Eclectic group explores ways to give Web sites a structure

RESTON, Va. -- This is a grammatical sentence. We share a knowledge of the grammar used in written English, so there's a reasonably good chance you and I both understood what the sentence means.

We know, anticipate and are rewarded by the utility in the capital letter, subject, verb, article, adjective, direct object and period. Without such grammar, there is no communication.

Then along came the Internet and World-Wide Web, media upstarts that, like all new media, are born lacking an inherent grammar.

The American Press Institute's Media Center (http://www.mediacenter.org/) called together 30 scholars, journalists and other generally bright, creative people Nov. 7-10 to consider "Developing a Grammar for New Media."

The conference guidelines were as open-ended, immature and emergent as the new media form itself.

Most participants came expecting to leave with little more than having had some good conversations, eaten good food and consumed a bottle or two of exotic beer.

They did that.

They also produced, in 21/2 days, an insightful, creative list of suggestions and potential directions for research and development that, in the end, could make on-line media a richer, more rewarding and utilitarian experience for both producers and consumers.

'Why a grammar?'
"Think of the way the hair rises on the back of your neck," the invitation to participants challenged, "as soon as a particular type of music begins in any movie -- a dark, droning bass that signals something ominous, for example.

"Think of the frantic feeling brought on by hand-held camera work; panning and zooming; the entire field of videography.

"The end of the 20th Century finds us struggling to develop a grammar for computer media. Like the early days of film, the early days of computer media see a medium designed by old paradigms -- what is the World-Wide Web if not a print paradigm? Text wrapped around graphics is surely something we've seen before."

To tackle those issues, API went outside the community of newspaper journalists usually found at such affairs.

Along for the 72-hour journey were graphic designer Roger Black, who carries three cell phones to communicate with clients in Europe, North America and Latin America.

Dan Bricklin, co-creator of the first spreadsheet program, VisiCalc, showed up to talk about conceptual maps.

Jakob Nielsen, formerly Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer and web "usability" consultant, was on hand to discuss the fundamental notion that a little time studying how users actually use the Web is worth more than all the spinning geegaws and exploding gimcracks designers can come up with.

Dana Atchley, founder of Digital Storytelling, spun multimedia autobiographical tales drawing on a 100-year-old collection of his family's pictures and memorabilia.

Novelist Melissa Scott, who has 18 science fiction titles on her résumé, ventured down from New Hampshire to discuss her view that "cyberspace is an ecology that must be tended, and can be bred, herded and harvested."

This was not, however, a conference for passive mouse jockeys listening to advice from digital sages. Breakout groups met with frequency to consider aspects of on-line interactivity, type, graphics and streaming media.

It's not what you say
Concluded one team: The grammar of interactivity recognizes that there is a compact between the content's creator and the user.

If a link is highlighted, the compact calls for the creators to have some useful content at the end of that link, because that's what the user will expect. That said, the creator and user of web content often switch roles; indeed, that may be the ultimate strength of the medium.

Producers can interact with the community by defining news values and selecting the information to be posted on the community's news site, observed Owen Youngman, director of interactive media for the Chicago Tribune. Chat rooms, e-mail broadcasts and user groups help producers connect to communities and individuals.

As that dynamic interaction evolves, we can expect the on-line community to develop its own grammar and, literally, language. Folklorist and anthropologist Lydia Fish, a professor at the State University College of New York at Buffalo, told the group that such specialized languages reflect shared values.

She explained how Vietnam-era pilots relied on their mutual understanding of a specialized language -- "The Sandies are holding high and dry over the Jollies. I want your shake and bake on my willie pete" -- for their collective safety.

Translation: "The A-1 Skyraiders have formed an armed escort and fire suppression outlook above the rescue helicopters (Sikorsky HH-53 or 'Jolly Green Giants'). I want your 500-pound bombs (the 'shake') and napalm ('bake') on my white phosphorus (smoke-marking rocket)."

When those veterans employ such jargon in their Internet messages, they create an instant community, one that tends to set apart the initiated from those who just don't know what's happening.

"I wonder how much we are tapping into these communities," said Fish. "People are out there, they are talking, but they aren't talking to us."

Perhaps it is our job to let the users in on our journalism and on-line jargon.

"People like to know what's going on," Fish said. "Other people's worlds are fascinating, and anything backstage sells," implying that a little "backstage at the newsroom web site" might draw readers seeking to be insiders.

Last spring, for example, when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was working on a new design for its site (http://www.stlnet.com/), the editors solicited suggestions from readers. The number and quality of suggestions were both high.

As publications seek to draw readers to their sites, a natural reaction is to turn to familiar metaphors for packaging information -- headlines, jumps, callouts. But those forms that work in ink-on-paper might not be the best tools for digital media, which have little linear structure and are in constant flux.

Melissa Scott pointed out that "metaphor" comes from the Greek word "metaphora," a term commonly seen in the Athens airport because it refers to the luggage carts "that take your things from one place to another."

Hence, a good concept and tool. Not everyone agreed.

"Metaphor is constricting," said Nielsen, who is on a mission to make the Web easy for users to use, "and personalization is much overrated. Mainly, personalization is used as a poor excuse for not designing a navigable web site."

If personalization does seem to be a valid objective, Nielsen argued, the tools should present users with the widest variety of options, let them find the information they seek and arrange it to their liking.

"Users always say, 'Give it to me fast, right now!' Nielsen said. "Users never say, 'Give me a more elaborate, beautiful page.

"People do [on the Web] what they want to do, not what the designer forces them to do," he said, so the job of editors, designers and on-line producers is to get out and talk to users to discover how they are using the Web, and how they want to use it.

There has not been enough study of these aspects of the "attention economy," he said, referring to the evolving, and heretofore informal, grammar.

A map is a metaphor
How to find information in a web site and its documents has been the research and product development focus for Dan Bricklin practically since the Web went public in 1993.

Bricklin, chief technology officer of Trellix Corp., of Waltham, Mass., believes that maps are such an integral part of literacy that we must use them to navigate documents.

"Mapping is fundamental to bringing order into the world," he told the group. "Maps use symbols to represent elements and their relationships; relationships make meaning. People want to know what matters" -- and how to easily and quickly find it. A map should distill a point of view so that an entire document, series or inventory of documents on a web site can be understood in their totality.

"Maps work by simply making it necessary for users to do less," said Bricklin, who has worked closely with cognitive psychologists and learning theorists in designing tools for web presentation and navigation. Maps should: