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2005 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference Proceedings 0-7803-9028-8/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE. Designing a Website for a Multinational Research Project Rune Pettersson Mälardalen University [email protected] Mattias Meldert Mälardalen University [email protected] Anna Kroneskog Mälardalen University [email protected] Abstract This paper discusses the problems and possible solutions for making a project place web site to be used in a multinational research project. The most important function of a project place website has in our case proven to be a file archive. It enables all members of the project to share and access important information and research results. Since the file archive is most important it has shown to be a good solution to make it the central part of the project place website. Additional features can then be designed as complements to this central feature. It appears that the site is used rather sparingly between meetings with an average of only one login per day. At the time just before a meeting the site traffic has increased as the members are uploading files to be reviewed at the upcoming project meeting. It is pretty safe to assume that the traffic on the project site will drop during the meeting and then increase right after the meeting when project members will start to share information and research results that have been discussed during the meeting. As time goes by the traffic will probably drop to a low level again when the groups will continue their appointed tasks each on their own. Keywords: web design, interface design, graphic design, multinational, communication The QUASI project The name of this project is “Quantifying signal transduction”, QUASI. The project is funded by the European Commission and financed by the Sixth Framework Programme. The QUASI-project started in December 2003 and it should be finished by December 2006. The QUASI task The present understanding of cellular signal transduction is restricted. Little is known about the details of their dynamic operation and the importance of quantitative, spatial and time- dependent parameters for signalling output. Those are, however, crucially important for drug discovery and application. QUASI is a multidisciplinary project with the goal to obtain a coherent and detailed picture of the dynamic operation of a model signalling transduction network. To achieve the goals of QUASI, quantitative data of high definition on signal transduction activation and deactivation is obtained using frontline experimental methods. A software-implemented mathematical model of signalling dynamics is constructed from pre-existing data and data generated within the project. This paper, however, will only discuss aspects of communication within this project. Six QUASI research teams There are six research teams in the QUASI-project. One research team is located in Austria, one in Germany, one in Spain, and one in Switzerland. Two research teams are located in Sweden. The QUASI project leader and coordinator is Professor Stefan Hohmann at Göteborg University. The QUASI team from Mälardalen University is responsible for developing and maintaining a project website. Communication Traditional communication models are directional and process-oriented. However, Hall developed the 308

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Page 1: [IEEE IPCC 2005. Proceedings. International Professional Communication Conference, 2005. - Limerick, Ireland (July 7, 2005)] IPCC 2005. Proceedings. International Professional Communication

2005 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference Proceedings

0-7803-9028-8/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE.

Designing a Website for a Multinational Research Project

Rune PetterssonMälardalen [email protected]

Mattias Meldert Mälardalen [email protected]

Anna Kroneskog Mälardalen [email protected]

Abstract

This paper discusses the problems and possible solutions for making a project place web site to be used in a multinational research project.

The most important function of a project place website has in our case proven to be a file archive. It enables all members of the project to share and access important information and research results. Since the file archive is most important it has shown to be a good solution to make it the central part of the project place website. Additional features can then be designed as complements to this central feature.

It appears that the site is used rather sparingly between meetings with an average of only one login per day. At the time just before a meeting the site traffic has increased as the members are uploading files to be reviewed at the upcoming project meeting. It is pretty safe to assume that the traffic on the project site will drop during the meeting and then increase right after the meeting when project members will start to share information and research results that have been discussed during the meeting. As time goes by the traffic will probably drop to a low level again when the groups will continue their appointed tasks each on their own.

Keywords: web design, interface design, graphic design, multinational, communication

The QUASI project

The name of this project is “Quantifying signal transduction”, QUASI. The project is funded by the European Commission and financed by the Sixth Framework Programme. The QUASI-project

started in December 2003 and it should be finished by December 2006.

