Form Criteria:
Form Criteria is one of a set of
three criteria the Internet
Detective uses to evaluate the organization and the interface
of a web site. This criterion evaluates a site in three specific
ways: navigational features, user support, and proper use of technologies.
Rashomon Café utilizes a non-standard form of navigation.
Rather than going with a standard margin list of links, the user
is presented with a question and a set of choices, all leading
down different paths. Users must navigate themselves through the
site by making opinion-based decisions (fig. 1-1). Of course,
the developers have complete control over the quantity of decisions
and paths the user can complete before seeing every path. The
fictional control allows for a feeling of interaction, when in
actuality the developers of the site have already determined all
possible scenarios.
figure 1-1 |
The Internet Detective doesn't
supply information for non-traditional navigational features,
so the value of this navigational system is determined based on
how well it serves its purpose. The Internet detective does ask
if the site under investigation organizes its information into
manageable 'chunks.' I'm not too sure if I would call them 'chunks,'
but Rashomon Café only allows the user to see what's important
to navigate through the site. By constricting, or controlling,
the sites navigational pathways, the user can't become lost in
an endless loop of pages.
The second criterion is user support.
More specifically, this section asks if the user will be given
instructions, documentation if needed, and/or interactive help
(e.g. email contacts, telephone numbers, real-time human-to-human
computer mediated chat). User support on any new or innovative
technology is important to assure that no users of the new technology
run into problems. A dichotomy arises with the introduction of
some new technologies; because they are new, and sometimes experimental,
user support may not have been fully developed. However, new technologies
are often in the greatest need for instructional documentation.
Rashomon Café falls into this category, the use of web
technology is slightly different, yet there's no instructional
text. The lack of instructional text is due to the unique ease
of use found in this site. As I stated earlier, Rashomon Café
was produced by Tatu Design and is currently hosted on another
web site OnTheRail.com.
OnTheRail.com is owned by two former 'restaurant refugees,' and
has become a site where restaurant professionals can come to find
industry related news and get involved with a larger community
of restaurant professionals.
Going back to user support, Rashomon
Café is unique in that its originality is only new to the
Internet. More specifically, this genre of story telling has been
around for at least 20 years in books. The familiarity users are
going to have will help them "just know what to do"
when they come across the first page. Furthermore, the user has
no other choices than the ones presented to them by the site's
author(s). It's hard to get lost when you only have one direction
to go. I assume that most, if not all, users who come to Rashomon
Café have no problems in navigating the main character
to his destiny.
Flash is almost a perfect application for this genre of story
telling. The developer of the story can control every element
of the Flash movie. For example, the size, timeline, audio, and
animations are all working together in a single movie that can
be protected from download and even stretch to fit any users screen
resolution. (I will go over the interface qualities of this site
in more detail in the HCI section) Rashomon
Café use of Flash would've presented a problem a few years
ago because it works as a plug-in with an Internet browser. Macromedia
now states the 96% of the online community use Flash as a standard
for viewing vector graphics. So, the resources required to view
this movie have been available for some time now and the application
has saturated itself among major browser developers and computer
platforms.
One negative strike for Flash is
its inability to be viewed or read by someone who has vision problems.
There are applications available that read the text from regular
HTML documents then produce an audio representation so the user
can hear the web site instead of read it. Currently an application
that renders the text from a Flash movie and represent the text
as sound is unavailable.
Form Criteria allows us to take
a good first look at Rashomon Café and examine navigational
features, user support, and proper use of technologies. Although
this site is innovative, and possibly a little experimental, its
familiar use of other genres allows its users to access the information
with ease. Moreover, the developer's use of Flash is an almost
perfect choice for this new form of story telling.
|
