Abstract
The explosion of the Internet – and the World Wide Web (WWW) in particular – has led to the distribution of information to a much more diverse and unspecified audience. Human factors professionals have a stake in the design of these Internet-based tools and the delivery of information over them. An initial survey distributed to a large diverse population asked respondents to provide positive and negative aspects about the WWW and related Internet communication technologies. The responses (n = 380) were grouped according to general positive and negative categories. Most of the categories paralleled each other on the negative and positive side. Access to information and security dominated both the positive and negative. A second survey had respondents rate 26 positive and negative items based on aspects identified in the first survey. The responses (n = 219) supported the larger categories identified in the first survey and revealed differences in attitude towards the Internet based on age, gender, and student status. These issues, plus others mentioned in the responses, are ones that human factors professionals are in a position to address.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.