_web.pdf
> schraefel and Karger, "The Pathetic Fallacy of RDF,"
> http://swui.semanticweb.org/swui06/papers/Karger/Pathetic_Fallacy.html
> Heath, Domingue, Shabajee, "User Interaction and Uptake Challenges to
> Successfully Deploying Semantic Web Technologies,"
> http://swui.semanticweb.org/swui06/papers/Heath/Heath.pdf
> Downey, "Designing Annotation Mechanisms with Users in Mind: A Paper
> Prototyping Case Study from the Scientific Environment for Ecological
> Knowledge (SEEK) Project,"
> http://swui.semanticweb.org/swui06/papers/Downey/Downey.pdf
> Wilson and schraefel, "mSpace: What do Numbers and Totals Mean in a Flexible
> Semantic Browser,"
> http://swui.semanticweb.org/swui06/papers/Wilson/Wilson.pdf
>
> It is important to learn 'bottom up' from examples that people create to
> solve real and perceived needs. I recently posted the slides for my annual
> 'guided tour' which has dozens of examples to explore for ideas and
> patterns:
> http://www.ipgems.com/present/swui_pres_2008.html
> In that presentation, I summarized one of the most significant outcomes from
> the CHI2008 workshop and poster, the "Vision of rich context: formal,
> social, personal, situational" (kudos to mc schraefel's position paper
> delivery that sparked this... thanks mc!).
> http://www.ipgems.com/present/swui_pres_2008.html#(11) (the 'state of the
> future art' perhaps?).
>
> The question we have asked for a few years is: "what problems might the sw
> solve that existing technologies and methods struggle to solve - what's
> unique?" The background paper supporting the CHI workshop (2008 in Florence)
> was based on extensive discussions during and after the 2007 workshop on
> just that question.
> (Lloyd - help - is this link broken? http://swui.webscience.org/challenges)
> also available in the ACM Digital Library:
> http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1358628.1358959&coll=Portal&dl=ACM&CFI
> D=14117627&CFTOKEN=31407316.
> I suspect that this can provide the basis of a short write-up on key issues.
> I would also suggest the paper review criteria from the CHI workshop, which
> were crafted to guide people in the things we felt were important
> contributions:
> http://swui.webscience.org/SWUI2008CHI/#What
>
> One other useful reference is a mindmap that grew out of a conversation of
> the things we have to consider in the user interaction 'landscape' - and
> where we were beginning to see research initiatives even in 2004 and 2005
> workshops.
> http://www.ipgems.com/swui/swui_mindmap.html
>
> I'm sorry this isn't a collated or definitive collection. I hope it helps.
> There is important work to be done in:
> - direction for researchers
> - direction for practitioners
> - understanding goals and significant contributions
> - process awareness, both unique and adopted from existing practices
> - communication and collaboration
>
> Keep us posted on your workshop's progress and discussions!
>
> Duane
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: public-semweb-ui-request@w3.org
>> [mailto:public-semweb-ui-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of
>> paola.dimaio@gmail.com
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 8:00 AM
>> To: Dan Brickley
>> Cc: public-semweb-ui@w3.org
>> Subject: Re: state of the art
>>
>>
>> Hi Dan
>> thanks for reply
>> sorry the scope of my q is not obvious (tunnel vision from my end)
>>
>> Semantic Web Usability state of the art
>> Basically from what I see,  it is an  issue  - there is this
>> list, there have been events like the recent workshop in
>> Florence, people are paying attention to usability, but -
>> correct me if I am wrong - it is still notional, in the sense
>> that there are no 'guidelines' , and to some extent usability
>> of semantic technologies is still not 'defined', nor there
>> are methodologies to help developers face the challenges etc
>>
>> is it correct? can we say that the BOK in this domain is more
>> or less what is on the wiki that Max is migrating to semantic wiki?
>> is there a write up anywhere that we can consider reasonably complete?
>>
>> I am asking all this, cause I am writing a paper for our
>> forthcoming workshop, and would like to start with a 'state
>> of the art' paragraph, and hoping to find something (that I
>> can agree with) to point to as reference.
>>
>> Hope its reasonably unpacked question
>> cheers
>> P
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 3:36 AM, Dan Brickley
>> <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:
>> > paola.dimaio@gmail.com wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Greetings all
>> >>
>> >> is the a a SWUI state of the art summary anywhere? (hoping I dont
>> >> have to write it myself) :-)
>> >
>> > Can you describe what the art is that you'd like summarised?
>> >
>> > cheers,
>> >
>> > Dan
>> >
>> > ps. I'd consider http://mqlx.com/~david/parallax/ pretty
>> SOTA w.r.t.
>> > UI for RDFish data
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Paola Di Maio
>> School of IT
>> www.mfu.ac.th
>> *********************************************
>>
>>
>
>



-- 
Paola Di Maio
School of IT
www.mfu.ac.th
*********************************************

Received on Wednesday, 3 September 2008 09:23:26 UTC