Beyond the interface: users' perceptions of interaction and audience on websites

Dynamic pages and the increasing number of functions that websites can perform are changing users' relations with the Web. Little has been reported on how the experience of using this kind of interactive site differs from the ‘point and click’ interactivity of the early Web. This paper reports on a qualitative study of users who entered text while visiting a website of their choice. It shows how the process brought with it two levels of awareness: that of the interface, and that of the social context beyond the interface. The paper goes on to describe the perception of audience that emerged from analysing users' accounts. It also gives details of the data collection method, which is based on the work of Vermersch and has not been widely used outside France for analysing interaction with computers. The implications for website design are considered.