Web Design Psychology

By Teo Wei Lin Denise

Web Design Meets Psychology

Psychology is the science of mind and behavior. It aims to understand humans better in areas such as perception, cognition, emotion and behavior. Human psychology is studied in great detail to be able to preempt how people react to different stimuli. In retail, we study people to give customers what they want and increase satisfaction; in economics, we study people to be able to predict and analyze things like national growth and employment; in art, we study people to understand about self-expression and appreciation. In web design, we also need to study people to be able to connect and engage our target audience. Web design is not just about meeting the needs of our audience; it is also about delivering an experience. With 234 million websites as of December 2009, it becomes a competitive issue to ensure that your website stands out above the rest.

From a web designer’s perspective, the good news is that not all websites are designed with their audience in mind. Many are built without considering a specific target audience. It should be the responsibility of the web designer to find out who will be eyeballing his website and making a concerted effort to understand his target audience. Web designers should first collect information and have decent knowledge about users even before picking up a pencil to conceptualize and wire frame.

This write up aims at examining aspects of human psychology that are relevant in the world of web designing and look at some ways web designers could approach this delicate job.

We will begin our exploration with the aspect of art. A huge component of web design is art – the colors, images, textures used by the designer and what emotions, thoughts and impressions are developed by the user.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder Skill

Humans are naturally attracted to things we call “beautiful”. Denis Dutton, a professor from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand specializing in the philosophy of art and aesthetics, was featured on TED for his talk on "A Darwinian Theory of Beauty” and wrote a book called The Art Instinct where he suggests that humans are hard-wired to seek beauty. Art is a need that is built into our systems, a complex and subtle evolutionary adaptation comparable to our facility for language. The origin of humans seeking beauty traces back to the fundamental human instinct to survive and hence the need to reproduce. Beauty has served as a means to draw attention from the opposite gender to ensure reproduction and survival of the species. Today, the role of beauty has evolved to also be a way of deriving happiness and esteem. Be it witnessing something beautiful or self-perceived beauty, these satisfy our esteem and self-actualization needs, making us feel good. According to Dutton, beauty is far from just being “in the eye of the beholder”. We find beauty in something that is done well. He traces the first few pieces of art created by mankind and from there realizes that people perceive an object to be beautiful for the skill that was needed to make it.

Denis Dutton: A Darwinian Theory of Beauty

From the above findings, we can expect that our users are seeking beautiful websites. And an important factor that plants the word “beautiful” in their minds is the perceived skill level in the design of the website. The amount of effort put in and level of expertise displayed in a web designer’s work translates to the attractiveness level perceived by the user.

Mirror Mirror on the Walll

Research about user experience has revealed an interesting fact about the way art works. From experiments conducted, it has been shown that 9 times out of ten, when asked to draw a person, most people will draw someone of their own gender. What we draw in many ways is a version of ourselves. People are inclined to things that express themselves. In design terms, this means that the product of art must express a language of colors, shapes and themes that is the visual equivalent of the personalities of the target market. Web designers need to bear in mind that they should not be designing according to what they like, but instead what their target audience likes. A website that mirrors and reflects what your users think, feel and like makes that special connection to them, creating a feeling of comfort and self-expression.

Orderly Chaos

The perception of art is also closely related to brain hemisphere dominance. Let us first begin about introducing some important facts about our brain.

Right and Left Brain

The human brain has two hemispheres: the right brain and the left brain. The right brain deals with more subjective things like intuition, music, art and creativity. The right brain works by first looking at the visual reference as a whole, be it a landscape, object, or piece of artwork and then noticing the finer details of the object. The left brain deals with things like logic, language, analysis, science and mathematics. It looks at a visual reference and first sees the fine details then fits the pieces together to form the bigger picture. When we look at an object, our brains do not work separately; they function together and give you information about the object from both objective and subjective aspects.

Abstract vs Orderly Art

Although the two hemispheres of our brain function hand-in-hand, people can be more right brain dominated, left brain dominated or in some cases, do not have a particular hemisphere that dominates. Brain hemisphere dominance has huge implications on the way we design. Right-brainers are more inclined to art and music due to right brain domination, thus have greater tendencies to prefer abstract art that encompasses disorder and lack of regularity. They embrace open discussions with no boundaries and tend to be what is perceived as the more ‘creative’ people. Left-brainers are more inclined to more orderly art styles due to their tendencies to think in more logical and systematic ways. They feel comforted with the presence definitions and structure. Depending on the nature of the website and thus the audience that gets attracted, web designers should steer their design styles appropriately. A site that aims at audiences who are more right brain dominated should go for more abstract and less orderly design styles, whereas if the site aims at left brain dominated audiences, more systematic design approaches should be used. Examples of right brain dominated audiences include areas like art and music, left brain dominated audiences are probably those that are interested in areas like science, finance or mathematics.

We Are Creatures of Habit

Computer designer and brain researcher Jeff Hawkins suggested in his talk about brain science that our brains function on pattern recognition. This is how the human brain works: when we see something (let us call this event A) for the first time, the information we collect from that experience gets stored into memory. The next time we witness A, our brain automatically recalls from memory information about our first experience of A and makes a prediction of what is to happen after A happens based on our earlier experience of A. Thus every single moment, we are constantly making predictions, be it consciously or subconsciously.

