[A] Hypermedia System
If the software system you are developing has to make easier the access and manipulation of interrelated information items, some of which could be multimedia, and you plan to include interactive activities to support some user’s task, you are creating a hypermedia system. A web site is a hypermedia system. Moreover, if you have different kinds or profiles of users, it can be necessary to personalize the way the information is shown according the users’ needs or to the context of use (for example, to support different display devices), whilst the information security is also preserved.
How to design a useful and usable hypermedia system?
- You should face the system design from different points of view following a user centred approach. For that, it is necessary to determine previously the goals of the system in terms of audience, content, functionalities and appearance.
- You need to organize the information independently from the navigation system, taking into account the user perspective and how she carries out her tasks.
- You must provide different outlines of navigation to allow the user find the things she needs.
- You must organize the elements of the interface in a consistent and intuitive way through the system ensuring at the same time that they are presented in an attractive way.
- You must provide mechanisms to allow the user to control and know in every moment the state of the interaction with the system.
- Moreover, you might need to provide different views of the system according to the needs of the different kinds of users.
- You might need to control who can access to what elements in the system.
Discussion
Hypermedia is an information technology that is been used in a number of domains like digital libraries, learning systems o electronic commerce, to organize information in an associative way, so that concepts are linked with related concepts making navigation through such a interlinked space an essential access tool. This non-lineal or interlinked structure converts the navigation process into one basic design cornerstone, since users move around the information space by selecting links and to get the information they need or to perform a specific tasks. However, it has to be taken into account that if the information space is large, unfamiliar or bad organized users can get lost in the hyperspace while trying to reach their goals.
The multimedia technology makes possible to integrate different media to improve information dissemination including images, audio and video. This rich media pose also new challenges related to the information presentation, since designers have to organize and harmonize information in a number of dimensions like the time and the space, bi- or tri-dimensional [Nanard and Nanard, 1995].
Each domain of application is characterized by a number of concepts and relationships among concepts that make up the information structure of such domain. This structure has to be subsumed to make access more familiar to the user and also helps designer to get a better understanding of the domain of the system.
Technological advances have made possible to widen the scope of most hypermedia systems which now include advanced interactive behaviours to support a variety of user services. Indeed, typical services offered in information systems are being progressively incorporated to this kind of systems including access to external systems and systems (including databases), communication and collaboration support, virtual reality spaces. [Díaz et al, 1999]. Consequently, the interaction with the system has become a feature of paramount importance in the system design.
For this new generation of hypermedia systems, improving the accessibility of the system and supporting personalization are required. Each user, whether disabled or not, has her own needs, motivations, knowledge and preferences that can be taken into account to design an system that can fit different users’ expectations. The massive use of mobile devices likes phones and pda’s, pushes developers to look not only at the user preferences but also at the constraints defined by the use environment.
Widening the scope of hypermedia systems drives to the question of security. As you have more services and users, you have to provide mechanisms to ensure that your access policies will preserve the confidentiality, the integrity and the availability of the information held in the system [Aedo et al, 2003].
All of these characteristics or design concerns, that are intrinsically interconnected, have to be kept in mind in order to build useful and usable systems.
Related to
- The [AE1]User-centered Structure pattern helps to organize the information taking into account the user needs.
- The [AN1]Multiple Ways to Navigate pattern guides to the user so to explore the information space as to carry out her tasks or to find her interests in a quicker way.
- The [AP1]Aesthetics pattern undertakes the correct combination of the elements of the user interface, so the number of them must be used as the spatial and time-based relationships in order to these elements are presented in an effective way.
- The [AI1]Interaction pattern can be used to improve the interaction between the user and the system using.
- If you want the system will be used by a great number of users, you can use the [AZ1]Personalization pattern
- To deal with access control you can use the [AS1]Access Control pattern.
Sources