Massey University Institute of Information Sciences and Technology Paul Lyons' pages

The Net Worker research project

Net Worker is a specialised web browser written in Delphi. It allows a user to display an arbitrary number of browser windows, to load each window with a different web page, and to drag-and-drop information from those web pages into a workpad. The user can then rearrange the information to make it easy to compare items of interest, such as alternative airfares, hotel bookings , book prices, and so forth.

The first prototype comprised a single window with two panels. The first panel contains a browser window, and can be configured to contain from zero to two browser windows. The second panel contains a text field. The user can drag and drop text from the browsers into the text field, and rearrange it there. This makes it easy for the user to compare information from a variety of websites - airfares, hotel bookings, or book prices, for example.

Net Worker remembers URLs from all the browser windows, even when all the browsers have been closed. Browsers can be maximised to occupy the whole window, and so can the Work Pad area.

Jaimee organised an evaluation  of the original prototype by a small group of users, who were very positive about the functionality, but asked for a number of changes to the interface (largely to make it behave more like conventional browsers).

Versions

Evaluated prototype (component colours have been modified slightly for better contrast when published in a paper)

Post evaluation versions

6 10 03 Browser tile direction button now has a name ("List browsers across," or "List browsers down." Back and forward buttons have been added. Animated morph between diffrerent views (horizontal and vertical, maximised and normal, etc.)

8 10 03 Current version. No major new functionality; just improvements to the morphing algorithm