Interfaces for the Active Web
In its early days, the Internet was a means for transferring data between academic and military computers and communicating largely via messages. The Internet could also be, for the technological elite, a means to contact and interact with remote computers. With the explosive growth of the World Wide Web, the paradigm shifted to one of publishing; not like traditional media owned and organised by a powerful elite, but instead a decentralised and open environment. As the web has matured, static pages have given way to interactive sites that change depending on world events, that animate, that react to what we do. As access to the Internet moves out from the computer to mobile phones, television and games consoles, we are forced to constantly re-evaluate the nature of 'the web' and what it will become. Sometimes it seems that the progress of technology is outstripping our understanding of it. It is precisely because of this that more fundamental and analytic views of this dynamic topic are necessary. Only by establishing deep understanding can we hope to reapply that knowledge to a shifting world.
Our personal interest in this topic goes back many years, including database-driven web construction, while most sites were still at the 'build it now and worry later' stage! Over 2 years ago we planned a day conference together on "The Active Web". Although we knew this was an exciting topic, the level of interest still took us by surprise. The conference was held at Staffordshire University in January 1999 and the enthusiasm generated by that, lead directly to the call for this special issue. We were a little more prepared for the response this time, but still it stretched our own expectations, not to mention our list of reviewers. We particularly want to thank our reviewers -the original "one or two" papers we asked them to review stretched way beyond that in several cases. Because of the large response, we are expecting to produce a further special issue on the topic.
The change of the web from a passive 'published' medium to an interactive shared space raises both social and technological issues. It is good to see both sides of this represented within this issue.
Light and Wakeman's paper, "Beyond the Interface: User's perceptions of Interaction and Audience on Websites", addresses the question of what people feel when they interact with active web pages -who do they feel they are interacting with and why. Users are often forced to enter personal information to a very impersonal medium. Unlike a telephone or face-to-face interaction, there is little sense of reciprocity. For designers of interactive pages, at least one lesson is clear -don't expect to be able to suck information from your users without giving reason, otherwise they are likely to take the only control remaining and leave your site.