Context is the Next Web Frontier
Context is the next web frontier. What do I really mean by that? Context? I’d say a context aware web application (or web solution) is one which knows a little about me and where I am. For example, on a very simple level, context aware email might be smart enough to only deliver unsafe messages in my home environment without my intervention as a user. Not because I told it to but because it knows enough to make that decision for itself. A context aware solution might know that I used to live in North Hobart, that I’m currently walking down Elizabeth Street, and that its a weekend. An email application that also knew I was over the legal alcohol limit might even screen work emails intelligently rather than have a faux pas on a client’s email system first thing Monday morning. Imagine a future where the web was a lot more interesting than a bunch of silo web sites, information pools and social networks. Imagine an almost intelligent web.
The seeds of that context revolves around the questions we’re now asking in web development that we’ve been unlikely to ask in the past. Luke Wroblewski’s article on UX Matters about International Address Fields in Web Forms is interesting for the way it highlights the context of geographical location when users enter shipping or address information. How does the form appear to the user? How does the database deal with the various anomolies and differences? And, in the longer term, how do we move as much of this as possible into a transparent layer that does not push the user to think and deal with the decision? How do we, as designers, appreciate the context in a user’s experience?
In ambient environments we’re looking at another interesting question. Hey, what if our office knew we were in our office and our bedroom was totally aware of our monitored presence, the current room temperature, if we were awake, and so forth. This is very much like the fridge that orders your milk for delivery in the morning, and Ken Sakamura’s ambient evironment Toyota Dream House PAPI. If you think ambient environments are fictious there’s about 40 computers in your modern car, transparently invisible, and the trick is in making them transparent. Small reasonably dumb devices with a networked purpose. So, anyway, that’s not a far fetched 20 year’s time scenario. Ambient environment + web solutions requiring context = an awesome potential web experience.
OK that all seems pretty far fetched to some people who think of the future web as a static bunch of web sites and MySpace, so let’s go back to just looking at context aware interfaces. How about geo-locational context? Cultural and language context? Education and literacy level context? Whether or not you have impairments? How much better your experience on the web would be if only there were a way to take in and transparently incorporate the user’s context. What if we could use an ambient external environment to enhance the web experience? It’s one of the most exciting things about the world’s largest distributed network of computers - it’s potential. A web which might allow applications to freely interconnect with other applications, where search can be less about brute force and more about semantic meaning. A web where people are only a small part of the equation and experience.
We’re currently addressing context in little ways with improved methodologies to web development. So context already affects us; we’re chipping away at the fringes of that problem space, and more and more our efforts have come back to improving user experience through understanding the user’s situation. Context includes the size and resolution of your monitor, the architecture and capabilities of your mobile device, and practically anything else that could affect, or be used to enhance, the user experience.
Just as the web is currently about information retrieval, storage and social networks - it will become more about context. Who I am in that world becomes ultimately the most important relationship in an online shopping transaction or a visit to the local council. Ambitious? Yes for sure. But if we settle for less then it will be like accepting the Model T Ford for a lifetime and generations to come. To realise this future the Semantic Web and appropriate web standards need to be there to help computers talk to computers (machine-to-machine communication). Does that make any sense?
I just get so frustrated when people see the current paradigm of desktop, screen and keyboard as the future of the web. Let’s just start asking how we can make that progression to a more valuable web happen. Imagine the accessibility benefits that would come with that technical progression. Imagine the web’s potential. [rant concluded and back to work]
August 18th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
[...] agents? And, for that matter, what about the Semantic Web? I’ve been known to bring this line of thought into conversations about context, to the chagrin and forehead slapping of other [...]