The QUASI task The present understanding of cellular signal transduction is restricted. Little is known about the details of their dynamic operation and the importance of quantitative, spatial and time-dependent parameters for signalling output. Those are, however, crucially important for drug discovery and application. QUASI is a multidisciplinary project with the goal to obtain a coherent and detailed picture of the dynamic operation of a model signalling transduction network.

To achieve the goals of QUASI, quantitative data of high definition on signal transduction activation and deactivation is obtained using frontline experimental methods. A software-implemented mathematical model of signalling dynamics is constructed from pre-existing data and data generated within the project.

This paper, however, will only discuss aspects of communication within this project.

Six QUASI research teams There are six research teams in the QUASI-project. One research team is located in Austria, one in Germany, one in Spain, and one in Switzerland. Two research teams are located in Sweden. The QUASI project leader and coordinator is Professor Stefan Hohmann at Göteborg University. The QUASI team from Mälardalen University is responsible for developing and maintaining a project website.

Communication

Traditional communication models are directional and process-oriented. However, Hall developed the

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encoding – decoding model.[1] Here the sender is an encoder constructing “meaningful” texts, such as a television program or an information material. The receiver is a decoder, and is assumed to accept, negotiate or oppose the intended meaning. Hall emphasized the paradigm shift to earlier sender–receiver traditions.

During the 1990s there has been a change in reception analysis from a focus on interpretation and decoding to a greater concern with practice and actual use.[2] This development has been described as a change from decoding to viewing context.[3] We can see the sender as an “information provider”. In each specific case the sender or the designer may have clear intentions and objectives.

However, it is always up to the individual “information interpreter” to actively conceive or misconceive the information, to use or not use it, to use or misuse it.[4] This view is especially valid for information sets that people make available to an unknown audience, e.g., on the Internet and the world wide web (WWW). In these situations it is usually not possible to know much about the people who search for, and then use the information.

Unfortunately, communication does not always function as anticipated. This may depend on insufficient information content in the message, but it may also be a result of failure in one or more of the different steps in the communication process.

However, while the QUASI consortium is a completely new setup, several groups previously have had contacts and collaborated with each other in different constellations. This is illustrated by several joint publications. Therefore, good communications between these groups have already been established and have proven to function. Details on communication requirements and the administrative and contractual tasks of each partner are available through a Project Handbook. For these reasons it should be possible to achieve good communications within the QUASI project.

Reading on screens

Compared with traditional graphic presentations on paper, a presentation of information on visual

displays such as television sets and computer terminals is very limited. Still, information may be presented in many different ways. The basis for webpage design stems from much of the earlier work in computer screen design. The history of computer screen design has been scattered across several disciplines. Much of the knowledge today goes back to the research conducted at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre, which led to the innovation of the Graphical User Interface, GUI in 1975.

Visual displays Visual displays can be built in many ways. A colour television set, an advanced computer terminal, and a liquid crystal display all have different characteristics.

We shall use a computer terminal at a distance of less than 60 centimetres. The computer screen has a much better picture resolution than a television set that is usually supposed to be watched at a distance of more than 120 cm. Our perception of text and pictures on visual displays are, of course, to a large extent dependent on the quality of the screen.[4]

Visual displays will continue to have a resolution far below a printed page. Some laser printers produce documents with 1,200 dots per inch horizontally, and 600 dots per inch vertically. Photo-typesetters produce 1,250-2,600 dots per inch. This is enough to create small and close raster dots and to produce fine lines in the final print.

Design principles We should employ general design principles also in the design of screen displays with information that will be read on the screen, rather than printed on paper.[4]

Avgerinou presented a list of recommendations for web design.[5] She noted that the visual layout as well as the information architecture needs to be user-friendly, and attractive. Many other researchers have made the same recommendations.

Thus, information sets should be arranged and displayed so that it is easy to read: from top to bottom and from the left to the right. A visual display design may vary with respect to spatial organization, like headings, length of lines, justification, spacing, number of columns, number

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of colours on the same “page” or in the same “window”, and directive cues, like colour coding, twinkling characters or words, and scrolling text.

