Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Web sites'

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2004.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Ministry of Information of Eritrea is basically aimed at providing the society with news, information, education and entertainment. In addition to its service presentation through radio, TV and printed press the Ministry of Information has taken the initiative to present its services in the digital way by publishing a website known as shabait.com. But as the technique is new to the country as well as to the organization, it is to be expected that there will be inaccuracies in the way the website was designed. Hence, evaluating and redesigning shabait.com with the goal of making it informative, attractive and easy to use will be very beneficial to the organization as well as to users of the website. This recently launched website is not very attractive and not successfully directed to its users. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to assess and find the best way of presenting information digitally to the Eritrean society, as well as to anyone interested in finding out about Eritrea through the State owned media website. This study was firstly approached by gathering previously written relevant information from books, journals, and the Internet. In addition to that interviews with concerned people in Eritrea were held to understand the aim, difficulties and challenges of the website. Subsequently the website was assessed according to the evaluation criteria developed, based on the literature review. The evaluation of the website assumed three different approaches of qualitative as well as quantitative types. A usability test with both quantitative and qualitative questions was done through a questionnaire, which was analyzed statistically. A competitive analysis, of qualitative type with two international websites was also made. In order to create a good quality website, it is essential to have clearly specified goals, policies and strategies, and adequate advanced human as well as technological resources, so that it will be easy to overcome the common challenges such as competition, diversity of users, budget constraints, and inadequacy of policy instruments. The findings of the evaluation of shabait.com indicate that the website is not attractive, is user unfriendly, of low content quality as well as with low download speed and, more importantly, was not advertised well. Therefore, shabait.com is not fit to be considered as a sole first hand information provider website for the Eritrean society as well as for anybody who is concerned about Eritrea. At the end of the study recommendations of how the website can be modified to be successful are listed.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doelwit van die Ministerie van Inligting van Eritrea is om nuus, inligting, opvoeding en vermaak aan die gemeenskap te verskaf. Bykomend tot die radio, TV en die gedrukte media, het die Ministerie van Inligting nou ook besluit om 'n digitale diens te lewer deur middel van 'n webwerf bekend as shabait.com. Aangesien die betrokke tegnieke vir die land sowel as vir die organisasie iets nuuts is, kan daar verwag word dat die ontwerp van die webwerf onakkuraathede sal toon. Dus moet shabait.com evalueer en verbeter word om dit sodoende aantreklik en gebruikersvriendelik te maak; dit sal tot die voordeel strek van die organisasie so wel as die gebruikers. Hierdie jong webwerf is tans nie baie aantreklik of maklik om te gebruik nie. Dus is die doelwit van hierdie studie om die beste wyses te vind om die gemeenskap van Eritrea, sowel as ander belangstellendes, deur middel van 'n webwerf wat deur die staat beheer word, digitaal van inligting te bedien. Relevante geskrewe inligting is bekom deur middel van boeke, joernale en die Internet. Daar is ook onderhoude gevoer met mense betrokke by shabait.com om sodoende die doelwitte, probleme en uitdagings van die webwerf beter te verstaan. Daarna is die webwerf evalueer volgens ontwikkelde kriteria gebaseer op die literatuuroorsig. Vir die evaluasie is drie benaderings gebruik, beide kwalitatief en kwantitatief. 'n Bruikbaarheidstoets is deur middel van 'n vraelys gedoen met kwalitatiewe sowel as kwantitatiewe vrae en die antwoorde is statisties ontleed. Twee internasionale webwerwe is ook ontleed sodat hulle gehalte met dié van shabait.com vergelyk kon word. Om 'n webwerf van goeie gehalte te ontwerp, is dit noodsaaklik om duidelik omskrewe doelwitte, beleide en stategië, asook genoegsaam opgeleide mense en gevorderde tegnologiese hulpbronne te hê sodat die uitdagings soos kompetisie, verskeidenheid van gebruikers, begrotingsbeperkings en swak beleidsinstrumente oorkom kan word. Die bevindinge van die evaluasie van shabait.com toon dat die webwerf onaantreklik en gebruikersonvriendelik is, die inhoud is van swak gehalte, die aflaai spoed is laag en en die werf is nie goed adverteer nie. Daarom is die werf nie geskik om beskou te word as die enigste eerstehandse inligtingsverskaffer webwerf vir die gemeenskap van Eritrea sowel as ander belangstellendes nie. Aan die einde van die studie is daar aanbevelings vir die verbetering van die webwerf.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A multitude of factors affects the experience of the user on a specific site. Slow downloading, navigational difficulties and complex designs all play a role in destroying what could be an enjoyable experience to the user. Usability exists when the design of the system matches what the intended end users need and want. Most Web site designers agree that great design essentially has the user as its priority. Companies tend to forget that the user's hand is on the mouse. The most successful Web sites are those that not only respond to user feedback, but actively seek it out. We have to realise that the cost of flipping to another Web site is so low, it doesn't make any sense for people to go back to a site that failed them the first time. Most Web sites fail miserably at their prime directive: usability. The best way to run a user test is one-on-one, writes Fleming (1998:1). You don't need a large quantity of users for the tests to be effective. The costs in user testing are often exaggerated and there is no excuse for not performing some sort of user test on your Web site. When a page comes up Jakob Nielsen says, people look only one place, in the middle, at the content. (Head, 1999:2) If a page does not appear relevant to the user's current goals, then the user will ruthlessly click the Back button after as little as two to three seconds. Users rarely look at logos, mission statements, slogans, or any other elements they consider fluff. Usability is practically guaranteed if you have a solid information architecture at the outset. Make sure information is not more than two clicks away from the homepage. (Radosevich, 1997:3) According to the GVU7 survey, speed is the number one complaint of Web users (76,5 %). (Hamilton, 1997:1) Since users need web pages to load quickly, you should make your image files small. Try to limit the size of individual images to 5k, and try to limit the total size of all the images on any single page to 20k. Generally, a user with a 28.8 modem should have a sense of the page content or be able to navigate off the page within 10 seconds of download. The rest of the page should load within the next 30 seconds. Any site needs a good search feature since even the best navigation support will never be enough. (Nielsen, 1996a: 1) A search function should be provided if the site has more than 100 pages. Even if you haven't created perfect navigation, at least be consistent. (Berst, 1998: 1) The Back button is the lifeline of the Web user and the second-most used navigation feature (after following hypertext links). People rarely read web pages word by word - they scan pages to find the information they want. Make the text scannable with bulleted lists, highlighted keywords, meaningful headings, and short sections of text. The essential purpose of graphics, especially animated graphics, is to set the tone and communicate the company's personality in a unique and fun way. (Heath, 1997:1)
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: 'n Menigte faktore beïnvloed die gebruiker se ondervinding van 'n spesifieke Webblad. Aflaai spoed, navigasie en komplekse bladontwerp kan almal 'n gebruiker se belewenis van 'n Webblad verongeluk. Bruikbaarheid (Usability) bestaan wanneer die ontwerp van die sisteem voldoen aan die behoeftes van die eindgebruiker. Web ontwerpers het dit eens dat goeie ontwerp die gebruiker se behoeftes as prioriteit sien. Maatskappye vergeet dikwels dat die gebruiker se hand die muis beheer. Die mees suksesvolle Webblaaie is nie net die wat reageer op verbruiker terugvoer nie maar dit selfs aanmoedig. Ons moet verstaan dat dit so maklik is om na 'n volgende Webblad te spring dat dit nie sin maak om terug te keer na 'n Webblad wat jou eenkeer in die steek gelaat het nie. Die meeste Webblaaie misluk tragies in hul poging tot bruikbaarheid. Die beste gebruikerstoets metode is een-tot-een, skryf Heming (1998: 1) Die toets lewer betekenisvolle resultate selfs met enkele gebruikers. Nielsen sê gebruikers stel deesdae net in inligting belang. Indien inligting irrelevant voorkom sal die gebruiker nie skroom om die "Back" sleutel te gebruik nie. Gebruikers kyk selde na logos, missie stellings en slagspreuke en beskou dit as onbenullighede. Maak seker dat inligting nie meer as twee klikke vanaf die tuisblad is me. (Radosevich, 1997:3) Die GVU7 studie het bevestig dat aflaaispoed die gebruikers se grootste beswaar is.(Hamilton, 1997: 1) Enige Webblad benodig 'n goeie soek ("search") funksie veral as die Webwerf meer as 100 bladsye het. Die "back" sleutel is die reddingslyn van die gebruiker en die tweede mees gebruikte sleutel op navigasiestelsel. Gebruikers lees selde woord vir woord wat voor hulle staan, maar skandeer eerder 'n blad. Hou dus teks kort, met kort sinsnedes en kort kragtige begrippe. Grafieke se hoofdoel is om Webblad atmosfeer op unieke wyse te skep.(Heath,1997:1)

