Poremba Consulting
Street address
San Francisco, CA Zip


Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 19:13:16 -0700


Mr. Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
The Welch Company
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111 2496
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Subject:   Comments after initial meeting

Rod:

Thank you for talking with me last Wednesday. I found it *very* helpful. Since then, I've been thinking about many of the issues we touched on.
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My intent is to organize a response to our discussion that itemizes those issues. I'd like to pursue some of them in greater depth, but it takes a while. So, I've started collecting my thoughts here:

http://www.dynamiclist.com/?list_id=4515
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This reference is only for your curiosity about where my thoughts are.
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One of the issues that I'd like to pursue came up in Eric Armstrong's response to your recent e-mail message to the OHS list.

http://www.bootstrap.org/lists/ba-ohs-talk/0205/msg00185.html
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So, I've pursued it in the appropriate depth. The result is here

http://www.dynamiclist.com/?list_id=4538
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I believe this analysis deserves a response.

Thanks again for meeting,

Sincerely,



Mike Poremba
michael_poremba@yahoo.com



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Original Source


Analysis after first meeting with Rod
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Prepared by: Mike Poremba
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Updated: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 17:22:35
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Software application

SDS is a software application used to manage information.

  1. Usability

    1. Usability is key to the success of applications used in managing information. Information management applications could fail adoption by users if usability is not addressed.

      1. More information
        ..
      2. Packaged Apps Fail the Usability Test.

        Forrester report concludes that enterprise applications, such as CRM and content management packages, are inadequate due to usability problems.

      ..
    2. The usability of SDS seems to have been optimized for the efficient organization and linking of information.
      ..
      I have not seen an application with such efficient information management functionality.

    3. The responsiveness of SDS in DOS will be hard to duplicate with a web app
      ..
      Jumping between documents in SDS seems very fast. It's important for an application to work at the speed of thought. Otherwise, it gets in the way. The issue of responsiveness is significant in web applications. One of the more advanced features I've designed for my writing tool might make these fast response times achievable for some power users of my web app.

    ..
  2. User interface

    1. The character-based interface of this DOS application would prevent it from ever gaining wide appeal.
      ..
      Although the application is functional, it's important to provide to users an interface with which they are familiar and comfortable. Using DOS character-based applications is generally not acceptable for most business users.
      ..
    2. Rewriting SDS will require careful attention to UI

      Porting SDS to a Windows or web browser interface will require new UI development by someone who has experience and creativity. Moreover, this person would have to be intimately familiar with the purpose design of the application.
      ..

    3. Refinement of the new user interface will take time

      It may take a significant fraction of a year to hone the new user interface. This evolutionary process will require devotion.
      ..

    4. Dates are indeed useful in following hyperlinks

      As you mentioned, dates are useful in hyperlinked documents. A sense of time is very meaningful. Now I wish that this was incorporated nicely into web documents. I'll work on incorporating this into my product.

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  3. Process

    POIMS is a process used to manage information in SDS.
    ..

  4. Evaluation of Dynamic List application

    In light of our discussions, I'd like to review the status of my design in comparison with some of the key features of SDS, and the POIMS process you follow.

    1. Datastructures
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    2. Usability

    3. User interface

  5. Opportunities for future work





Original Source


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 Clarification of Eric Armstrong's distinction between "linking" and "including"
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Prepared by: Mike Poremba
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Updated: Friday, May 31, 2002 15:47:46

Do you have references in SDS for what Eric means by "incorporating" content and contrasts it with your practice of "linking"?

I have two guesses as to what he means. Does his point have more to do with...

  1. functionality for the writer only being able to link to a point on a static historic page rather than selecting and sizing appropriate sections of a historic document to include in the current diary entry, the way we often do with e-mail inclusions, or
    ..
  2. usability for the web-based reader, who must hyperlink out of and back to the root diary entry to undertsand the reference?

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 Issue 1

If his complaint is issue 1, that the writer cannot embed and comment on sections of the old diary entry as we often do with e-mail inclusions, I see some clear advantages to your technique of linking around. The technique of embedding old text into a new diary entry has the advantage of creating a single new document with exactly the right specificity in the reference. For example,
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Eric wrote:

If we had tools of the kind you have developed, I believe we *would* use them.
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Eric, Which features of SDS are most useful and sorely missing from other tools? Can we get a prioritized list? ..
The example above illustrates a very specific embedded quotation and its response. There is efficiency in this format.

  1. Benefits of linking to an entire document

    Often that context is lost with static inclusions.

    As you've mentioned, by referring back to a single point in a long historical record, the reader will get to see the broader context of what the writer is referencing, rather than just the small excerpt that the author wants to reference.
    ..
    Static inclusion cannot get updated the way an old entry can.

    As you've demonstrated, the historical diary entries can be modified over time, adding more potentially useful information to the original diary entry. This can be in the form of corrections or link forward to new diary entries. ..
  2. Benefits of including (embedding) text from the original document in the new one

    The original context does not always add value

    In some case readers are already familiar with the context of the reference. Or maybe the original context is insignificant. Either way, sometimes a little extracted quote is sufficient.
    ..
    Efficiency in reading

    You may lose some of your audience. A reader who cannot invest the time in following a linked reference might simply drop out of the exchange.

..
 Issue 2

If his complaint is issue 2, that the reader must jump around between diary entries, then this is the issue of "boggling the mind" that you've mentioned. In pursuing references, the reader might become distracted from the original point. This importance of this complaint should not be downplayed.

  1. Causes of "boggling the mind"

    System response time

    The action of following a link can be distracting. It take a while to follow a reference. Clicking and waiting for a web page to load is slower than the speed of thought. Note that this is not a problem inside SDS, where the response time of following a link seems instantaneous.
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    Sense of location

    We gain a sense of orientation from *physical context*. When following a hyperlink, the *physical context* switches. This is disorienting, and is one cause of boggling the mind. "Now, where was I?"
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    Changing the subject

    Following links also changes what the user is reading. The referenced material is related, but it *is* a different document, or diary entry. And so the *intellectual context* changes. ..
  2. Consequences for the average user

    So, can the average user eventually overcome this sense of being boggled when reading your diary entries, as they are formated today? I'm not so confident. In my experience, it's often better to go through great effort to change the system to improve usability, rather than expecting the user to compensate for the computer system's deficencies. Can the usability be improved?

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Combining the best of linking and incorporating

There might be a way to combine these two features, linking and including. Here's one proposal: mousing over a hyperlink reference to another diary entry pops up an excerpt from the referenced document.

    ..
  1. It's possible to implement reference pop ups in SDS

    Need to extract from the referenced diary entry

    This could be implempented in SDS, provided that you have a way to extract a portion of the reference at the time of publication to HTML.
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    Implementation in DHTML

    You would be required to write DHTML that works in both IE and Netscape. ..
  2. Already demonstrated a variation of this in a prototype

    I've implemented a notion of this pop up technique in a prototype for the next version of my writing tool. It works for both IE and Netscape. I'll demonstrate it to you in a few months. If you can't visualize it, I can mock up a good-looking HTML prototype for you using as SDS HTML document.
    ..

  3. Shift from interlinked documents to interactive and intertwined documents

    My feeling is that it'll take more than mere hyperlinking and integration to advance our writing tools where we want them to go. Document will have to become more interactive for the user and intertwined with each other, as I'm suggesting with this feature.