Experiments with 11,000 individual judgments of perceived reading efforts of text on visual displays were concluded as follows:[6]

• Colours presented on colour displays seem to be ranked in the same order as surface colours in traditional print media. Blue was most popular.

• When text is shown on a visual display, there is no easily-read colour combination.

• The best text colour is black, which causes good contrast to most background colours.

• The best combination is black text on a white or yellow background.

• A text can be easy to read in any colour, provided that the background is carefully selected.

• The best background colour is black, which has good contrast to most text colours.

• Reading efforts of colour combinations are independent of the gender of the subjects.

• There was no difference between colour blind (red – green) users and users with normal vision.

Inverse writing in various colours within a text may be used to achieve emphasis. Other possibilities may be a box around a paragraph or a change in font or size of letters. The background may vary with respect to colour and brightness. Good combinations of text and background colours always have a good contrast. Optimum contrast is often found to be 8:1 to 10:1. Most subjects prefer a positive image, that is, dark text on light background with a minimum refresh rate of 70 Hz.

LayoutBlank space in printed material increases cost, since more paper is required. Thus, it is not often used. However, colour as well as blank space on a visual display are essentially free and might be used to increase legibility and readability.[7]

When a non-standard width, or a width percentage, is used in order to define a web site the web-designer has no way to control the presentations of images and texts. Depending on the resolutions of

the different screens various users will look at different layouts.[7] Nielsen, concluded that the layout of a web site should fit all standards.[8] Bradshaw concluded that: “Despite the increased availability of articles on the topic, one of the primary problems with approaching the concept of ‘Good design’ is not context neutral; specific arrangements that work well for one content area and audience do not automatically work well for all other content areas and audiences.”[9]

On the WWW the individual user is able to define the size of the display window at will. To a large degree the user can also decide on his or her own preferred typography.[10] Although the typographic possibilities are limited in HTML-documents (compared with SGML-documents) it is still possible to provide a clear structure and make it possible to navigate within the document as well as between different documents. The use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) make up for most of the typographical limitations of HTML but the computer screen still has limits in presenting fine details compared to printed media. A consistent use of size and weight in headings is important. This should be combined with a consistent use of empty space to further enhance clarity.

TextAccording to Tinker text smaller than nine points is too small to be considered legible.[11] Text which should be read in a continuous manner should be set between nine and twelve points. [11][12][13][14][15][16]

Knave provided guidelines for legible characters on computer screens: A minimum of ten to twelve raster lines per character is required.[17] When characters are built by dots in a dot matrix, the characters will be round or square, and not elongated. A dot matrix of seven by nine dots is often regarded as a minimum. The height of the characters should be a minimum of four millimetres for a viewing distance of 60 centimetres. Due to the relatively poor resolution on visual displays and television sets, we should avoid typefaces with very thin lines for texts on these screens. This corresponds well to the recommendation to use a sans serif font at a size of 10-12 points on websites.[7]

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A web based project place

In this project the different groups are located in different parts of Europe. Therefore it is difficult and expensive to meet face to face. A web based project place makes it easy to communicate in a research project with many members.

Basically a web based project place is a “virtual place to meet”. It has to be user friendly with easy access. Therefore a web based project place must run on a reliable server. If the server is not trustable it does not matter how well the project place is designed.

Research questions

Designing an interface that will meet all aspects of a broad international audience would require much more research and time than we have available in this project. It is possible that we need to create multiple interfaces for multiple audiences. However, in this case most of the researchers are highly qualified researchers in cell biology. They are all used to communicate within their own disciplines, and they all have access to computers. The main purpose with this web based project place is to secure communication within the QUASI-project.

However, as soon as the web based project place is developed it is also possible to study various aspects of the communication processes and the use of the project place. This is a very interesting possibility. Thus we have been able to build into the QUASI-project a “communication sub-project”. In this sub-project our main research questions are:

• Which website features are important for the users?

• How can we enable effective communications between the users?

• To what extent will the users actually use different features?

• How should features on the web page be designed for maximum usability?

