Research Abstract:
Annotation
of Web contents is becoming a fundamental activity by which users
appropriate and enrich information available on the Net. MADCOW
(Multimedia Annotation of Digital Content Over the Web) is a system for
annotating HTML pages that provides a uniform interactive paradigm to
make annotations on text, images and video. MADCOW has also recently
included novel features for groups and group annotations by adopting
ontological domains, but interaction with the MADCOW client is currently
limited to the use of common input devices (e.g., keyboard, mouse),
requiring a precise selection of the material to be annotated. In this
paper, we present a sketch-based interface, which can be used not only
to annotate content but also aspects relative to the presentation of the
information. While interacting with a standard Web browser, users can
draw free-hand geometrical shapes (e.g., circles, closed paths) for
selecting specific parts of the Web pages to be annotated. The
interaction mode depends on the adopted input device. For example, users
interacting with touch-screen devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets) can
draw shapes with their fingers, but in principle any device able to
detect sketching gestures can be supported (e.g., graphic tablets,
optical pens).