Why, What, Where, When:
Architectures for Cooperative Work on the World Wide Web

Devina Ramduny and Alan Dix

(at time of publishing: Staffordshire University)

email: alan@hcibook.com


Download full paper PDF (47K) or compressed postscript (468K)

Full reference:

D. Ramduny and A. Dix (1997).
Why, What, Where, When: Architectures for Co-operative work on the WWW.
Proceedings of HCI'97, Eds. H. Thimbleby, B. O'Connaill and P. Thomas. Bristol, UK, Springer. pp. 283-301.
http://www.hcibook.com/alan/papers/WWWW97/

URL for related work: http://www.hcibook.com/alan/topics/webarch/


Abstract

The software architecture of a cooperative user interface determines what component is placed where. This paper examines some reasons determining why a particular placement should be chosen. Temporal interface behaviour is a key issue: when users receive feedback from their own actions and feedthrough about the actions of others. In a distributed system, data and code may be moved to achieve the desired behaviour ‹ in particular, Java applets can be downloaded to give rapid local semantic feedback. Thus we must choose not only the physical location for each functional component but also when that component should reside in different places.

Keywords: software architecture, CSCW, Internet, caching, replication, applets, feedback, feedthrough, temporal problems, delays


Alan Dix 23/12/96