Jeff Hawkins: Brain Science

When we walk to our front door, we “instinctively” reach out to the place where the door handle is (based on our previous experiences of where it was) and we expect to feel the door handle at that same experience. Actions we execute that seem “instinctive” or “automatic” are merely actions that are running based on recalling past experiences and predicting the same outcome this time round. We do not consciously think about opening the door by moving our hand to the position and inspecting if the handle is at that position before executing the act of opening the door. We merely do it subconsciously without any conscious thought. When the reality does not meet our prediction, we then notice a change and consciously give attention to that matter.

Once we understand that our brain functions on repetitive stimulus-response patterns, it then makes sense why it is so highly emphasized that good web designs should encompass consistent styles, themes and layouts. When a user navigates from page to page, we do not want to surprise the user and distract him from the important content on that page with an entirely different layout. We expect that clicking on the logo of the website brings us back to the home page because of past experiences that confirm our predictions. When we want to navigate around a website, we expect that links can be found at the top, sides or bottom of the page because our past experiences tell us so. Web designers should design with the following approach in mind: whatever that we seek to get the user’s attention, strive to make it unexpected and different from the norm so that s/he notices a change that is not in accordance to his/her prediction; whatever that does not require attention and should be intuitive and user-friendly should be done according to how the user expects it to be. A user that actually makes a conscious ponder about how to get to a page denotes that the navigation approach is out of the user’s prediction boundaries and hence is perceived as not intuitive.

Moving Ahead

Now that we know a little about who we are and how we function, we can then proceed to create truly inspiring and engaging web designs. Learning about human psychology may take much time and effort, but the effort pays off when, as a web designer, you are able to bridge that special connection between your website and the user.

AJAX : The Interactive Web

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript & XML, pronounced eh-jax) represents a set of tools and techniques that are commonly used to create interactive web applications, and can be said to be an important contributor to the Web 2.0 movement ^[1] . As the name suggests, the approach includes technologies such as Javascript, XML, DOM, JSON and CSS.

In a simple representation of the web environment, there are two main actors - the client and the server. Using traditional web technologies, a client would make a HTTP request for a page to the server, and the server will respond by transmitting the HTML data back to the client, which then reloads and renders the page through the browser (See Figure 1).

FIGURE 1 - Classic Web Model [ Adaptive Path http://www.adaptivepath.com ]

In an AJAX environment however, the client can make a HTTP request "behind-the-scenes", using an added actor called the AJAX engine. This is done such that data can be requested from the server without having to change the page being displayed in the browser (See Figure 2, notice the "Browser UI" is not interrupted). AJAX can thus be said to be client-execution oriented.

FIGURE 2 - AJAX Web Model [ Adaptive Path http://www.adaptivepath.com ]

A web page employing AJAX appears dynamic and interactive, since content is pulled "on-the-fly" without actually redirecting the browser to another page. This functionality, as we will explore later in this article, allows for some interesting and cool applications on the web when it is combined with a dose of developer creativity.

A Brief History

The term AJAX started with the advent of the XML HTTP Request object, which was first created in 1999 for Microsoft Internet Explorer and was subsequently adopted by all major browsers ^[2] . XML HTTP Request is incorporated into JavaScript, and in a nutshell, it allows developers to make a HTTP call and return the response into the calling script without leaving the page context.

The term AJAX was coined by Jesse James Garrett in 2005 ^[3] . Since then, many books, articles and tutorials have been published on AJAX, encompassing many facets from academic evaluation to how-to “recipes”.

Where Is AJAX Now?

Everywhere.

AJAX has gained widespread use and momentum because it transformed web applications and sites into highly responsive, dynamic and interactive environments. It is embraced by many developers, and there are several frameworks and libraries available that support the creation and implementation of AJAX functionality. The popular jQuery library, script.aculo.us, and Adobe’s Spry framework are some prominent examples.

Many popular sites employ AJAX techniques – in fact, the three top favorites according to Most Popular Websites ^[4] , Google, Facebook and Youtube, all contain AJAX implementations. So what’s the draw about AJAX?

FIGURE 3 – Google Suggest [ http://www.google.com ]

FIGURE 4 – Youtube Search Bar [ http://www.youtube.com ]

FIGURE 5 – Google Calendar [ http://calendar.google.com ]

AJAX allows an interactive and rich user experience.

Google and Youtube both employ AJAX auto complete functionality to suggest search terms (Figure 3, Figure 4). These help users to find what they are looking for faster by prompting them with the most relevant terms. Google Calendar also employs AJAX to add events into a user’s calendar (Figure 5). When a user adds a new event, the page does not refresh - instead, the Calendar engine sends the new event to the server using AJAX, and the calendar is updated without a page redirect, creating a highly visual and uninterrupted user experience.

FIGURE 6.1 – Facebook Loading [ http://www.facebook.com ]

FIGURE 6.2 – Facebook Loaded [ http://www.facebook.com ]

AJAX can lighten server load without compromising content.

Facebook also utilizes AJAX methods to create an interactive interface. When a user clicks on the notification icon, for example, the engine begins to load up the recent notifications for the user. As seen in Figure 6.1 and 6.2, the user experience is not disrupted. More importantly for a large site like Facebook, the notifications are not loaded immediately when the user first views the page. Instead, it is only retrieved when the user clicks on the notification icon. This reduces the server load and allows pages to be loaded in much shorter time.

In fact, according to a test conducted by Massive Technology Show, choosing AJAX over the classic architecture could represent as much as a 68% performance increase in speed ^[5] .

FIGURE 7 – Last.FM Username Check [ http://www.last.fm ]

AJAX allows a more responsive, less error-prone and highly visual interface.

