Seamless integration of interactive forms into the Web

Andreas Girgensohn, Alison Lee
1997 Computer networks and ISDN systems  
The phenomenal interest and growth of the World Wide Web as an application server has pushed the Web model to its limits. Specifically, the Web offers limited interactivity and versatility as a platform for networked applications. One major challenge for the HCI community is to determine how to improve the human-computer interface for Web-based applications. This paper focuses on a significant Web deficiency -supporting truly interactive and dynamic form-based input. We propose a well-worked
more » ... m interaction abstraction that alleviates this Web deficiency. We describe how the abstraction is seamlessly integrated into the Web framework by leveraging on the virtues of the Web and fitting within the interaction and usage model of the Web. © 1997 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. gence as a standard for networked application on the internet and intranet indicate that the Web is here to stay. This means that well-established, user-friendly approaches should be transferred to or integrated with the Web. It is a challenge for HCI researchers to determine how to make Web-based applications more user friendly, interactive, and easy to use [5]. Many applications on the Web require form-based input. Simple forms provide input for search engines, more complex ones are used for on-line ordering and surveys, and one can envision a form for a Web-based tax return. However, forms provided as part of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) are not suited for complex data entry with many form fields and dependencies between different fields. Complex forms contain many fields so that a large scrollable area is the result. In many applications, only a small fraction of the fields really has to be filled for any given sit-
doi:10.1016/s0169-7552(97)00063-9 fatcat:kfzyfaqmvjce7j5tc6mkjv4wdm