• Which are the most important problems? How can we deal with them?

• Is it possible to design the features on a web based project place that requires a minimum of administrative work?

• Which types of features are hard to make intuitive to the users?

• What impact will a web based project place have on the communication between the different research groups?

• How much communication will be conducted via the website compared to other forms of communications within the project?

Design of the website

The QUASI web site consists of two major parts.

Part 1 is a pretty simple static website with information about the QUASI-project which is of interest to the rest of the research community, the European Union, and the general public. This part of the site is rather small and general in content at the moment but will grow as the QUASI project continues and we get results from the research. The information will then be presented with the different target audiences in mind. An interesting aspect of this development will be animations of dynamic cellular processes. Targets groups for this are in particular students and teachers at universities and other schools.

Figure 1. The index page of the QUASI website: http://www.idp.mdh.se/quasi.

Part 2 is a project place website only available to members of the QUASI project.

In this paper we will concentrate on the project place part of the website but we will make some comparisons with the part of the site available for the general public specifically in matters concerning the graphical design.

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The QUASI website provides the members of the QUASI project with a platform for exchanging information. It is however, also providing valuable user statistics such as access to the platform, browser version, resolution, sorting preferences in the file archive and so on.

Figure 2. The webpage which displays the file archive in the project place part of the QUASI website.

Functions of the project place website

In the case of the project place website we know exactly who the people are in our target audience. Because of this it was a relatively easy task to ask them what functions they were interested in and which functions they wanted on the project place website. The difficult part of the process was to put their wishes into something that would work and have a good usability. We did this using affinity diagramming.[18] It soon became apparent that the best solution was to build the project place website around a common file archive. Added to this central file archive is a lot of special communication features available to the users of the site. Apart from the file archive the site has a news section which enables the users to quickly see the new updates and news since their last visit. Another section is a member list with contact details (research group, e-mail address, regular mail address, fax number and telephone number) for each of the member of the project. There is also a “my profile” page were the user can update his or her personal settings. The last addition to the site is a group of functions for collecting statistics. These functions are only available to the administrators of the site.

File archive The file archive is the main core of the project place website. Here, all members can upload the files that they want to share with other project members. It is possible for the users to sort the files in the archive by document number, title,

author, research group, file name, file size, date, and number of downloads. A filter function enables the user to let the archive show only files uploaded by a specific author, containing specific words in the title or abstract, or files uploaded before or after a specific date. A project member can also add a comment to any of the files in the archive.

NewsThe news page allows all project members to publish important messages regarding the project or the website. This page also display which files are new in the file archive since the user’s last visit. This page is the default start page of the project place web site.

User list This page allows the user to list the members of the project. The user can sort and filter the list by name and project group. By clicking on a members name in the list all relevant contact information to that person gets available.

“My profile” This page enables the user to view and edit his or her contact information, username and password.

Collecting statistics Collecting of statistics is a hidden function. This function registers certain actions and information about the members. These data are valuable for research on website design. It enables us to find out how the members really use the website and what their preferences are.

In the file archive we register all sorting in order to find out what sorting preferences the users have. We also get statistics regarding the frequency of downloading of files. Every login is also registered in order for us to see when the website is most frequently used. Information is also collected about the users’ platform, flash version, resolution and browser.

The multinational aspect

At the beginning of the project some questions were raised regarding the multinational and multicultural aspect:

• Which date format should we use?

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• Does cultural background matter with respect to how a user apprehends a website?

• Does cultural background matter with respect to how a user uses the website?

• What colours should we use?

Project phases

The project system development was divided into six phases according to the traditional systems development life cycle (SDLC) often called the waterfall model: the feasibility study, the system investigation, the system analysis, the system design, the implementation phase, and the review and maintenance phase.[19]

Feasibility study

The feasibility study looks at the present system, requirements and problems and briefly investigates alternative solutions. Any proposed system must be feasible legally, organisationally and socially, technically and economically.