Web Usage Mining (WUM) can be used to determine whether the information architecture of a web site is structured correctly. Existing WUM tools however, do not indicate which web usage mining algorithms are used or provide effective graphical visualisations of the results obtained. WUM techniques can be used to determine typical navigation patterns of the users of organisational web sites. An organisational web site can be described as a site which has a high level of content. The Computer Science & Information Systems (CS&IS) web site at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) is an example of such a web site. The process of combining WUM and information visualisation techniques in order to discover useful information about web usage patterns is called visual web mining. The goal of this research is to discuss the development of a WUM model and a prototype, called WebPatterns, which allows the user to effectively visualise web usage patterns of an organisational web site. This will facilitate determining whether the information architecture of the CS&IS web site is structured correctly. The WUM algorithms used in WebPatterns are association rule mining and sequence analysis. The purpose of association rule mining is to discover relationships between different web pages within a web site. Sequence analysis is used to determine the longest time ordered paths that satisfy a user specified minimum frequency. A radial tree layout is used in WebPatterns to visualise the static structure of the organisational web site. The structure of the web site is laid out radially, with the home page in the middle and other pages positioned in circles at various levels around it. Colour and other visual cues are used to show the results of the WUM algorithms. User testing was used to determine the effectiveness and usefulness of WebPatterns for visualising web usage patterns. The results of the user testing clearly show that the participants were highly satisfied with the visual design and information provided by WebPatterns. All the participants also indicated that they would like to use WebPatterns in the future. Analysis of the web usage patterns presented by WebPatterns was used to determine that the information architecture of the CS&IS web site can be restructured to better facilitate information retrieval. Changes to the CS&IS web site web were suggested, included placing embedded hyperlinks on the home page to the frequently accessed sections of the web site.

