A Preliminary Evaluation for User Interfaces According to User Computer Skill and Computer Specifications

Recently, immense multimedia information is exchanged on the Internet, where 3DCG, video, image, sound, and text are involved in various circumstances with different terminal devices, networks, and users with different knowledge and competence on using computers. This fact may easily lead to so called ´edigital divide´ unless any special support is given to the users with few knowledge. We have already proposed a new concept of ´euniversal multimedia access´ intended to narrow the digital divide by providing appropriate multimedia expressions according to users´ (mental and physical) abilities, computer facilities, and network environments. In this paper, we show our preliminary evaluation of the user interfaces according to user computer skill and computer specifications.