http://www.tnt.uni-hannover.de/data/info/www/tnt/guide/help/idea.html (Einblicke ins Internet, 10/1995)
Idea of TNT Info
The idea for TNT Info originates in the necessity to gather local information in a
single system that provides access to different data formats and a simple operating
interface. With WWW and its famous browsers we found a hypertext-based information
system, which enables in addition to our recommendations an Internet connection to
informations systems of various protocolls. Due to our understanding that a
world-wide free-of-charge information web bases on the information of each user,
TNT Info has been set up as a information server accessable for other institutions
aswell.
One of the main problems of information systems is to adapt the structure to the
user specifiy search strategies. This problem results from the fact that one and
the same information is an answer to various questions and therefore there is no
unique way of ordering information. To overcome this problem several views have
been implemented in TNT Info, considering different search strategies and different
main emphasises. These views access the same information amount and enable an
access of all information, but with a distorted depiction.
During the first steps of building TNT Info one problem arrised in navigating
deep in the data hierarchie, e.g. if the reader recognizes that he is on the wrong
path. Therefore the TNT-Button-Row has been involved that enables to switch back
to more general points of view, to look at the current data hierarchy, to search
for certain words and the get online help.
TNT Info has been designed and built by a
group of reasearch assistants beside their main project work at the Institute.
See also:
Lutz Falkenhagen