The Home Page's interface [previous] was created in Macromedia's Shockwave for Director to create an interactive interface. This could be re-developed in Java for efficiency, and also re-presented as a static imagemap for users who could not support these technologies. At the moment shockwave is compatible with more platforms than Java, and so the obvious benefit of this is offering and interactive front-end to a wider audience

Users will be acquainted with the idea's of imagemaps, however the moving head will encourage them to interact and explore, rather than just clicking. This means that when they do click on a link they are likely to find something they want and to stay in the site.

Mac Bugs

Director's mouse orientation on the macintosh is not relative to it's stage position, therefore the head on the interface is overly sensitive, and does not follow the mouse properly.
This problem leads to difficultys when trying to access the image roll-over's properly.

PC Bugs

The roll-overs are very sensitive to when the text appears in the bottom left hand corner. The left piece of circuitry is the most succesfull, as this is the default position. This will be fixed by calibration.

Refinements To Be Applied

As well as being able to access the main content sections form this interface it will also 'suggest' interesting or new content and dynamical select articles from a database of favourites to apply to each section. In effect this means a user can select a point in the map and it will inform the user of where that goes, however the next time they point there the link may go elsewhere.

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