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Publisher Summary Data resources and applications accessible through today's Web offer tremendous opportunities for exploration: ask a slightly different question, receive a correspondingly different answer. However, typical browser-based mechanisms for accessing the Web only enable users to pose one such question at a time, placing a heavy operational and cognitive burden on any user who wants to explore and compare alternatives. A subjunctive-interface approach may reduce this burden. Subjunctive interfaces support the setting up, viewing, and adjustment of multiple scenarios in parallel, allowing side-by-side instead of temporally separated viewing, and more efficient iteration through alternatives. A spreadsheet-inspired environment has been implemented where end users can program and use their own Web-access applications that include such multiscenario support. This chapter describes three modes of use of this environment—parallel retrieval, coordinated manipulation, and tentative composition—and explains how these may help to alleviate typical challenges in Web-based tasks. At the same time, one acknowledge that the increased scope for exploration made possible through this environment can itself present a form of cognitive burden to users, and plans were outlined to evaluate the impact of this effect. |