AJAX also enables web applications to become more responsive and visual. Formerly, in order to register for a new account, a user would have to submit a form and be sent to another page to check if the username is available, before directing the user to a page to indicate either success or failure. However, using AJAX, as seen here on Last.FM (Figure 7), a user can immediately know the availability of his chosen username. This saves considerable time from being directed to-and-fro, and also enhances the visual appeal.

For businesses, this presents an opportunity for error prevention. With AJAX, it is possible for employees to get real-time responses as they interact with the system, such as prompts that highlight potential errors to the user as soon as it occurs. In Figure 8, you can see how AJAX can help find a Mr. Clover Scott, which saves employees the time of typing the full name and also minimizes typographical errors.

FIGURE 8 – AJAX Auto Suggest [ http://www.brandspankingnew.net/specials ]

There’s No Free Lunch, Is There?

Well, no. There are two major drawbacks of AJAX use – firstly, since content is generated on the fly, or on user-demand, search engine spiders are often unable to access the content. This may adversely impact search rankings since the spider cannot interact with the system as a human can.

However, some advances in spider engineering are beginning to enable these digital arachnoids to “see” AJAX-based pages ^[6] . Some development tweaks will also enable search engines to get a better picture of the content the site is serving. Algorithms such as peer-ranking would also help aggregate the results of these crawls by adding consideration for human factors.

The second drawback of AJAX is the inability of web browsers to accurately capture a history of AJAX pages. This happens because AJAX pages load content without changing the actual page, which deceives the browser into believing it is still on the same page. This drawback often renders the “back” and “refresh” functions on a browser ineffective.

There have been several proposed workarounds ^[7] for these functions, but most involve including additional code onto a site, which could spell more work for developers and would invariably increase the page size.

What Other Tricks Can AJAX Do?

Here are some snippets of AJAX applications on the web today. These will give an idea of what AJAX is capable of, and it is up to your creativity and imagination to determine how these functions can fit into a larger web application.

Jcrop by DeepLiquid allows users to crop images online, the same way Facebook allows you to crop an image to create your profile thumbnail. This application uses the jQuery library to allow online picture editing.

This Inline Editing Script from Yvo Schaap allows users to change content by simply clicking on the content area and typing directly. All the changes are then saved to the backend server using AJAX. No page refreshes required!

An AJAX Based Shopping Cart tutorial by tutorialzine.com teaches you how to create an application where users can drag and drop items they would like to purchase into a cart, simulating a supermarket trolley. Fancy a genuine online cart, anyone?

The StarBox project by Nick Stakenburg is a tool that allows users to rate items on the fly. Youtube implements a similar feature by allowing you to rate a video without having to leave the page or interrupting the video.

Where’s AJAX Headed Now?

That’s where it gets exciting – with HTML5 and CSS3, web interactivity has just gotten a booster shot. Combine the AJAX approach with these freshly minted standards, and you could well be in for some of the most exciting and engaging web sites ever created.

As sites become more dynamic and interactive, page sizes and loading times become a headache. Richer content means bigger page size, and that translates to higher load times. Where AJAX shines is that is allows the same content to be offered, but only to be loaded when it is requested by the user. In a nutshell, that means a sleeker, simpler and faster interface.

With Cloud Computing and the adoption of web applications (or software as a service) growing exponentially ^[8] , AJAX is required in order to replicate and advance the features currently available on desktop applications in a web environment. Auto-complete, drag and drop, and many other features are critical to reproducing that interface.

Of course, there are some incredibly cool stuff we can do with HTML5, CSS3 and AJAX.

Check out A World of Tweets – a tweet tracker that shows how many tweets are clocked around the world in real time. AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3.

Also take a look at The Wilderness Downtown, a Google experiment that demonstrates an interactive film created by Google Maps, HTML5, CSS3 and AJAX. The video is rendered on-the-fly, depending on your address.

AJAX: The Game Changer

AJAX is now in almost every major web application – Gmail, Youtube, Google Calendar, Yahoo, Hotmail, you name it. The way that we interact with the web has also changed dramatically. No longer are we constrained by page refreshes – it is now possible for us to enjoy rich content without ever leaving a page.

If it is not extremely clear at this point of how AJAX has transformed the web, just think of Facebook. Imagine that every button you clicked required a page refresh. Each time you add a friend, join a group, viewed your notifications, liked a post – it takes you to another page, runs a function, and then takes you back to your original page, refreshing it in the process.

You wouldn’t be clicking on too many buttons now will you?

Despite the fact that AJAX has gotten old – the AJAX World Conference was last held in 2008, it is nowhere near extinction. It is now tightly integrated with many frameworks and has become so pervasive that it is part and parcel of web development today.

AJAX is no longer the big hype it was in 2006 – but it is definitely here to stay.

References

¹ Introduction to AJAX Technologies; http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1310178
² Wikipedia, AJAX, History; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)#History
³ AJAX: A New Approach to Web Applications; http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/essays/archives/000385.php
⁴ Most Popular Websites; http://mostpopularwebsites.net/
⁵ The Benefits of AJAX; http://www.massivetechshow.com/resources/ajax.asp
⁶ A Proposal For Making AJAX Crawlable; http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-ajax-crawlable.html
⁷ Ajax: How to Handle Bookmarks and Back Buttons; http://dev.aol.com/ajax-handling-bookmarks-and-back-button
⁸ SaaS Growth Shows Interest Now More Than Financial; http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/all/saas-growth-shows-interest-now-more-than-financial/?cs=44416

MMORPG

What is MMORPG?

