Top-notch support for cooperative software activities. Since CSCW systems are distributed and often require near real-time response capabilities over wide area networks, CSCWs must be fault-tolerant and have the capacity to run in heterogeneous environments. This book addresses these challenges, addressing groupware, shared editing, mediaspaces, coordination and integrated tools, and formal methods.

One of the biggest problems facing Web designers is how to get users to absorb content. Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity is a tutorial and exposition of the principles of design that help bring the user to the content in an effective and efficient way. It features new approaches for crafting effective sites through logical and strategic presentation. It aids users in building Web sites that stand out from the noise of the Internet with clarity and purpose. Done up in full-colour with practical examples and critiques, it will make your site an effective communicator.

The creation of computer technologies for children is a multidisciplinary process whose techniques and functions are growing increasingly important. This contributed work will discuss how and why new technologies are being designed, introduce the diversity of approaches that university researchers use in their research methodologies, and explain the range of technologies being created today for children.

Written in plain English and filled with examples, the book begins by defining usability and explaining methods of usability engineering. Readers are taken through all the steps for planning and conducting a usability test, analysing data, and using the results to improve both products and processes. Included are forms that can be used or modified to conduct a usability test, and layouts of existing labs that will help readers to build their own.

Conceptual Modeling for User Interface Development introduces the technique of Entity-Relationship-Modeling and shows how the technique can be applied to interface issues. It explains those aspects of entity-relationship modeling which are relevant to ERMIAs, and it presents the extensions to the notation that are necessary for modeling interfaces. This book is aimed at both interface designers and software developers in an attempt to bridge the gap in the development of interactive systems. Too often, when software is being developed, the software engineers do not sufficiently consider how easy the system will be to learn and use. On the other side, interface specialists tend to express their concerns in ways which are either too detailed to be readily understood or in ways which are difficult for the software developer to implement. ERMIA provides a set of concepts which can be used equally easily by software developers and interface designers alike.