Paul De Bra (1999), identifies a number of issues
related to adoptive web site design including “the separation of a
conceptual representation of an application domain from the content
of the actual Web-site, the separation of content from adaptation
issues, the structure and granularity of user models, the role of a
user and application context” Paul De Bra (1999). This essay will
discuss separation of conceptual representation and the role of the
user in the application context more than ten years after publication
of the original article.
Modern web application development frameworks such as
.NET, Spring Framework, JavaServer Faces, Apache Orchestra, Grails
and Struts offer clear separation between application representation
and the content. The separation is achieved by implementation of
Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture where “Model” layer is
responsible for storing and managing access to relevant pieces of
data, “View” layer is responsible for rendering and layout of the
data, and “Controller” layer is responsible for interaction with
the end user (i.e. Internet browser). No more the entire content has
to be “stored” statically in the HTML page, but generated
dynamically based on input received from the user. Moreover, HTML5
Web Storage API greatly increase the storage capacity (compared to
HTML session cookies) which allows web application to store
structured data on a client side (WHATWG, 2011). This could further
facilitate user centric web site design such as storage of user
preferences, data catch, etc.
On the other hand, when discussion “the role
of a user and application context” Paul De Bra (1999), the
methodology and the technology is not as mature. Qiuyuan Jimmy Li
ties the issue to the organization of the web application structure
and notes that majority of web sites do not adapt the content to the
individual user. Instead, the web server “provides the same content
that has been created beforehand to everyone who visits the site”
(Qiuyuan Jimmy Li, 2007). Instead, he suggest a framework which
accounts for users' cognitive style and adopts information content
for each individual user. Justin Brickell at. al. (2006) takes a
slightly different approach and instead suggest mining site access
longs to identify access patterns and user behavior such as
scrolling, time spent on each page, etc. The collected information
could be used for shortcutting - “process of providing links
to users’ eventual goals while skipping over the in-between pages”
(Brickell at. al., 2006).
In addition, it is important to highlight the security and privacy issues when discussing adaptive web-site design. In order for a web application to provide customized content, it (web application) requires to acquire or collect personal data about individual user and users' behavior patterns. For example, Google Gmail uses automated scanning and filtering technology to “show relevant ads” (Google, 2011). This could be considered by some individuals as intrusion into privacy, especially if the processed message contains sensitive information such as health records or financial information.
Bibliography
- Google, 2011. “FAQ about Gmail, Security & Privacy” [online]. Available from: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1304609 (accessed: October 22, 2011).
- H.M. Deitel, P.J, Deitel and A.B. Goldber, 2004. “Internet & World Wide Web How to Program”. 3Rd Edition. Pearson Education Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
- Justin Brickell, Inderjit S. Dhillon and
Dharmendra S. Modha, 2006.“Adaptive
Website Design using Caching Algorithms”
[online]. Available from:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.155.5537&rep=rep1&type=pdf
(accessed: October 22, 2011).
- Paul De Bra, 1999. “Design Issues in Adaptive Web-Site Development” [online]. Available from: http://wwwis.win.tue.nl/~debra//asum99/debra/debra.html (accessed: October 22, 2011).
- Qiuyuan Jimmy Li, 2007. “Design and Implementation of a User-Adaptive Website with Information Pallets” [online]. Available from: http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/45636/367589980.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed: October 22, 2011).
- WHATWG, 2011. “HTML – Web Storage” [online]. Available from: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/webstorage.html#webstorage (accessed: October 22, 2011).
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