The purpose of this project was to develop an easy-to-maintain web site for the Gamma Lambda Chapter of Phi Beta Delta International Honor Society here at California State University, San Bernardino, which will manage complete and up-to-date information about the mission, members, officers and all the activities of the honor society.

Mémoire de master en sciences de l'information et des bibliothèques : services documentaires numériques : Villeurbanne, ENSSIB : 2007.
Texte intégral. Résumé en français et en anglais. PEEP : Parents d'élèves de l'école publique. Bibliogr. f. 45. Sitographie : 45-46.

This project, WebAppDesigner, combines a "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSISYG) web page designer, database table designer, query tool, and an automatic deployment process into a single easy to use solution for small businesses and individuals.

This study describes the arrangement of four English department web sites. Arrangement is developed as an originally rhetorical, but now interdisciplinary, concept that is particularly relevant to web sites. For the purposes of the descriptions, this concept is broken into three aspects: how the home page of a site labels and lists links to other pages within the site, how the pages of the site are linked in respect to one another, and how visual elements indicate the structure of a site. Screen captures facilitate the descriptions. The sites are critiqued, and the findings are used to make suggestions for Ball State's English department web site and for English department sites generally.
Department of English

Aujourd’hui, nombreux sont les institutions culturelles et les artistes qui ont privilégié les nouvelles technologies et notamment le web afin de vulgariser leurs œuvres d’art. Ce réseau offre à la fois, un nouvel espace évolutif pour la diffusion et l’exposition de l’art et de nouveaux potentiels de production et de représentation interactive de ce dernier. L’émergence des sites web culturels, artistiques, nécessite de la prudence et de la réflexion sur les manières à travers lesquelles les œuvres d’art sont véhiculées par ce réseau, en perpétuelle évolution. C’est dans ce contexte que se situe notre travail de recherche. Notre objectif est d’étudier les usages qui ont été faits de l’outil web afin de proposer un modèle innovant et interactif, représentant des œuvres d’art originales en ligne. Un modèle qui tend à renforcer la relation du visiteur autant avec l’œuvre, que l’institution (la galerie pour notre cas) ainsi qu’avec l’artiste. À cet effet, il sera exposé dans ce travail, les moyens essentiels pour un concepteur-graphique afin de créer un site artistique original et efficient, répondant aux besoins d’efficacité esthétiques interactifs, ainsi que de la communication.

Cette recherche analyse la construction sociale du web par des organisations professionnnelles françaises (22 associations, 8 institutions et 63 entreprises). A travers la création et la gestion des sites web, nous questionnons l'adoption des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) par les organisations. Les sites web constituent un point d'entrée pour étudier les rôles d'intermédiations des TIC au sein des organisations, d'autant plus que ces dernières sont fréquemment couplées et disponibles sur une même interface. L'utilisation conjointe de ces TIC supporte la co-construction des activités des organisations selon principalememt cinq axes : la coordination, la coopération, le travail, la diffusion d'information et la commercialisation. L'analyse des différents types d'hyperliens et du réseau de leur entrelacs met en valuer la formation de groupes selon des principes de mimétismes et de discriminations. Nous avons également développé une réflexion sur les différentes formes de l'échange qui entourent la création des hyperliens. Sur cet espace, où la coopération et différentes formes du don occupent une place essentielle, nous avons souligné la co-existence et la combinaision de différentes formes de transactions. L'étude du web selon cette approche nous permet de mieux cerner les logiques qui sous-tendent la construction de cet espace et des mondes qui en découlent. L'hyperlien nous a servi de révélateur des échanges inter-organisationnels où, la présence d'un hyperlien sur un site n'est pas le fruit du hasard mais est, au contraire, porteuse de sens et témoin d'une relation tout comme de processus décisionnels
This research analyzes the web social construction by French professionnal organizations (22 associations, 8 institutions and 63 companies). Through the creation and the management of web sites, we talk about the adoption of information technologies and communication (ITC) by organizations. We consider the web sites as an entry to study the roles of the ITC intermediations within organizations, especially since these technologies are frequently coupled and available on the same interface. The joint use of these ITC supports the co-construction of the activities of organizations according to mainly five axes : coordination, cooperation, work, broadcasting of information and trade. Analysis of the various types of hyperlinks and the network of their interlacing emphasizes the formation of groups according to principles of imitations and discriminations. We also developed a reflection on the various forms of exchange which surround the creation of the hyperlinks. On this space, where the cooperation and the various forms of the gift occupy an essential place, we underlined the coexistence and the combination of various transactions forms. This study of the web allows us to understand better the logics which underlies the construction of this space