System investigation

The next step is a detailed fact finding phase, the system investigation. We needed to find the requirements, any constraints imposed, exception conditions and the data types and volumes which have to be processed. The Project Leader, Stefan Hohmann provided us with a chance to present our temporary strategy and get more input and information that we needed. We learned which limitations and opportunities we had and which context the project website will be in. Then we had to map the information flow in order to find a good solution. The most important part was to identify the users and their needs.

System analysis

The system analysis phase analyzes the present system in an attempt to understand all aspects of it and why it developed as it did. The present system consisted only of e-mail and phone communication between the project members, which made the analysis swift and easy. The time spent in this phase was minimal and we could quickly move on to the system design phase.

System Design

In the system design phase the system is documented and planned. After the previous phases we had come up with a good specification of what was to be done and knowledge how to proceed. We mapped the new system with flowcharts of inputs and outputs and processes.

Implementation

After getting a complete specification we could start the actual creation of the website. The design and graphics were developed separately from the functions. Later the design were implemented on the basic functions and created the foundation of what was to become the final version. Each function was tested thoroughly by both administrators and some test persons that would represent first-time users. This enabled us to see our own developing environment from an outside perspective. Testing of new systems has traditionally been carried out by a separate group of people since programmers were thought to be the worst people testing their own systems, as they assumed it would work because they had written it.[19]

Review and maintenance

The final stage of the SDLC model occurs when the system of operational. The system needs supervision to ensure that it will run efficiently and often it needs updating due to organizational or environmentally changes, technological advances or correction of errors.

Graphic Design and Interface Design

Since the website consists of two major separate parts, the public website with information about the QUASI project available to the general public and the project place website. Both parts have a common graphical design in general but also several differences between them. The layout grid is the most noticeable difference, since the two parts have completely different target audiences and purposes, this is perfectly normal.

The section of the site with information to the general public is pretty straightforward in its design. The information architecture is hierarchical and the site has a simple menu with submenus appearing when needed. The only part of the

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design that is a bit unusual is that the menu is placed to the right. Studies have actually shown that there is no difference in the ease of navigation for the users whether the menu is placed to the right or left.[20] We wanted to take advantage of this by placing the menu on the right thus placing the information on the page to the left where it gets the most attention from the viewers.[7]

The menu buttons on the whole site have been designed with a small highlight and shadow to give them a three-dimensional look. This designates possibilities for interaction.[10]

Keeping the text lines shorter than 55 keystrokes is another important design aspect. [4][8][11][16] Some literature even claims that text lines on a webpage should not exceed 35 keystrokes,[7] We have chosen the middle ground and use text lines with approximately 45 keystrokes.

The public web page is designed to fit a screen width of 800 pixels. According to internet statistics less then 1 percent of the internet users have a screen width that is lesser then 800 pixels.[21] To use the available screen width and still keep the text lines short enough we choose to display text in two columns.

For the project place web site the approach to the layout was different. The file archive needs as much width as possible since there is a lot of information to display. The menu was instead placed at the top of the page. Since this menu only consists of four buttons this placement is very useful.[10] A menu consisting of a large number of options would on the other hand probably not be possible to place in one single line or row. The project place website has a dynamic layout were the width of the website adjusts to the width of the browser window. This would usually not be such a good idea as it often creates very long lines of text which are very difficult to read.[7] In our case we have a file archive which displays information (document nr, title, author, research group, file name, file size, date, downloads and administrative functions) in several columns. To display this information in the best possible way and not get too short lines in each column it is better if the user can adjust the width of the page and thereby make use of all available screen width. Our users have a screen width that varies between 1024 and 1920 pixels making this possibility very valuable.

The most work has gone to the design of the file archive itself. This part is design around a pretty basic file archive which displays information about each file in a large table. When a file is added to the file archive the user also has to add certain information (title and abstract) about the file which is added to a database. The information is then displayed together with the more common file information (file name, file size, date added) in the file archive. When a user is viewing the files in the archive he or she can sort or filter the file list ascending or descending by any of the information about the file that is saved in the database. The last addition to the file archive is a system for adding comments to each individual file. This enables the users of the site to discuss each of the files online.

