WWW4 BOF
Human Information Interaction (HII)
The Human Side of the Web

This page is for planning a birds-of-a-feather meeting for the WWW4 conference on the topic of Human Information Interaction (HII). HII is concerned with how human beings interact with, relate to, and process information (e.g., browsing, finding out what they want, finding where it is, extracting relevant information, associative & thinking processes, how to foster creativity).

Objective: Improve the way users find, interact with, and understand information in Internet resources and other information resources.

Some frustrations at the WWW information cemeteries:

• Browsing through hyperspace
• Lost in hyperspace syndrome
• Information spaces are NOT tailored to the needs of the users
• The WWW-- Click until you drop
• World-Wide Wait-- Wait until you drop
• HTML for everything. NOT!

• Why don't we like to read books on the Web?
• Needed: User-centric approaches
• We need to understand better how humans interact with information
• We need to understand better the media of computers and the WWW
• Once we understand HII better, we will be able to develop more effective info interfaces and deal better with information
• We need to break loose of traditional metaphors (e.g., the library) while using them when appropriate
• A good HCI (Human Computer Interaction) is a must. But, it is not enough...

If you are attending the conference and would like to join in a session like this, or have just happened by and have some interest in the subject, please contact me by e-mail at gershon@mitre.org.