MMORPG is an acronym for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. It’s the new genre in gaming. Traditional role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons or the famous Final Fantasy series, involve in player controlling a character or a party of characters to defeat boss characters using tactical strategies. The typical characteristics of RPG’s are storyline, exploration of the world, leveling up through experience gained from combat and quests, character class, and windowed interface. RPG has evolved from simple text games to 3D experience. MMORPG is just like a traditional RPG except for the fact it is not a single player game. In traditional RPG, one player decides on the action of the entire party, where as in MMORPG, the player is just one man party in the world. As the name suggests, MMORPG is a multiplayer game that is played online. Players coexist in a virtual world of the game. Interaction is real-time and people spend hours on end playing such games.

The History of MMORPG

In 1997, Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online, coined the word MMORPG with the release of Ultima Online. It became the firs tof its genre, and provided a solid foundation for many more MMORPG to come. But Ultima Online was not the first game to be played online. MUD, which stands for Multi-User Dungeon, with later variants Multi-User Dimension and Multi-User Domain, games were developed as early as 1974. MUD games are the first online games but they were primarily displayed in simple text. Graphical interface did not exist and players made choice of the action by pressing buttons. In early 1990’s, AOL was successful in developing the first graphical online game, Neverwinter Nights but it did not attract enough players to be called “massively.” Another reason was because the internet was not available to the public. In 1995, NSFNET lifted the restriction on the internet, allowing game developers and users to fully take advantage of the internet. Just two years after the restriction was lifted, Ultima Online was released and many more title began to pour out to the market. Following Ultima Online, another successful title was Everquest. Developed by Sony Online Entertainment in 1998, Everquest and Everquest II is still one of the dominant games in the industry. For the next 5 years, Everquest defined MMORPG even though Ultima Online popularized the genre. In 2003, Square Enix, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, released MMO version of the game, Final Fantasy XI. Just a year later, Blizzard Entertainment released their version of MMO, World of Warcraft, continuing the storyline of the game that put Blizzard’s name on the top of the list, Warcraft series. Although these mainstream titles require monthly subscription and fee, other free MMORPG, such as Guild Wars, developed by NCsoft, still cannot compete as fiercely in the market. NCsoft released Aion in 2009, but it was still not enough to catch up to Blizzard. Now MMORPG is synonymous with World of Warcraft, or simply WoW.

Current state of MMORPG

Currently, there are more than 400 titles available. Some are free, some require initial payment of purchasing the game, and some require monthly subscription and fee. As of October 2010, there are more than 12 million World of Warcraft subscribers world-wide. Blizzard holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG. In April 2008, 62 percent of MMORPG subscription market was held by World of Warcraft. Apart from a never ending storyline and breath taking graphics, all the MMORPG’s offer similar gameplay. Players log in and are asked to create character. Players can change the way their characters look online and choose a name. After the basic information process, players pick “job” or “class” that determine the abilities of characters. They begin their journey in the starting town where they can meet new people and figure out the gameplay. They gain experience from killing mobs, exploring, and completing quests give by the non-playable characters, NPC. As they level their characters, new abilities and talents become available. As they reach the maximum level, more difficult and strategic encounters become available as well.

There are two different aspect of MMORPG. First is the role playing aspect, or player versus environment, PvE. Players who prefer PvE aspect form parties to down challenging encounters that require thorough planning and execution. These are often referred as Raids. In any given raid, more than 20 players enter a dungeon and clear their way to the boss and loot. There are usually couple tanks that focus the mobs attention to them, holding threat, so the boss’s damaging blows don’t one hit kill the party members. They are usually low on damage but their armor can withstand the deadly attacks. While the tanks hold the threat, damage dealers deteriorate the boss’s health, and the healers heal the tanks’ health to full. After the boss is defeated, it drops rare and valuable loots that are not easily obtainable. Since communication and execution need to be impeccable, the players create guilds that run on regular schedule. Players who obtain these items often flaunt their armor and brag to other players. The other aspect is the player kill aspect, or player versus player, PvP. PvE, as the name suggests, challenges against the environment, and the actions of the environment is pre-determined by the game developers. PvP however, matches the player against a real-life player and because other players aren’t very predictable, PvP players aren’t easily surprised and are good at multitasking.

Relevance and importance in context of WWW

You might ask the question, “what does a game have to do with WWW?” At first, the answer is not very clear but MMORPG’s have a very close relation to the WWW. The subscription rate to MMORPG is growing rapidly and for the sake of gameplay, the game itself does not cover everything about the game itself. When the internet was first available, because of the bandwidth speed, all the websites were text based websites. Now, as cable service is widely spread, websites become more interactive. Emergence of Web 2.0 offers the game players a medium to communicate with each other interactively outside the game. Blogs, wikis, and video hosting sites are swarmed by MMORPG users who search for answers, share thoughts, or even to brag about their equipment. Facebook now incorporates World of Warcraft into their platform. MMORPG’s have been parodied by numbers of websites. MMORPG’s do not just offer different gameplay; it offers users to contribute to development of the Web.

