1. The Case for Online Interactivity Steve Hitchcock A personal view to be presented at The School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London, on June 12 th, 2003

2. How serious are online producers about interactivity? “Previous research has indicated that online newspapers have low levels of interactivity, and this study supports that finding. In fact, little has changed in 25 years. Videotex wanted to electronically push news into people's homes, and so do today's online papers. Both largely ignored the basic properties that distinguished new media. "Interactivity" has remained a buzzword” Kenney, K. et al. (2000) “Interactive Features of Online Newspapers”. First Monday http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_1/kenney/index.htmlhttp://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_1/kenney/index.html “political sites conceive of interaction in politics as akin to filling in a user survey on British Rail. Tick the box for 'could do better' and maybe the punters will be appeased.” Jenkins, T. (2001) “Where communication is king”. spiked-central http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/000000005556.htm http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/000000005556.htm

3. Some common manifestations of interactivity on the Internet Search, hypertext links, multimedia, Java applets, Javascript, blogging (Technorati), Web forms, software agents, portals, personalisation - My whatever, email, chat, instant messaging, online gaming, file sharing, peer-to-peer (Napster model), music swapping, Webcams, ‘virtual’ meetings, Macromedia Flash! E- shopping, cookies, counters (user logs), online polls Interactivity can be for for research, teaching or entertainment

4. Experienced interactivity “A journalist with little online experience tends to think in terms of stories, news value, public service and things that are good to read, but a person with a lot of online experience thinks more about connection, organization, movement within and among sets of information and communication among different people” McAdams, M. (1995) "Inventing an online newspaper“. Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century http://www.sentex.net/~mmcadams/invent.html http://www.sentex.net/~mmcadams/invent.html

5. Online interactivity is not optional Interactivity is not an optional add-on but is essential. According to Wired, when the New York Times went online in June 1995 ‘hundreds of users tried to message @times and many asked for e-mail addresses for reporters, (but) there was no one for them to talk to’, prompting (the NYT) president to say of the online version: ‘Our communication historically has been: “We print it. You read it”. This changes everything.’ From Hitchcock (1996) “Web Publishing: Speed Changes Everything”. IEEE Computer, Vol. 29, No. 8, August, 91-93

6. Defining interactivity For references see Kenney, K., et al. (2000) First Monday http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_1/kenney/index.html http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_1/kenney/index.html Heeter (1989), encompassing all new media (pre-Web), identified six dimensions of interactivity: complexity of choice available effort users must exert responsiveness to the user monitoring information use ease of adding information facilitation of interpersonal communication Ha and James (1998) studied business Web sites and postulated that interactivity has five dimensions: playfulness choice connectedness information collection reciprocal communication

7. Interactivity: added Web links In my Perspectives in Electronic Publishing (PeP) iconic links displayed beside author name and title are added by a separate linking process

8. Added links everywhere Added PeP links appear, where relevant, on any page viewed by the user in the target browser

9. Interaction in a Web archive In this case what is measured are citations of research papers, a common form of ‘interaction’ between researchers (graph produced using Citebase by the Open Citation Project http://opcit.eprints.org )http://opcit.eprints.org

10. Some common manifestations of interactivity on the Internet (reprise) Search, hypertext links, multimedia, Java applets, Javascript, blogging (Technorati), Web forms, software agents, portals, personalisation - My whatever, email, chat, instant messaging, online gaming, file sharing, peer-to-peer (Napster model), music swapping, Webcams, ‘virtual’ meetings, Macromedia Flash! E-shopping, cookies, counters (user logs), online polls

11. Annotations cause controversy Added links are a specific form of ‘annotation’. The most striking examples have been: Microsoft Smart Tags, a planned linking service in Windows Third Voice, Post-it note-style comments on Web documents There are two main points of contention with these services: Increased complexity of the user interface The appearance of interfering with a document produced by another author Most outrage is reserved for the latter, especially by authors, content producers and publishers. Smart Tags were envisaged on the scale of the Web. Indiscriminate linking on such a scale has just one motivation: advertising. Third Voice was caricatured as an unregulated forum for libel.

12. Some user reactions to PeP A majority of users found that it fulfilled its brief: discovery of new papers and faster access Where the effect of added links becomes evident, the per-user (satisfaction) score falls by almost half “comments on a 4 year old article are of little value and may, in my view, distort the debate away from issues of importance today... And raises the question of possible violation of copyrights” From http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~sh94r/Jnls-research/thesis/http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~sh94r/Jnls-research/thesis/

13. Some user reactions to Citebase “You guys need to look beyond geekdom to think about ordinary social scientists, librarians, educationists” “The citebase search page offers erroneous references” “The impact on research activity of the existence of such services is not necessarily benign, and will include things that are distinctly harmful” Overall, reactions to Citebase were good: it can be used simply and reliably for the purpose intended it compares favourably with other bibliographic services tasks can be accomplished efficiently with Citebase regardless of the background of the user From “Evaluating Citebase …” http://opcit.eprints.org/evaluation/Citebase-evaluation/evaluation-report.html

14. Does interactivity conflict with more traditional views of information content? Preservation Rights and licencing Commercial exploitation

15. What do we want to preserve? Bluebottle (aka Peter Sellers): What time is it Eccles? Eccles (aka Spike Milligan): Err, just a minute. I've got it written down on a piece of paper. A nice man wrote the time down for me this morning. Bluebottle: Ooooh, then why do you carry it around with you Eccles? Eccles: Well, um, if anybody asks me the time, I can show it to dem. Bluebottle: Wait a minute Eccles, my good man. Eccles: What is it fellow? Bluebottle: It's writted on this bit of paper, what is eight o'clock, is writted. Eccles: I know that my good fellow. That's right, um, when I asked the fella to write it down, it was eight o'clock. Bluebottle: Well then. Supposing when somebody asks you the time, it isn't eight o'clock? Eccles: Well den, I don't show it to 'em. Bluebottle: Well how do you know when it's eight o'clock? Eccles: I've got it written down on a piece of paper. Transcript from The Goons, The Mysterious Punch-Up-The-Conker, first broadcast 7th February 1957

16. Contradictions Users anticipate the empowerment of electronic access, but not the obligations that will accompany it, the need to interpret and assess works rapidly, identifying new insights and making connections, and responding within a framework that builds on that connectivity. What characterises interactivity is design, function, usability, also speed of response to user action, and this is at the root of our sense of freedom and unease with electronic media.

17. Conclusion Interactivity is essential to online content Interactivity is hard Effective interactivity will be determined by users, not by service providers, broadcasters, archivists or computer platforms Usability tests and evaluation do not always produce the results we want or expect Is the user always right? A copy of these slides can be found at http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~sh94r/hitchcock-ucltalk.ppt http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~sh94r/hitchcock-ucltalk.ppt