A network-wide information system: Multi-level context for the user at the workstation interface

摘要

The quantity and diversity of information resources available to the human user at the network interface require more global, network-oriented interface design. The user, with his/her mental model of that interface, must be provided with suitable forms of context that support the application-specific tasks, such as in using database, information retrieval and hypertext systems. In addition, the user should be encouraged to gain a better understanding of what else is happening and possible in the network medium: facts, activities, events and other information peripheral or independent of the current task. The criteria for such interface design and a multi-level context model are described. The first three levels (task-inherent, task-supportive and task-enhancing) are specific to the task and can accommodate the various well-known kinds of information system applications. The fourth or task-peripheral level supplies the types of information which have no necessary relationship to the current task or to each other. A prototype implementation of an interprocess communication network, designed to gather such global, task-peripheral information for each individual user at a network workstation, is presented. The layered display organization and its correspondence to the multi-level context model are outlined. To distinguish the system from others a general categorization of information systems is defined.