De nombreuses études montrent que les sites web sont souvent jugés difficiles d'accès et l'utilisation par les internautes-utilisateurs. En revanche, peu de travaux s'intéressent au fonctionnement cognitif des concepteurs de sites web. Or, nous défendons l'idée qu'étudier l'activité des concepteurs des sites et identifier les difficultés qu'ils rencontrent est indispensable à l'amélioration ergonomique de ces sites, en proposant notamment des aides aux concepteurs. Afin de contribuer à cette thématique, trois études expérimentales ont été conduites auprès de concepteurs de sites web. Nous avons étudié le rôle du niveau d'expertise des concepteurs et du contexte de la tâche à effectuersur la prise en compte orale et le respect, dans les maquettes réalisées, de contraintes liées au commanditaire et de contraintes liées à l'utilisateur. Dans le cadre de ces trois études expérimentales, nous avons fait varier le nombre et la nature des contraintes dans le cahier des charges attribué aux concepteurs. Les résultats montrent que les concepteurs expérimentés prennent en compte plus de contraintes que les novices. Plus précisément, on observe un effet du contexte de la tâche à effectuer sur les contraintes prises en compte. Dans un contexte d'évaluation, les concepteurs se focalisent principalement sur des contraintes liées à l'utilisateur, bien qu'ils n'identifient finalement peu de problèmes ergonomiques, présents dans la maquette à évaluer. Alors que dans un contexte de conception, on observe des différences dues au niveau d'expertise et au type de cahier de charges à satisfaire. En effet, lorsque le cahier des charges comporte seulement des contraintes liées au commanditaire ou ne comporte aucune contrainte, tous les concepteurs, y compris les novices, se focalisent dans leur maquette sur le respect des contraintes liées au commanditaire, au détriment des contraintes liées à l'utilisateur, qu'ils ont prises en compte oralement. [. . . ]

Orientador: Gilberto dos Santos Prado
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes
Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-27T22:20:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Colombo_ClaudiaBertoldo_M.pdf: 5519845 bytes, checksum: e4601e775a0258c1e29906156156f4d1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2001
Resumo: No contexto da World Wide Web, cada Web site publicado traz consigo uma preocupação com a maneira pela qual será utilizado pelo usuário. Por menor e menos planejado que tenha sido,terá existido um responsável por oferecer caminhos de acesso à informação apresentada. Essa preocupação norteia todo o processo de criação do site e, ao final,estará diluida, permanecendo transparente aos olhos do visitante. Este trabalho pretende pesquisar e refletir sobre como a utilização consciente dos recursos disponíveis, a estruturação da informação e a clara organização do conteúdo, os mecanismos de navegação lógicos e concisos e uma interface transparente e intuitiva facilitam a utilizaçãode um Web site por parte do usuário. Como meio de verificação da aplicabilidade dos conceitos investigados,foi concebido e realizado um Web site corporativo, na forma de estudo de caso, representando a parte prática deste trabalho
Abstract: In the World Wide Web context, each published Web site has an inherent preocupation with the way in which it will be manipulated by the user. Independent of the Web site size and project, there was someone responsible to offer ways for accessing the information presented. This preocupation guides ali the process of a Web site design and at the end it will be dissolved, be coming invisible to the user. This work intends to research and to consider about how the conscient utilization of the available resources, the information structure and clear content organization, the logicand concise navigation systems and the use of a transparent and intuitive interface can result in a better use of the Web site by the user. In order to verify the aplicability of the investigated concepts, a corporative Web site was developed bya practical project based in a case study
Mestrado
Mestre em Multimeios

The online software dealer store project of the Electronic Software Dealer (ESD) had a problem of low sales volume, and the problem was attributed to several design problems. Literature indicated that web page design might affect the performance of a commercial web site; however, how the design factors influenced the success of the web site was unknown. To bridge this knowledge gap, a case study research method was used with a methodology that adopted the techniques of Helmstetter (1997), the web guidelines of Dellino (1996), Heller and Rivers (1996), and the Object-Action Model (OAl) of Shneiderman (1997) to analyze the research problem. In order to achieve the objectives, the researcher also analyzed the business models and design success-factors of Dow Jones & Company's Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition (WSJIE) site. In addition to the analysis, the researcher reviewed the literature related to commercial web site projects, interviewed the programmer involved in the ESD project, evaluated the design of ESD's online software store, and designed a prototype for the suggested solution. Results showed that the traditional system development life cycle (SDLC) still plays an important role in commercial web projects, and emphasis on planning, analysis, and the maintenance stages safeguards a more successful implementation of the project. Additionally, a design focusing on business models, marketing niches, and users ensures repeat visits and secures a more financial success to the commercial web site. This study focused on the design success-factors of commercial web sites, and did not cover issues of security and performance of the Web server.

Notre travail vise à étudier cet objet substantiel de l'univers du Web : le site web. Notre approche consiste en une analyse des contenus des sites web du point de vue de leur forme matérielle et des médiations complexes qui émergent entre les usagers, le support et les diffuseurs des contenus. Le contenu de la thèse s'articule autour des axes suivants : une interrogation sur la nature de l'objet "site-web" dans sa relation avec les partenaires de la communication ; une observation et analyse des transformations dans les conditions de la production du sens induites par le web ; une observation de l'expression et la transformation des positions institutionnelles et des médiations par rapport à la production web. Nous examinons ici les mécanismes de métaphore qui émergent entre les stratégies des concepteurs, les pratiques des usagers et les propriétés du support
Our work aims at studying websites as the substantial objects of the Web universe. Our approach yields from an analysis of websites contents, from the point of view of their material form and of the complex mediations that emerge among users, the medium and content publishers. The thesis is articulated along the following axes : questioning the nature of the « website object » in its relation to the communication partners ; observation and analysis of the transformations induced by the Web to the conditions of sense production ; observation of the way the transformations of institutional positions and of mediations with respect to the Web productions are expressed. In particular, we investigate the metaphor-based mechanisms that arise involving website designers' strategies, users' practices and medium proprieties

La qualité ergonomique d'un site web représente un important facteur de succès de celui-ci auprès des utilisateurs. L'évaluation de la qualité ergonomique constitue un processus à part entière, pouvant intervenir à plusieurs étapes du cycle de vie des sites web. Cependant, il est préférable d'intégrer au plus tôt l'évaluation dans le cycle de développement, afin de centrer la conception du site sur l'utilisateur, de réduire les coûts d'analyse, de conception et de développement. Bien qu'il existe beaucoup de méthodes et d'outils d'évaluation de l'utilisabilité, spécifiques ou non aux sites web, leur pratique n'est pas répandue chez les concepteurs. La méconnaissance des méthodes et outils d'évaluation, et plus particulièrement leur apport au cours du développement de l'interface, fondent la problématique de cette recherche doctorale. Celle-ci propose un logiciel d'aide à l'évaluation de la qualité ergonomique de sites web, par l'organisation et la diffusion de connaissances utiles à l'évaluateur. Une première étape de validation externe du logiciel a été menée, auprès de concepteurs de sites web, novices et expérimentés.

Thesis (Ph.D) - Swinburne University of Technology, Faculty of Information & Communication Technologies, 2006.
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. Typescript. Bibliography p. 217-233.

Thesis (M.S.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 1999.
Thesis advisor: Susan G. Vial. "...in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science [in Art]." Includes bibliographical references (leaf 12).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-125).
Sometimes Web sites fail in the worst ways. They can reveal private data that can never be retracted [60, 72, 78, 79]. Or they can succumb to vandalism, and subsequently show corrupt data to users [27]. Blame can fall on the off-the-shelf software that runs the site (e.g., the operating system, the application libraries, the Web server, etc.), but more frequently (as in the above references), the custom application code is the guilty party. Unfortunately, the custom code behind many Web sites is difficult to secure and audit, due to large and rapidly-changing trusted computing bases (TCBs). A promising approach to reducing TCBs for Web sites is decentralized information flow control (DIFC) [21, 69, 113]. DIFC allows the split of a Web application into two types of components: those inside the TCB (trusted), and those without (untrusted). The untrusted components are large, change frequently, and do most of the computation. Even if buggy, they cannot move data contrary to security policy. Trusted components are much smaller, and configure the Web site's security policies. They need only change when the policy changes, and not when new features are introduced. Bugs in the trusted code can lead to compromise, but the trusted code is smaller and therefore easier to audit. The drawback of DIFC, up to now, is that the approach requires a major shift in how programmers develop applications and thus remains inaccessible to programmers using today's proven programming abstractions. This thesis proposes a new DIFC system, Flume, that brings DIFC controls to the operating systems and programming languages in wide use today. Its key contributions are: (1) a simplified DIFC model with provable security guarantees; (2) a new primitive called endpoints that bridges the gap between the Flume DIFC model and standard operating systems interfaces; (3) an implementation at user-level on Linux; and (4) success in securing a popular preexisting Web application (MoinMoin Wiki).
by Maxwell Norman Krohn.
Ph.D.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2002.
Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 77 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-58).

Les services web gagnent de l'importance en tant que cadre facilitant l'intégration d'applications au sein et en dehors des frontières des entreprises. Il est accepté que la description d'un service ne devrait pas seulement inclure l'interface, mais aussi le protocole métier supporté par le service. Dans le cadre de ce travail, nous avons formalisé la catégorie des protocoles incluant des contraintes de temps (appelés protocoles temporisés) et étudié l'impact du temps sur l'analyse de compatibilité et de remplaçabilité. Nous avons formalisé les contraintes suivantes : les contraintes Clnvoke définissent des fenêtres de disponibilités tandis que les contraintes Mlnvoke définissent des délais d'expiration. Nous avons étendu les techniques pour l'analyse de compatibilité et de remplaçabilité entre protocoles temporisés à l'aide d'un mapping préservant la sémantique entre les protocoles temporisés et les automates temporisés, ce qui a défini la classe des automates temporisés de protocoles (PTA). Les PTA possèdent des transitions silencieuses qui ne peuvent pas être supprimées en général, et pourtant ils sont fermés par calcul du complément, ce qui rend décidable les différents types d'analyse de compatibilité et de remplaçabilité. Enfin, nous avons mis en oeuvre notre approche dans le cadre du projet ServiceMosaic, une plate-forme pour la gestion du cycle de vie des services web