Preliminary results

The most important function of a project place website is the file archive. It enables all members of the project to share and access important information and research results. Since the file archive is most important it has shown to be a good solution to make that the central part of the project place website. Additional features can then be designed as complements to this central feature.

Collected statistics have showed that some of the functions on the site are more used than others. For example are the sorting functions in the file archive used to different extent. Most popular are to sort the files by file number which is the actual order they are uploaded to the archive. Users are also sorting the files by research group and a little unexpected by number of downloads.

One function that has not been used at all is the possibility for users to comment on a file in the archive. This feature is probably not needed at all. This function came up as a suggestion when we discussed possible functions and features of the website with the project members. A poor design of the actual feature from a usability point of view may also contribute to a low usage of this function. But if this was the only reason we would at least see some use of it.

The administrative work load to keep the site running has so far been very low. There is in other words not a big problem to design features, on a project place website, that demands a minimum of administrative work.

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Since the release of the project place website in October 2004 the QUASI project have yet not had a project meeting with representatives from all the project groups. Because of this it’s a bit hard to make a comparison between different kinds of communication within the project. We need to complete a whole cycle containing at least one project meeting and the time between two meetings to get conclusive results.

A project meeting is scheduled just a couple of days before the deadline for this article. Our collected data up to this date show us some tendencies:

It appears that the site is used rather sparingly between meetings with an average of only one login per day. At the time just before a meeting the site traffic has increased as the members are uploading files to be reviewed at the upcoming project meeting. It is pretty safe to assume that the traffic on the project site will drop during the meeting and then increase right after the meeting when project members will start to share information and research results that have been discussed during the meeting. As the time goes by the traffic will probably drop to a low level again when the groups will continue their appointed tasks each on their own.

If we compare the communication conducted via the website with other forms of communication we can see that all form of communications between different groups are fairly low in between the project meetings. It then increases at the time just before a meeting when the different groups prepare what they want to discuss and keeps at a high level for some time just after the meeting until it drops to a low level again. During the actual meeting the level of communication is of course very high although very little (if any) of this communication is conducted via the web since the project members are actually meeting in person.

Cultural differences between members of the QUASI project have not shown to be a problem so far but it is important to keep these questions in mind when you are working with a target audience with potential cultural differences.

Discussion

There are still some questions about the function of the archive, for example when the archive gets

very large, containing a lot of files, will the sort and filter functions be enough to able the users to find the information they are looking for? Do we have to add more functions to aid the users in this case?

We are also talking about adding a notification feature which will notify the users by e-mail when a file gets added to the file archive. This function will also probably need to have some sort of filter so that the users can specify the information about the files they want to be notified about.

A notification function will probably have a positive impact on the communication conducted thru the project place website. When members get notified about new additions in the file archive they will hopefully be reminded to share their own files that may contain useful information to other members of the project. This will increase the level of communication between different project groups in between the project meetings.

The last question we have about the site is what will happen to it when this project is over? Will some of the groups still have an interest in using it for future communications or should we just disable the function of adding files and keep it as an information archive for the project.

References

[1] S. Hall, “Encoding/Decoding,” in Culture, Media, Language. S. HAll, D. Dobson, A. Lowe, and P. Willis, Eds. London: Hutchinson, 1980.

[2] I. Hagen, “Creation of Socio-Cultural Meaning. Media Reception Research and Cognitive Psychology,” in Cultural Cognition. New perspectives in audience theory. B. Höijer and A. Werner, Eds. NORDICOM: Göteborg University, 1998.

[3] D. Morley, Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 1992.

[4] R. Pettersson, Information Design, An introduction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2002.

[5] M. Avgerinou, “Rediscovering Identity in Online Instructional Environments: My Case As A Visual, Field-independent, And Reflective Online.” Selected Readings of the International

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Visual Literacy Association. International Visual Literacy Association, 2002.

