Annotation System Survey

Thank you for taking the time to give us feedback on our research. We have been working on an Annotation System for the World-Wide Web this summer. We have found that one downside to the Web is that it forces the readers to be passive. When reading a paper document, one often makes comments in the margins, highlights words, or cross things out. Our annotation system is meant to give readers some of those capabilities on the Web.

We need your feedback on the look of our system as well as the functionality. But first, please answer some questions about yourself:

Part 1

  1. Select your class:
    Faculty 1999 2000 2001 2002

  2. What is your major or department?

  3. Do you typically mark-up a paper document when reading for a class? Yes     No    
    If yes, what kind of markings do you make?
  4. On a scale of 1 to 5, please rate your computing experience. (1 is the least experience and 5 is the most).
    1     2     3     4     5    

  5. About how many hours per week do you use Netscape?


Part 2

Next we are asking you to look at the prototype we have developed and give us comments. Feel free to reflect out loud as you go through the pages. Also, don't hesitate to ask us any questions that you might have.

Try the annotation system, then answer these questions. Make sure to view a page with annotations, add an annotation, and reply to annotations.


Questions

  1. Is this interface easy to understand? Why or why not?



  2. Is this interface easy to use? Why or why not?



  3. What do you like about this interface?

  4. What do you dislike about this interface?

  5. What do you think of the window containing the annotation? Was it displayed in a readable and appealing fashion?


  6. Now we would like you to pretend you were designing an annotation system that would allow readers to make some kind of comments or markup on a Web page. How would it look? (For the purpose of this survey, assume there cannot be a "pop-up window" that displays the annotations.) Please feel free to desribe as many possible examples as you can. If you would rather draw, ask the facilitator for paper.