Simplifying annotation support for real-world-settings: a comparative study of active reading

Despite the multitude of existing interfaces for annotation, little is known about their influence on the created annotations. In this paper, first findings of a comparative video-supported study of active reading are presented. The support for active reading offered by traditional paper-and-pencil vs. two existing annotation tools for the World Wide Web is examined and possible implications for annotation systems are drawn. An immediate conclusion is the existence of a strong need for simplicity and the importance of generic tools that can be adapted to the user’s task at hand. General Terms Design, Human Factors Keywords Annotation, User Study, Active Reading THE MOTIVATION FOR ANNOTATIONS Human created meta-data might be crucial to the success of advanced hypertext features, such as sophisticated linking and parts of the Semantic Web, as machine-generated meta-data alone might not be able to provide a major qualitative difference to the search engines used to locate information t...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: HT
• Authors: Hartmut Obendorf
• Keywords: Active Reading, Annotation, HT 2003, World Wide Web