The use of mobile devices to access the World Wide Web is becoming more prevalent. When browsing webpages on small-screen devices, it is difficult to locate information of interest since the limited screen space can be fully packed with information. Also, browsing Web tables on small-screen devices is a non-trivial problem. To fit a large table in a small-screen device, the association between data values and their corresponding headers may be disrupted. It is difficult to locate information accurately if the data meanings are lost. For visually impaired users, the problem is even more challenging. Sequential presentation of the webpage by a screen reader is too time-consuming if the information of interest is placed at or near the end of the webpage. Therefore, there is a need to re-organize useful information in webpages in order to enhance information finding on small-screen devices. In this thesis, various adaptations are proposed by exploring and exploiting relationships between Web elements in the webpage. In the current literature, some proposed heuristics are based on specific HTML elements, which cannot be generalized. Some other algorithms assume a correct DOM structure, which would fail if the webpage is not properly marked up. Many algorithms extract blocks without assigning them the proper titles. A gap needs to be filled, such that extracted blocks will be given a proper title through exploring the relationships between semantic elements. In this thesis, I propose to integrate relationship analysis and DOM-tree structure traversal for identifying logical sections together with their section headings. By extracting all the section headings, a table of content can be constructed to provide direct access to interested sections in an efficient way. Relationship analysis is a critical complement to the DOM structure for identifying the semantic content hierarchy when a webpage is not properly marked up. By exploring relationships between table cells, the structure of an unstructured Web table can be extracted. The semantic meanings of the data values are retained by preserving the data values and their corresponding headers. A novel way of accessing a webpage, which converts the page itself and its Web table into menu-based presentation, is then proposed. Converting the webpage into an Interactive Voice Response System introduces yet another mode of access which can enhance the accessibility of the webpage. In addition to improving mobile accessibility, the proposed adaptations can also benefit the visually impaired users. Experiments show that the average effectiveness and efficiency of adaptation with direct access are improved by 18% and 15% respectively, which are clearly better than the case without adaptation. Also, by adapting the Web table into a series of menu pages, the effectiveness and efficiency are improved by 61% and 37% respectively. For the evaluations with visually impaired users, the adaptation with direct access can greatly improve efficiency by 85%. Some complicated Web tables in fact could not be properly interpreted by visually impaired users; the Web table adaptation makes them accessible. Information finding indeed becomes more efficient and effective when using the adapted versions.
published_or_final_version
Computer Science
Doctoral
Doctor of Philosophy

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Comunicação, Programa de Pós- Graduação em Comunicação, 2013.
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Este trabalho analisa a migração dos telejornais produzidos pelas redes brasileiras de televisão aberta para a web, com o objetivo de investigar possíveis reconfigurações do telejornalismo para o webtelejornalismo. O webtelejornalismo é compreendido como o telejornalismo divulgado na web. O objeto de análise são quatro sites de telejornais produzidos por três das principais redes de televisão do País. Analisa-se o novo cenário de produção e divulgação da informação jornalística audiovisual, em que os telejornais migraram seus conteúdos para o ciberespaço em busca de expandir seu território de enunciação e público. Para tanto, propõem-se cinco categorias de análise: O virtual contém o “ao vivo”, O cibermeio emerge de programa televisivo, A linguagem multimídia contém a linguagem audiovisual, Da emissão de mão única à interatividade na conexão e, por fim, Negócio em expansão. Entre os aspectos relevantes demonstrados pela análise destacam-se: o transbordamento da informação jornalística audiovisual e a expansão da reportagem e da linguagem audiovisual. ______________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT
This study examines the migration of newscasts produced by brazilian broadcast television networks to the web, in order to investigate the reconfiguration of broadcast journalism for web television journalism. The web television journalism is understood as the television news published on the web. The analisys object are four newcasts sites produced by three major television networks in the country. The new audiovisual journalistic information production and dissemination scene is analised, in which the newscasts migrated its contents to the cyberspace seeking to expand it's territory of enunciation and public. To this end, five categories of analysis are proposed: The virtual contains live broadcast, Website emerges from television show, Multimedia language contains an audio-visual language, The TV's one-way emission to the connection's interactivity, and finally Expanding business. Among the relevant aspects showed by the analysis, these ones stand out: the journalistic audio-visual information flooding and the audio-visual language and stories expansions.

We have in this thesis continued the work started in our project, i.e. to explore the practical and economic feasibility of assessing the scalability of a read-intensive large-scale Internet site. To do this we have installed the main components in a news site using open source software. This scalability exploration has been driven by the scaling scenario of increased article size. We have managed to assess the scalability of our system in a good way, but it has been more time consuming and knowledge demanding than expected. This means that the feasibility of such a study is lesser than we expected, but if the experiences and the method of this thesis are applied, such a study should be more feasible. We have assessed the scalability of a general web architecture, and this means that our approach can be applied to all read-intensive web sites and not just the one looked at in the cite{prosjekt}. This general focus is one of the strengths with this thesis. One of the objectives in our thesis was to make a resource function workbench (RFW) that is a framework which aids in the measuring and data interpretation. We feel that our RFW is one of the most important outcomes from this thesis, because it should be easy to reuse, thus saving time for future projects and making the feasibility of such a study higher. One of the most important is that the impact of increased article size on the throughput is bigger than expected. A small increase in article size, especially image size, leads to a clear decrease in the throughput. This reduction is larger on the small image sizes that on the large ones. This has wide implications for news sites, as many of them expect to increase the article size and still use the same system. Another major finding is that it is hard to predict the effects a scale-up of one or more components (a non-uniform scaling) will have on the throughput. This is because the throughput have different levels of dependency on the components on different image/text sizes. As we have seen the effects of the scale-up on the throughput varied between the different image sizes (a increase in throughput by 4.5 on 100 KB, but only an increase by a factor of 3.2 on image size 300 KB). In our case we have performed a non-uniform scaling, where we have increased the CPU by 2.4 and the disk by 1.1 On some image sizes and text sizes, the overall throughput was increased by a factor 10, but on others there was almost no improvement. The implications this have for web sites, is that it is hard for them to predict how system alternations will affect the overall throughput. As it is dependant on the current image and article size. It was an open question whether or not a dynamic model of the system could be constructed and solved. We have managed to construct the dynamic model, but the predictions it makes are a bit crude. However, we feel that creating a dynamic model has been very useful, and we believe it can make valuable predictions if the accuracy of the parameters are improved. This should be feasible, as our measurements should be easy to recreate. This thesis has been very demanding, because scalability requires a wide field of knowledge (statistics, hardware, software, programming, measurements etc). This has made this work very instructive, as we have gained knowledge in so many different aspects of computer science. Ideally, the thesis should have a larger time span, as the there are so many time consuming phases, which would have been interesting to spend more time on. As consequence of this short time span there are some further work which can be conducted in order to gain further valuable knowledge.

