Full Seminar Details
Tom Heath
KMi, The Open University
This event took place on Thursday 17 March 2005 at 12:30
The web provides a platform for users to perform many varied tasks; finding information, exploring new ideas, and communicating with others are just a few examples. However, not all tasks that users perform (or wish to perform) on the web are well supported by current tools and technologies. Interaction with web resources tends to be dominated by searching and browsing, and attempts to understand user actions on the web have focused mainly on these modes. Furthermore, the tools that support these modes, such as web browsers and search engines often take little account of the user, and the contexts in which they exist.
In this seminar I will briefly introduce scenarios of tasks performed online using current tools. These scenarios will be considered in the light of existing taxonomies of online actions, and I will introduce a new classification of the tasks people perform on the web. A case will be made that tools should take greater account of a user?s context if they are to aid task performance, and I will outline my proposals for task-focused Semantic Web tools that draw on a user?s social context.
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