[GILS Logo]

gils: Re: Draft GILS article for D-Lib Magazine

gils: Re: Draft GILS article for D-Lib Magazine

Re: Draft GILS article for D-Lib Magazine

Ben Shneiderman (ben@cs.umd.edu)
Tue, 26 Nov 1996 10:29:28 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 10:29:28 -0500 (EST)
From: ben@cs.umd.edu (Ben Shneiderman)
Message-Id: <199611261529.KAA20206@bedrock.cs.umd.edu>
To: echristi@usgs.gov, gils@cni.org
Subject: Re: Draft GILS article for D-Lib Magazine

HI Eliot,

  Thanks for pointing me to your draft...I found it well-written
and informative, and it demonstrates nicely how great it is to
have online docs with live links to related materials.  it is
impressive to see how far GILS has come and how much effort is
going on - so overall a fine piece.

  I have two points to make.  First, you are probably the fish swimming
in GILS water (breathing GILS, as it were).  As a reader, I was left
wondering who is behind GILS?  Your abstract begins with an anthrompomorphic:

  - GILS starts from a basic premise that 

I would prefer you say something like "The designers of GILS start..."
and then tell the reader whether GILS is a USGS initiative, an
Eliot Christian project, or whatever.  You later try to define what
the GILS designers wish to accomplish, but further clarification
would be helpful here too - maybe indicate that it is not a network
protocol, nor a user interface design.
Maybe one way to convey the benefits is to describe a scenario of
a current search, and then describe how it works with GILS in place.
Although you are clearly writing a promotional piece about GILS, I 
think your message will be more convincing if you mention the 
limitations of GILS and indicate what opponents are saying
- thereby countering suggestions that you have given a one-sided view.

  Second, I would like you to say more about the way GILS impacts
user interfaces, and design of web pages that search databases...
how does it help, what are the limitations.  If you are ready to
talk a bit more about user interfaces, I hope you would mention
the U-Maryland and U-Mass effort to create the user interface framework
for search...our paper is nearly ready and is destined to go to
D-Lib as well.  Shall I ask Don Byrd of UMass to send you the
current draft- it is still an RTF document, but will soon be
in HTML...it's been through many revisions.

  Oh yes, today's Netscape homepage points to a vision statemetn by
Andreesen about LDAP - you might mention LDAP and indicate how
it differs or complements GILS.

  Best wishes...Ben

[CNI Home Page]