The exponential expanding of the numbers of web sites and Internet users makes WWW the most important global information resource. From information publishing and electronic commerce to entertainment and social networking, the Web allows an inexpensive and efficient access to the services provided by individuals and institutions. The basic units for distributing these services are the web sites scattered throughout the world. However, the extreme fragility of web services and content, the high competence between similar services supplied by different sites, and the wide geographic distributions of the web users drive the urgent requirement from the web managers to track and understand the usage interest of their web customers. This thesis, "X-tracking the Usage Interest on Web Sites", aims to fulfill this requirement. "X" stands two meanings: one is that the usage interest differs from various web sites, and the other is that usage interest is depicted from multi aspects: internal and external, structural and conceptual, objective and subjective. "Tracking" shows that our concentration is on locating and measuring the differences and changes among usage patterns. This thesis presents the methodologies on discovering usage interest on three kinds of web sites: the public information portal site, e-learning site that provides kinds of streaming lectures and social site that supplies the public discussions on IT issues. On different sites, we concentrate on different issues related with mining usage interest. The educational information portal sites were the first implementation scenarios on discovering usage patterns and optimizing the organization of web services. In such cases, the usage patterns are modeled as frequent page sets, navigation paths, navigation structures or graphs. However, a necessary requirement is to rebuild the individual behaviors from usage history. We give a systematic study on how to rebuild individual behaviors. Besides, this thesis shows a new strategy on building content clusters based on pair browsing retrieved from usage logs. The difference between such clusters and the original web structure displays the distance between the destinations from usage side and the expectations from design side. Moreover, we study the problem on tracking the changes of usage patterns in their life cycles. The changes are described from internal side integrating conceptual and structure features, and from external side for the physical features; and described from local side measuring the difference between two time spans, and global side showing the change tendency along the life cycle. A platform, Web-Cares, is developed to discover the usage interest, to measure the difference between usage interest and site expectation and to track the changes of usage patterns. E-learning site provides the teaching materials such as slides, recorded lecture videos and exercise sheets. We focus on discovering the learning interest on streaming lectures, such as real medias, mp4 and flash clips. Compared to the information portal site, the usage on streaming lectures encapsulates the variables such as viewing time and actions during learning processes. The learning interest is discovered in the form of answering 6 questions, which covers finding the relations between pieces of lectures and the preference among different forms of lectures. We prefer on detecting the changes of learning interest on the same course from different semesters. The differences on the content and structure between two courses leverage the changes on the learning interest. We give an algorithm on measuring the difference on learning interest integrated with similarity comparison between courses. A search engine, TASK-Moniminer, is created to help the teacher query the learning interest on their streaming lectures on tele-TASK site. Social site acts as an online community attracting web users to discuss the common topics and share their interesting information. Compared to the public information portal site and e-learning web site, the rich interactions among users and web content bring the wider range of content quality, on the other hand, provide more possibilities to express and model usage interest. We propose a framework on finding and recommending high reputation articles in a social site. We observed that the reputation is classified into global and local categories; the quality of the articles having high reputation is related with the content features. Based on these observations, our framework is implemented firstly by finding the articles having global or local reputation, and secondly clustering articles based on their content relations, and then the articles are selected and recommended from each cluster based on their reputation ranks.
Wegen des exponentiellen Ansteigens der Anzahl an Internet-Nutzern und Websites ist das WWW (World Wide Web) die wichtigste globale Informationsressource geworden. Das Web bietet verschiedene Dienste (z. B. Informationsveröffentlichung, Electronic Commerce, Entertainment oder Social Networking) zum kostengünstigen und effizienten erlaubten Zugriff an, die von Einzelpersonen und Institutionen zur Verfügung gestellt werden. Um solche Dienste anzubieten, werden weltweite, vereinzelte Websites als Basiseinheiten definiert. Aber die extreme Fragilität der Web-Services und -inhalte, die hohe Kompetenz zwischen ähnlichen Diensten für verschiedene Sites bzw. die breite geographische Verteilung der Web-Nutzer treiben einen dringenden Bedarf für Web-Manager und das Verfolgen und Verstehen der Nutzungsinteresse ihrer Web-Kunden. Die Arbeit zielt darauf ab, dass die Anforderung "X-tracking the Usage Interest on Web Sites" erfüllt wird. "X" hat zwei Bedeutungen. Die erste Bedeutung