Future development of MMORPG

MMORPG is not just a game anymore. It became a way of life. Some are not even able to tell the difference between the virtual world and the real world. There was a case of murder over a very rare item obtained in game. Mobs hire people to play the game without rest to obtain such items and sell it for real money. Such crimes could result in formation of international or domestic internet ruling committee that oversees the gameplay. Marriage in games is common now and in the future, virtual marriage could be legalized. Also since people spend more time online playing games, corporations could have a virtual storefront implemented to the game so people may not even have to leave their game to go shopping. There is a big opportunity in MMORPG for any kind of market since the growth of MMORPG user database is exponential. Just within 10 years, MMORPG user population grew from 0 to over 10 million. The addition rate doubles every two years. That’s something even Intel co-found Gordon Moore could not predict with his Moore’s Law trend, although it only applies to computer hardware. In near future, there will be no boundary between the virtual world that exists within the games and the real world. This may cause serious health threats and create psychological and sociological issues. People could become socially awkward and may not be able to communicate face to face any more. The development and progress of the MMORPG is definitely the moneymaker of current industry, but it’s time to think about the future as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmorpg

http://www.cracked.com/article_15657_10-ways-online-gaming-will-change-future.html

Search Engines: Past, Present, Future...

Introduction

Whenever we come across an answer we don’t know, the first thing that comes to mind for most people is “Google it.” This simple two word phrase shows how far we’ve come technologically speaking; the majority of our information is either on the Internet or is in the process of being added to the Internet. Since the inception of search engines twenty years ago, both the Internet and search engines have evolved in such a way that makes them a staple in everyday life for billions of people. Every second, there are 500,000 web searches ranging from gift ideas to celebrity gossip and in 2010, it is impossible to imagine the world without search engines.

What is a Search Engine?

In order to search for information, people need search engines. But what is a search engine? One definition of a search engine is “a computer program that retrieves documents or files or data from a database or from a computer network (especially from the internet)[1].” Search engines are designed to search for information from the World Wide Web and FTP servers and return this information in the form of hits nearly instantaneously. Search engines have to provide accurate results at the top of the page because user studies show that most people only click the first few hits before making another search. Although search engines can vary in the data they search through, they all share the same common element—they are all algorithms designed to sort through the mess of data that is available on the Internet[2].

Humble Beginnings?

All great inventions start off with an idea; in the case of search engines, the idea was first published in 1945. The Atlantic Monthly published an article in 1945 written by Vannevar Bush where he urged the creation of a body of knowledge for all of mankind. He wrote this article post WWII after there was a surge in scientific camaraderie to help the war effort. He was a strong believer in storing data and representing that storage in the same manner our brains represent memories so that it is most useful to humans. The most important part of the article is: “A record, if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted[3].” This was the forefront of search engine technologies the same way Richard Feynman’s lecture was the forefront of nanotechnology. Both scientists had the idea but did not have the technology at the time to make their idea reality.

Jumping Ahead

In 1990, students at McGill University in Montreal created Archie, which is considered the first search engine. Archie is a tool for indexing FTP archives which allows people to search for and find specific files. Earlier version of Archie allowed you to search the Internet only if you knew the name of the file you were searching for. Indexing of file content did not come until a year later when Gopher introduced this technology in 1991. The University of Nevada System Computing Services group created an Archie-spin off and called it Veronica. Veronica worked the same way as Archie but instead it worked on plain text files[4].

You Have to Learn to Crawl Before You Search

Today, search engines use web crawling technology to sort through online content. This software not only remembers what words show up in the search, but also how often they show up. Additionally, they make use of hyperlinks and how often they are accessed. The degree to which web pages cross-reference each other with hyperlinks provides a measure of each page’s importance and relevance. This software provides a way for developers to structure the sprawl of the web and rank the pages by importance and relevance³. This software is what allowed Google to become the search engine giant that it is today.

What Comprises a Search Engine?

A search engine is comprised of three parts: spiders, index, and search interface and relevancy software. The search engine spiders follow links on the web and request pages that have either been updated since their last indexing or pages that have yet to be indexed. These pages are said to be ‘crawled’ and then they are added to the search engine’s index. Also known as the catalog, the index of a search engine represents a slightly out-of-date version of the World Wide Web. When you enter a query into a search engine that uses crawling software, it searches its index and returns the results. Lastly, is the search interface and relevancy software and it has many jobs after a query is entered. For example, it does the following after a query³:

• Accept the user inputted query, checking to match any advanced syntax and checking to see if the query is misspelled to recommend more popular or correct spelling variations.
• Check to see if the query is relevant to other vertical search databases (such as news search or product search) and place relevant links to a few items from that type of search query near the regular search results.
• Gather a list of relevant pages for the organic search results. These results are ranked based on page content, usage data, and link citation data.
• Request a list of relevant ads to place near the search results.

The Present

For information on what is happening presently with search engines, look at Tony’s powerpoint and the handout he gave in lecture—both contain a vast amount of information on the world of searching in today’s world.

The Future

As previously mentioned, after uses make a search, they only scan the top ten results. Search engines have to take into account that users do not want to sift through a lot of information because of the thought of being overwhelmed. Search engines also have the tough task of dealing with the addition of billions of web pages added each day. Users expect search engines to keep up with the most current news, tweets, and Facebook updates even though it takes web crawlers a few hours to crawl through and add this new information. Since searching is done on an out-of-date version of the World Wide Web, it is important for search engines to add this new information as fast as possible because the most current news will be old news by the time users have access to it. This dilemma is leading search engines to employ real-time results. Like most people, I would think real-time and faster results could be achieved by just increasing the hardware behind the searching (i.e. get more powerful computers); however, that is not the case[5]. To solve the news problem, search engine developers are now looking at strategies that index the contents of links posted by tweets. Also, they are looking at spotting newsworthy events by looking at the prevalence of posts by smart phones that occur at a certain location. A classic example would be looking at the term ‘earthquake’ in a city that is susceptible to earthquakes. The biggest problem with this approach is the reputability of the links, tweets, and other posts by the people at these locations. One idea to prioritize is by number of followers but that does not correlate with reliability in my opinion.

