- From: Roberto García González <roberto.garcia@udl.cat>
- Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:16:36 +0100
- To: Benjamin Nowack <mail@bnowack.de>
- Cc: public-swisig@w3.org
Hi Benjamin, all, Thanks for your input. I think there is a nice discussion around these issues so I have created a page in the SWISIG wiki where we can start placing our input: http://www.w3.org/community/swisig/wiki/Main_Page Right now, I've pasted some text from an article I authored some time ago and dealing with Semantic Web user interfaces challenges and opportunities. This text was also improved and summarized by Paola for the CfP for the Semantic Web Journal Special Issue on Semantic Web Interfaces (http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/blog/special-issue-call-semantic-web-interfaces). Fell free, all, to add your views, comments, etc. It is just a staring point... Best, Roberto García http://rhizomik.net/~roberto On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Benjamin Nowack <mail@bnowack.de> wrote: > Hi Roberto, > > On 11/26/12 4:19 PM, Roberto García González wrote: >> >> I'm particularly interested in the design guidelines you mention. Are >> you talking about guidelines when developing user interfaces on top of >> semantic data? > > Yes. And I can see two main contexts: Common UIs and innovative UIs. > > Common UIs would be interfaces like entity views, schema editors and > browsers, or faceted navigators. Things that have been created and explored > before, partly with elegant examples available, but that still tend to look > awful when done by SemWebbers. > > Innovative UIs would be based on particular capabilities of semantics or > RDF. The stuff we see in Hollywood movies... > > It's rather hard to create guidelines for the latter (probably by > definition, "guidelines for innovation" is pretty close to an oxymoron), so > I would focus on the former for now. > >> I'm really interested in this topic. I've already visited the user >> experience evaluation based on heuristics >> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_evaluation) but they are usually >> too generic and in most cases reduce the evaluation to making the user >> interface follow the conventions of Web applications (or desktop or >> mobile applications depending on the kind of heuristics). > > I agree. But looking at RDF-driven apps, I often think even those generic > principles could be worth spreading a little more ;) > >> It would be really interesting to build a list of guidelines specific to >> interfaces on top of semantic data but, is there something special in >> such user interfaces? And, if it is so, is that desirable from a UX >> point of view? Shouldn't it be better that users didn't have to bother >> about the underlying technologies? > > Can't agree more, how can we identify that "special" and can we reduce it to > something common? There seem to be some characteristics associated with the > data structures we are trying to turn into applications, and with the app > creators in the RDF world, which repeatedly lead to poor user experiences. > > For example, RDF is by design meant to be re-purposed by arbitrary > consumers, but generic applications usually require a higher cognitive > burden than single task-optimised UIs. Is there a middle ground? > > Or: RDF is meant to connect federated objects, which seems to require > context-independent identifiers (hence the use of URIs), which in turn > require a much higher cognitive effort than centralised simple labels. Could > we get rid of them (including QNames) in UIs, or avoid the cognitive > friction somehow? Could a system provide them if needed, e.g. by Data > Engineers? > > Or: Semantic technologies attract very smart people, and smart people tend > to throw smart algorithms at tasks, including UI generation. Add a tendency > to declarative approaches and you end up with designer nightmares like > Fresnel. What could be a better approach that would work well with typical > interaction design processes? > > So ideally, I would love semweb UIs to behave just like ordinary UIs, but I > think it is harder to get there due to the underlying technology, data > structures, and social context. > > One of the first things a person aware of usability heuristics, gestalt > principles etc would probably do with a Linked Data page is grouping > predicates in a meaningful way (labels, types, geo, social, commerce, > external links, ...). It should be possible to come up with guidelines to > simplify things like this. How far could these tasks be pushed down to the > client (where designers feel more comfortable) before we lose benefits that > require server-side smarts (such as search engine-friendly markup)? > > More questions than answers still, but maybe a starting point... > > Cheers, > Benji > >> >> I would really appreciate hearing the opinions about these issues from >> people from the swisig list. >> >> Best, >> >> >> Roberto García >> Associate Professor >> Universitat de Lleida >> Jaume II, 69 >> 25001 Lleida, Spain >> Tel. +34 973 702 742 >> http://rhizomik.net/~roberto >> >> >> On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 1:33 PM, Benjamin Nowack <mail@bnowack.de >> <mailto:mail@bnowack.de>> wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> My name is Benji Nowack. I'm working as an independent consultant, >> creating mainly front-ends for (often RDF-based) web applications. >> >> Won't have much time to contribute, but I'm interested in bringing >> more end-user awareness to the process of building Linked Data tools >> and applications. A few design guidelines could probably go a long >> way already. >> >> Cheers, >> Benji >> >> Paola Di Maio wrote: >> >> Hope those of you who attended ISWC2012 had a fun and productive >> week. Here is >> how I suggest we kick this off: 1. If you like, introduce >> yourself to others! >> and say a few words about what you'd like to do here 2. Please >> take a look at >> our draft agenda so far, and help edit items >> http://www.w3.org/community/__swisig/agenda/ >> <http://www.w3.org/community/swisig/agenda/> 2. Let's [...] >> >> >> >> ---------- >> >> This post sent on Semantic Web Interfaces Community Group >> >> >> >> 'Getting on, and a virtual Meeting' >> >> >> http://www.w3.org/community/__swisig/2012/11/18/getting-on-__and-a-virtual-meeting/ >> >> <http://www.w3.org/community/swisig/2012/11/18/getting-on-and-a-virtual-meeting/> >> >> >> >> Learn more about the Semantic Web Interfaces Community Group: >> >> http://www.w3.org/community/__swisig >> <http://www.w3.org/community/swisig> >> >> >> > > -- > Benjamin Nowack > > irl: florastr. 53, 40217 düsseldorf, germany > phone: +49.177.5241935 > web: http://bnowack.de/ >
Received on Wednesday, 19 December 2012 10:17:55 UTC