MADCOW: a visual interface for annotating web pages

ABSTRACT

The use of the Web and the diffusion of knowledge management systems makes it possible to base discussions upon a vast set of documents, many of which also include links to multimedia material, such as images or videos. This perspective could be exploited by allowing a team to collaborate by exchanging and retrieving annotated multimedia documents (text, images, audio and video). We designed and developed a digital annotation system, MADCOW, to assist users in constructing, disseminating, and retrieving multimedia annotations of documents, supporting collaborative activities to build a web of decision-related documents. We made a strong effort in designing the user interface and we tested it with 24 users. We describe a scenario in which annotation plays a crucial role, where the object of the collaboration is a politically and artistically important palace of Rome, for which the availability of images and historical documentation is fundamental in order to take informed decisions. We demonstrate the MADCOW interface and its use in the restoration team. The annotations can be used to support teamwork as well as to offer the public some reasoned integration and guide to the available material.

REFERENCES

• 1: Paolo Bottoni , Roberta Civica , Stefano Levialdi , Laura Orso , Emanuele Panizzi , Rosa Trinchese, MADCOW: a multimedia digital annotation system, Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces, May 25-28, 2004, Gallipoli, Italy [doi>10.1145/989863.989870]
• 2: P. Bottoni, R. Civica, S. Levialdi, L. Orso, E. Panizzi, and R. Trinchese. Digital library content annotation with the madcow system. In T. Catarci, S. Christodoulakis, and A. Del Bimbo, editors, Proceedings of Seventh International Workshop of the EU Network of Excellence DELOS on Audio-Visual Content and Information Visualization in Digital Libraries, pages 111--116. Centromedia, Viareggio, Italy, 2005.
• 3: P. Bottoni, R. Civica, S. Levialdi, L. Orso, E. Panizzi, and R. Trinchese. Storing and retrieving multimedia web notes. In S. Bhalla, editor, DNIS, volume 3433 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 119--137. Springer, 2005.
• 4: P. Bottoni, S. Levialdi, and P. Rizzo. An Analysis and Case Study of Digital Annotation. In N. Bianchi-Berthouze, editor, Proc. 3rd International Workshop on Databases in Networked Information Systems (DNIS 2003), pages 216--230. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) 2822, Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, 2003.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
annotation, multimedia, user interface, user interfaces