A more radical approach to solving the real-time search problem is to use users as part of the solution. Start-up search engines Wowd and Faroo are look at “decentralizing” the search engine by convincing users to download a piece of software. This software would be a file-sharing program that tracks the user’s browsing habits. Instead of data centers, the index created by these browsing patterns would be stored on the user’s local machine and can be accessed by other users. This would make searching much faster than what we experience today and could serve as a way to rank page relevance—the more the users visit, the more relevant the page is⁵. Using data directly from a user’s machine will allow searching to be based on user-centric data and could be the way of the future.

Another type of searching that is currently being used are dubbed “help engines.” An example of this would be Aardvark’s service where users post questions that cannot be found with traditional search engines such as “What’s a great biking path around Golden Gate Park?” This question will be sent to users who are specialists in either biking paths, Golden Gate Park, etc. so that the person asking the question can get a reliable answer from someone who has biked around that park. Aardvark chooses these specialists by looking at blog posts, tweets, and online profiles to determine which people are best at answering certain questions. According to Aardvark, 60% of the questions are answered in less than ten minutes[6]. This past February, Google purchased Aardvark which means help engines might be a big part of Google’s searching future.

The distant future in searching is already in the process of being made. The future is a semantic search engine with natural language parsing. This would mean the search engine actually understands what the user wants and will be able to deliver more accurate results. Semantic searching is ongoing now but progress has been slow because it relies on programmers and users to attach extra, computer-readable information to each web page. Once again Google is playing a major role in this form of search when they purchased Metaweb, which is a large database with tagged entries that are able to be read by computers. Google purchased Metaweb in hopes of making their already smart searching smarter. Now that Twitter and Facebook allow for tagging and annotation of user posts, semantic searching might be here sooner than we think.

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[1] wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine

[3] http://www.searchenginehistory.com/

[4] http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=106

[5] New Scientist. The Search. November 2010.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark_(search_engine)

The Advent and Evolution of Cellular Networks

Cellular networks continue to play a growing role in the WWW. In fact, HTML5 includes several tags targeted specifically at mobile devices. Moving forward, it is clear that mobile devices are the future for both the web and computing.

1G

The first commercial mobile phone network (1G) appeared in 1979.[1] It serviced the Tokyo area of Japan. 1G was purely analog, and operated on frequencies 150MHz and above. The limited capabilities of this network meant that only voice and SMS messages could be sent. In addition, the radio was highly inefficient. Inefficieny meant that cell phones died quickly, and were unreliable. Also, because 1G was purely an analog radio technology, it was easy for people to clone their phones and eavesdrop on other’s conversations. These concerns still persist today and are the primary reason some consumers distrust mobile devices. Another big concern for consumers was the extremely high powered radios needed for the analog signals. This stemmed the concerns that mobile phones cause brain cancer, another left over concern for consumers, even with modern devices. Finally, the analog nature of the network meant that error checking on the stream was not possible, leading to low voice integrity. These issues were overcome by the 2G spectrum, which was a digital network.

2G

In 1991, the first digital 2G network was deployed. 2G was an extremely important step forward for cellular networks, and one of its main standards, GSM, still accounts for 80% of cell subscribers in the world. 2G was the first digital cell standard, which allowed for several important advantages over 1G. Digital signals are much easier to compress, which allowed for greater capacity on the network. The digital radios are also much more efficient, which means that both the handsets have greater battery life, and there could be more cell towers in a given area. Digital signals can be encrypted, which meant that cell conversations were much harder to eavesdrop on. Finally, and most importantly, digital signals allowed for the introduction of data services, such as e-mail and mobile-web.

Interestingly, the same year 2G (1991) became available is when Tim Berners-Lee published the first description of HTML, HTML Tags, available.[2] The relationship was now sealed, mobile networks and the WWW would be put on a path that will inevitably continue to grow together. 10 years later, a true packet-switched IP based mobile network was introduced.

2.5G

There was an interesting period between 2G and the release of 3G known as 2.5G. 2.5G simply meant that the standard implemented both packet-switched and circuit switched domains. 2.5G allowed speeds between 80-100 Kbit/s. This meant that users with 2.5G had comparable speed to their dial-up modems. However, 2.5G served primarily as a stepping stone to 3G, and few phones actually ever utilized this standard.

An exciting feature of 2.5G was its “always on” nature.[3] Because 2.5G had a packet-switched domain, it allowed for connections to be made only when a transaction was needed, rather than relying on sessions to carry out conversations. This meant users were served on demand, and did not require lengthy acquisition times. The main benefit that users saw was that connecting a call took far less time on 2.5G than on 2G.

2.75G

There was a final iteration between 2G and 3G. 2.75G was heavily used and very popular because of the iPhone. Another name for this type of network is “EDGE”. [4] EDGE stands for Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution, and its primary advantage is its speed of up to 1Mbit/s. However, due to low capacity and poor modulation techniques, the average expected speed was only 400Kbit/s.

Many iPhone users experienced painfully slow speeds on the EDGE network, and it primarily served to push Apple and other vendors to adopt 3G even faster. AT&T was the only provider who widely published EDGE, and many of the unhappy AT&T customers have EDGE to blame.