[6] R. Pettersson, J. Carlsson, A. Isacsson, A. Kollerbauer, and K. Randerz, Color Information Displays and Reading Efforts. (CLEA–Report No. 18a). Stockholm: Stockholm University, Department of Computer Science, 1984.

[7] V. Götz, Grids for the Internet and Other Digital Media. Crans-près-Céligny (Switzerland): AVA Publishing SA, 2002. [8] J. Nielsen, Designing Web Usability – The Practice of Simplicity. USA: New Riders Publishing, 2000.

[9] A. C. Bradshaw, “Effects of Presentation Interference in Learning with Visuals,” Journal of Visual Literacy, 23, 1, pp. 41-68, 2003.

[10] C. Zwick, B. Schmitz, and I. Pienkos, Navigation for the Internet and Other Digital Media. Crans-près-Céligny (Switzerland): AVA Publishing SA, 2002.

[11] M. A. Tinker, The Legibility of Print. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1963.

[12] R. N. Haber and L. R. Haber, “Visual components of the reading process,” Visual Language, 15, pp. 149, 1981.

[13] P. J. Benson, “Writing visually: Design considerations in technical publications.”Technical Communications Journal. Fourth Quarter, 1985, pp. 35-39. [14] R. Braden, “Visualizing the verbal and verbalizing the visual,” in Seeing Ourselves, Visualization In a Social Context: Readings From The 14th Annual Conference Of The International Visual Literacy Association. R. Braden and A. Walker, Eds. Blacksburg VA. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1983.

[15] R. Braden, “The stylish look: a format for visual literacy writers,” in Cruising In The Future: Readings From The 16th Annual Conference Of The International Visual Literacy Association. N. Thayer and S. Clayton-Randolph, Eds. Bloomington Indiana: Western Sun Printing Co, 1985.

[16] R. Pettersson, Visual Information. Englewood Cliffs. N.J. (USA): Educational Technology Publications, 1993.

[17] B. Knave, “The visual display unit,” in Ergonomic Principles in Office Automation.Uddevalla: Ericsson Information Systems AB, 1983.

[18] D. K. Van Duyne, J. Landay, and J. I. Hong, The design of sites - Patterns, principles and processes for crafting a customer-centered web experience. USA: Addison Wesley, 2002.

[19] D. E. Avison and G. Fitzgerald, InformationSystems Development: Methodologies, Techniques and Tools. 2nd edition. MCGraw-Hill Book Company Europe, 1998.

[20] J. Kalbach and T. Bosenick, “Web Page Layout: A Comparison Between Left- and Right-justified Site Navigation Menus,” Journal of Digital information, vol. 4 no. 1, 2003.

[21] The Counter.com, global statistics February 2005, resolution stats.[Online] Available: http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2005/February/res.php

About the Authors

Rune Pettersson has worked in publishing, in R&D, in Technical Training and in University Teaching and Research. He has published 184 research papers and 64 books. Currently Rune is Vice President of the International Institute for Information Design, IIID. Rune has been Vice President of the International Visual Literacy Association, IVLA, six times and President during 2000–2001. He has also been an International Advisor for the International Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Since August 2000 he is also an Adjunct Professor at Appalachian State University, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, in the USA.

Mattias Meldert is a trained Illustrator and has worked as a web designer and developer. Mattias Meldert is currently working as a part time teacher and part time PhD-student in Information Design at the Department of Innovation, Design and Product Development at Mälardalen University. His main focus is interface and interaction design

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especially for the web media. He has recently published his first book about pictures and graphic design in Information design together with some of his colleagues at the department.

Anna Kroneskog is working as an IT-assistant at the Department of Innovation, Design and Product Development at Mälardalen University. She holds a bachelor degree in Information Systems and Applied Systems Science and specializes in web programming and web application developing. She finds information systems and information design and the close connection between them very interesting and is happy to get the opportunity to study more about it in the creative environment at the department.

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