Levels of abstraction in Webbooks the communication perspective by Dov Teeni in collaboration with H

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Levels of abstraction in Web-books the
communication perspectivebyDov Teeniin
collaboration with Hadar Ronen
AIS SIGHCI, December 2002
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Talk plan

• Demonstrate the Web-book Levels navigation
• Motivation professional texts can/should be
  organized
• Behavior focused browsers, general browsers
• Study I Observations of visitors
• Study II focused browsers vs. assumed general
  browsers
• Study III search tasks vs. browsing tasks
• Discussion

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Category of e-Books
Current version manual adaptation with a view
for fit between task, medium, knowledge form,
user type and reading task.
ebook
Teeni 2001 Printed http//misq.org/archivist/b
estpaper/teeni.pdf Webbook http//faculty.biu.ac.
il/teenid/ebook/teeni.htm
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Motivation

• Offer a new way of thinking about a professional
  web-book adaptive communication
• Feasible to construct it on levels of abstraction
• Impose a hierarchical structure on complex
  hypertext
• To all this we need to know more about how people
  behave with these structures!!

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Study I observing the traces left by unsolicited
visitors
1500 visitors in 3 months, over 1 minute
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3 levels of abstraction
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(No Transcript)
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Entries
Av. Time
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Taking the (sequential) hi-way! Running out of
fuel quickly.
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Study II focused browsing
General browsing gathering information while
scanning an information space without a
predefined target in the text. Focused browsing
retrieving information to solve some problem or
meet some target.
Complexity
Expectation focused browsing uses transitions
between levels instrumentally to ensure effective
communication, while general browsing follow
texts that seem interesting or easy to access.
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Goal Formation
Control
Category selection
Integration

• Initiate search
• Exit search
• Monitor search

Information Extraction
Flow of information
Teeni Feldman, 2001
Flow of control
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results
Focused browsers used TOC and navigation diagrams
more frequently, and frequencies of visits by
levels were General (61, 26, 13) Focused
(78, 16, 6)
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• "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to
  go from here?"
• "That depends a good deal on where you want to
  get to," said the Cat.
• "I don't much care where --" said Alice.
• "Then it doesn't much matter which way you go,"
  said the Cat.

" so long as I get somewhere," Alice
added as an explanation. "Oh, you're sure to do
that," said the Cat, "if only you walk long
enough."
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Study III experiment with 1) search and
browsing tasks 2) enhanced vs. regular
navigation diagrams
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User Interface without manipulation (WFB
History)
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User Interface with manipulation (WFB History
(gray areas))
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User Interface with manipulation as it should be
seen at the end of 8 tasks, following the
Optimal route.
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Tasks

• What is the first communication goal?
• What is the name of communication strategy 2?
• What is the name of communication goal 3?
• Read about communication impacts and name the
  person who developed the theory of communicative
  action?
• With reference to Proposition 2B a) what is the
  name of the proposition? b) on the impact of
  which strategy does it hypothesize?
• what type of communication complexity affects the
  strategy of affectivity?
• to which chapter does proposition 10 belong?
• go to proposition 8, then go the page located two
  pages before it, and find the section title to
  which that page belongs, and go to it.

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Large number of levels transitions while
non-focused browsing (task 9)
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WFB NoWFB
Tasks 3,6. requiring knowledge of history of
visits User 51 (WFB) 2,0 transitions User 46
(NWFB) 17 transitions Question3, User 50 (NWFB)
11 tran. Task 6. All have correct answers.
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(No Transcript)
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Number of redundant transitions
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Task T1 T2 T3 T4 T5a T5b T6 T7 T8
T9
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Task T1 T2 T3 T4 T5aT5bT6T7 T8
T9