Context is the Next Web Frontier
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
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?