ist, dass das Nutzungsinteresse von verschiedenen Websites sich unterscheidet. Außerdem stellt die zweite Bedeutung dar, dass das Nutzungsinteresse durch verschiedene Aspekte (interne und externe, strukturelle und konzeptionelle) beschrieben wird. Tracking zeigt, dass die Änderungen zwischen Nutzungsmustern festgelegt und gemessen werden. Die Arbeit eine Methodologie dar, um das Nutzungsinteresse gekoppelt an drei Arten von Websites (Public Informationsportal-Website, E-Learning-Website und Social-Website) zu finden. Wir konzentrieren uns auf unterschiedliche Themen im Bezug auf verschieden Sites, die mit Usage-Interest-Mining eng verbunden werden. Education Informationsportal-Website ist das erste Implementierungsscenario für Web-Usage-Mining. Durch das Scenario können Nutzungsmuster gefunden und die Organisation von Web-Services optimiert werden. In solchen Fällen wird das Nutzungsmuster als häufige Pagemenge, Navigation-Wege, -Strukturen oder -Graphen modelliert. Eine notwendige Voraussetzung ist jedoch, dass man individuelle Verhaltensmuster aus dem Verlauf der Nutzung (Usage History) wieder aufbauen muss. Deshalb geben wir in dieser Arbeit eine systematische Studie zum Nachempfinden der individuellen Verhaltensweisen. Außerdem zeigt die Arbeit eine neue Strategie, dass auf Page-Paaren basierten Content-Clustering aus Nutzungssite aufgebaut werden. Der Unterschied zwischen solchen Clustern und der originalen Webstruktur ist der Abstand zwischen Zielen der Nutzungssite und Erwartungen der Designsite. Darüber hinaus erforschen wir Probleme beim Tracking der Änderungen von Nutzungsmustern in ihrem Lebenszyklus. Die Änderungen werden durch mehrere Aspekte beschrieben. Für internen Aspekt werden konzeptionelle Strukturen und Funktionen integriert. Der externe Aspekt beschreibt physische Eigenschaften. Für lokalen Aspekt wird die Differenz zwischen zwei Zeitspannen gemessen. Der globale Aspekt zeigt Tendenzen der Änderung entlang des Lebenszyklus. Eine Plattform "Web-Cares" wird entwickelt, die die Nutzungsinteressen findet, Unterschiede zwischen Nutzungsinteresse und Website messen bzw. die Änderungen von Nutzungsmustern verfolgen kann. E-Learning-Websites bieten Lernmaterialien wie z.B. Folien, erfaßte Video-Vorlesungen und Übungsblätter an. Wir konzentrieren uns auf die Erfoschung des Lerninteresses auf Streaming-Vorlesungen z.B. Real-Media, mp4 und Flash-Clips. Im Vergleich zum Informationsportal Website kapselt die Nutzung auf Streaming-Vorlesungen die Variablen wie Schauzeit und Schautätigkeiten während der Lernprozesse. Das Lerninteresse wird erfasst, wenn wir Antworten zu sechs Fragen gehandelt haben. Diese Fragen umfassen verschiedene Themen, wie Erforschung der Relation zwischen Teilen von Lehrveranstaltungen oder die Präferenz zwischen den verschiedenen Formen der Lehrveranstaltungen. Wir bevorzugen die Aufdeckung der Veränderungen des Lerninteresses anhand der gleichen Kurse aus verschiedenen Semestern. Der Differenz auf den Inhalt und die Struktur zwischen zwei Kurse beeinflusst die Änderungen auf das Lerninteresse. Ein Algorithmus misst die Differenz des Lerninteresses im Bezug auf einen Ähnlichkeitsvergleich zwischen den Kursen. Die Suchmaschine „Task-Moniminer“ wird entwickelt, dass die Lehrkräfte das Lerninteresse für ihre Streaming-Vorlesungen über das Videoportal tele-TASK abrufen können. Social Websites dienen als eine Online-Community, in den teilnehmenden Web-Benutzern die gemeinsamen Themen diskutieren und ihre interessanten Informationen miteinander teilen. Im Vergleich zur Public Informationsportal-Website und E-Learning Website bietet diese Art von Website reichhaltige Interaktionen zwischen Benutzern und Inhalten an, die die breitere Auswahl der inhaltlichen Qualität bringen. Allerdings bietet eine Social-Website mehr Möglichkeiten zur Modellierung des Nutzungsinteresses an. Wir schlagen ein Rahmensystem vor, die hohe Reputation für Artikel in eine Social-Website empfiehlt. Unsere Beobachtungen sind, dass die Reputation in globalen und lokalen Kategorien klassifiziert wird. Außerdem wird die Qualität von Artikeln mit hoher Reputation mit den Content-Funktionen in Zusammenhang stehen. Durch die folgenden Schritte wird das Rahmensystem im Bezug auf die Überwachungen implementiert. Der erste Schritt ist, dass man die Artikel mit globalen oder lokalen Reputation findet. Danach werden Artikel im Bezug auf ihre Content-Relationen in jeder Kategorie gesammelt. Zum Schluß werden die ausgewählten Artikel aus jedem basierend auf ihren Reputation-Ranking Cluster empfohlen.

This thesis investigates the visual aesthetic performance of Web sites. An experiment was conducted in which a Web site, designed with three controlled levels of 'visual enrichment', was evaluated on a number of measures by two subject groups. The measures used represent facets of the Categorical-Motivation model of aesthetics, plus others directly related to the performance of Web sites. The results of the experiment indicate that the drivers of site evaluation were primarily exploratory variables that represent 'novelty', 'interest' and 'fun'. This supports the argument that an important question to consider when designing a Web site is not merely 'can the site's audience use the Web site?', but also 'does the site's audience want to use the Web site?' Visual, audio and interactive appeal are, as the findings show, very important design considerations. This research adds to a body of knowledge that seeks to understand aesthetic phenomena and develops a theoretical framework that will prove useful for the investigation of visual interfaces.

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1996.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-42).
by Norbert J. Goetzinger, III.
M.Eng.