3G

2001-2002 saw the release of 3G, strengthening the bond between mobile devices and the WWW. 3G was the first network which allowed for “smart” phones. These phones often had browsers that could browse the full WWW. Also, 3G allowed for burst speeds of up to 3.1 Mbit/s. These high speeds could compete with many peoples home cable and DSL connections. In addition to the high speeds, there were several other advantages to 3G. Security was now extremely robust, and allowed users to authenticate with the network they were connecting to. This meant that impersonation was much more difficult.

Applications of the 3G network include: Video on demand, GPS services, and mobile TV. Even video chat has been introduced. The same year that 3G was being introduced, a browser known as Mobile Explorer 3.0 was becoming popular. Unfortunately, development stopped in 2002. The browser was ahead of its time because it supported HTML, IMAP for e-mail, and javascript. It was the first true WWW experience using the mobile networks as a backbone.

One major defect with the 3G network is that it has highly fragmented standards. In the US there are primarily GSM and CDMA, the latter of which has limited global capabilities. In addition, having two different standards means that users are trapped on whichever providers use their standards. For example, a user cannot have an AT&T phone and attempt to use it on Verizon Wireless. This limitation discourages competition and stifles development of future advancements.

4G

The future of mobile networks is continually growing stronger. WiMax and LTE technologies are now being released to the public, and these networks allow for speeds up to 5x as fast as 3G. Combine those speeds with devices like the MiFi and iPad, and suddenly wired networks and desktop computers begin to lose their appeal. In addition, 4G will further the advancement of ubiquitous computing and other wireless solutions. Not surprisingly, HTML5’s development and release will coincide closely with the availability of 4G. Also, HTML5 is being designed with mobile phones in mind.

The first 4G mobile phone was recently released. It is on Sprint’s network and is the HTC Evo. However, Sprint’s 4G network is the inferior WiMax technology. Verizon and AT&T’s LTE 4G will quickly supersede WiMax. LTE is both faster and more reliable than WiMax. WiMax has poor building penetration, and as such does not perform well in cities.

In addition to the speed and reliability of LTE, a significant advantage to LTE is that it is going to use SIM cards. This means that consumers will find ways to use phones released on one network on any other LTE network. Additionally, consumers can transfer their contacts easily between phones and networks. This is important because it lowers the barriers to switching networks, which will increase competition and lead to even more advanced wireless technologies.

WWW

It is clear that mobile phones and the WWW have been set on a crash course with each other from the beginning. So what do all the advancements in the mobile space mean for the future of the WWW? For the answer to that, we look at some current releases and trends in the WWW and mobile phone industries. The most obvious example is the 2007 release of the first iPhone. This phone refreshed the entire industry, and we now have a huge Android market and new releases from Palm and Blackberry. All of these devices have one primary thing in common. They are simply small computers that happen to make phone calls as well. This means they have full access to the web and all of its content.

In addition to the hardware advancement, there are many libraries to allow people to create WWW content specifically for the mobile space. One such library is jQTouch (www.jqtouch.com). jQTouch is based on the javascript library jQuery. It allows developers to create web applications that appear and behave exactly like native iPhone or Android applications. jQTouch applications are built using only CSS, javascript, and HTML. Emulating true mobile apps using nothing but these technologies proves the close relationship of the WWW and Another mobile web HTML5 framework is called Sencha Touch (http://www.sencha.com/products/touch/index.php). The great thing about Sencha is that it is not reliant on a host library like jQTouch and jQuery. The disadvantage with relying on HTML5 is it requires a very advanced browser. For example, the current version of Firefox (3.6) doesn’t support all HTML5 features. The closest you can get is a webkit based browser, such as Safari or Chrome. Although this is a problem, many smartphones have HTML5 capable browsers, and the support will only continue to grow.

On top of the advancements in the mobile space, recent times have also seen a decline of desktop machines. Apple’s chief officer, Steve Jobs, is even quoted as comparing desktop PCs to trucks. They are something people will always need, but consumers will stop buying. If desktop PCs decline, then those customers must consume some other media. That media will be delivered via mobile networks, on top hand-held devices.

Clearly the WWW and cellular technologies have been closely related since their respective inceptions. With the upcoming releases of 4G and HTML5, it is obvious that this relationship will continue to grow. Who knows, ten years into the future, wired networks may no longer exist, and the world will share one wireless network that’s available anywhere.

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[1] http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/telephone.htm

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML#Origins

[3] http://www.geekinterview.com/kb/What-is-2-5G-Technology.html

[4] http://www.mobileburn.com/definition.jsp?term=2.75G

New Generation of Searching

Introduction

Since 1993, search engines were developed by various groups and individuals around the world. The significance of the search engines to the World Wide Web was one of the most critical factors of Personal Computer development and Web itself. What Search engines brought in to the web was the accessibility. Search engines enabled people to search and receive information that were in form of web pages, images, or other types of information. Then the words “information highway” or “sea of information” was created.

The various different search engines tried different algorithms to give higher accuracy of search reference. The greatest impact was given by Google. Google introduced a slightly different format yet innovative search engine. “While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, google theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships between the websites. It was called PageRank, where a website’s relevance was determined by the number of pages, and the importance of the pages, that linked back to the original website”. Google was successful and are the leader of the search engine nowadays. Furthermore, Google is not stopping there. Google is generating various internet based services and products. Within their new products, they have now introduced a new medium of searching. It is the “Google Goggles”, name of Google’s image recognition system.

Here, I will be introducing this system and show how it is working out these days. Moreover, I would give my view of their future impact to some issues.

What is Google Goggles:

Google Goggles is “downloadable image recognition application created by Google. It is used for searches based on pictures taken by handheld devices. For example, taking a picture of a famous landmark would search for information about it, or taking a picture of a product’s barcode will search for information on the product”.

