Evolution of web site design: implications for medical education on the Internet

Since its inception, the world wide web (WWW) has possessed the potential f or becoming a 'watershed' medium for conveying complex, structured informat ion across vast temporal and geographical barriers. In 1995, the MedWorld p roject (http://medworld.stanford.edu) was created at the Stanford Universit y School of Medicine in an effort to innovate and explore the design proces s of creating WWW applications specifically for medical education. Until re cently, the evolution of WWW applications has been mainly driven by technol ogical advances in client-server technology, enabling or translating tradit ional modes of collaborative medical education (e.g. voice, presence, print , motion) into WWW devices and applications. Many of these applications, wh ile technologically advanced, lack focused development of interface and int eractivity design, which may enhance learning experiences. WWW applications which incorporate design innovation in parity with advances in client-serv er technology have been termed, 'third generation' web sites and have the p otential to improve the quality of WWW applications designed for medical ed ucation. This work describes how the MedWorld project has created a 'third generation' WWW application by utilizing innovation in information, interfa ce and interactivity design to create innovative WWW technology for the med ical education arena. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.