Google Goggles simply used the existing machine learning and image recognition technologies. With their searching algorithms and technologies, the image recognition system could bring out synergy. Google Goggles is intended to search almost anything by the picture given. Although the system is good in only certain pictures (like Text, Landmarks, Books, Contact Info, Artwork, Wine, Logos), they will probably bring out higher accuracy of search later.

Impact of Google Goggles:

The following are both impacts and my imagination about Google Goggles.

• Searching: The direct impact of Google Goggles is of course the searching. With their smart phones, they could take picture of text, landmarks, books, contact info, artwork, wine, or logos and receive relevant results of various medium of information.
  
  
• Advertisements: Another notable impact is Ads. Google is famous for providing a new way of advertisements and Google Goggles did come up with a new method as well. For example, taking a picture of a movie poster with Goggles automatically plays the movie trailer. This may develop the advertising market in a different way. The image advertisement can become a movie with sound enabled advertisements and 2D advertising sources may become 3D advertisements if 3D screens come up in mobile phones. Simply taking a picture can give web application to start and etc.
  Currently, “Google has partnered with Buick, Disney, Diageo, T-mobile, and Delta Airlines to add their offline advertisements to the service”.
  
  
• Google Goggles on Personal Computers: If Google develops the application that enable PC to take picture with a webcam and enable search with the image, or use the existing picture and enable searching, the use of Google Goggles will be enhanced.
  
  
• Google Goggles’ impact on Web Design: Assuming that people start to use the Google Goggles more frequently, via PC or smart phone, the impact will be big. While the current website designers must care about the reference and keywords to make their websites be at the top of search, if image recognition and search with image become important, web designers will have to be more careful in selecting which image they will be uploading on their pages. The most recognizable or frequently used image for Google Goggles will be important in selection of images. As for now Google Goggles is only made for the mobile app users, the current web designers who target the mobile users will be more serious in selecting the image, tag and etc. With Google Goggles enabled web, where to put the image with what tags and position will also be important factors of design. This will make the need of new methodology in web design.
  
  
• Privacy issue with Google Goggles: Google is currently suffering from privacy issues around the world due to the Google Street View. While the Street view takes the pictures around the world to create the Street View enabled map, there were some cases where people’s privacy have been exposed. The image recognition then also contains the similarity here. With the information stored in Google’s database, searching with image or taking image will give some privacy issues. For example, if someone took a picture of something and there was a person who did not intend to be in the picture, and some image search resulted in showing him, this would bring up some privacy issue. Actually, in United Kingdom, there were complaints about Google Picasa’s face recognition (that can scan your picture and suggest matching) and resulting privacy issues. This is not yet in Google Goggles’ functionality. However, Google have refused to rule out the Picasa’s face recognition functionality and public is watching if they are going to.
  
  We can note that face recognition does have some advantage that people could use it to identify strangers in the street. However, the fact that a shot of picture could mine one’s profile gives weight on the privacy issue than the advantage.
  
  Within this issue, disposal methodology is coming up and actually Google is trying to make a way for disposing the image taken that could give invasion of privacy.
  
  Although we are living in a world where privacy is getting exposed more and more, there must be some public policy regarding the privacy issue for not only Google but for all sectors of society regarding digital information. And this might give some limit to the Google Goggles’ development.
  
  
• Collaboration with existing Search methods: Google and various other companies did provide some engines that could use the voice for search. Google’s Voice Search is one of them. What this enables is that if someone simply says something through the microphone of the smart phone, the engine recognizes the words and auto-completes the search text.
  
  This technology might give some advantage and synergy with the Google Goggles. If there is a way for image recognition based searching system to find images, there should be way for audio recognition system to find relevant audios. Actually, there are some mobile apps which can recognize music with a segment of music played.
  
  Then, if you imagine using both these methods to search something, you will probably get higher accuracy in searching. For example, playing a segment of music with a picture of an album could enhance the search results (assuming both have higher accuracy).
  
  If this is enabled, it also will give web designers more pain that the designers then have to select what music or audio file they must contain within their websites.
  
  Furthermore, if all text, image, and voice search are enabled at the same time, the users could give more sources of search to the search engine. In other words, the search engines could receive more data to do the search. Eventually, and theoretically, this should give higher searching power. Thinking about this multiple media searching system, other web advertisements could give out various ways of advertisements with advertising market grown.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, Google’s Goggles has shown a new way of searching. It could give comfort for the users by giving them a new medium of searching. For Google itself, it could have another piece of information that could give search results. Being the world largest image recognition system in terms of the size of data stored in Google’s database, Google’s new way of searching also gives some vision of the “will be changed” search engine format. Through this innovation, Google provided the world all, text, image, and sound searching system and showed the potential of collaborative searching method. The impact of this may be great that the search itself will have evolution, and advertise market will grow both in quantity and quality. Moreover, other markets might have potential using it. The web environment and web designers might suffer the change that there are new sources of information that will contribute in searching. However, Google Goggles might have some limitation due to privacy issues. Just like they are suffering with Google Street Views, Google Goggles has the potential to have privacy issues. Then the regulations and policies might limit the change. Though overall, it is a great innovation giving the potentials. With these search application provided so far in the world, someday, there might be a way that a movie clip can search something we want to look for.

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhgfz0zPmH4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kOotqpJyUg

Reference:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1280145/Google-facial-recognition-debate-goggles-privacy-controversy.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Goggles

http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/#text