Reaching Out

It's a fairly accurate guess that approximately 70% of educated adults do not access the world wide web. And, of the 30% or so that do, half aren't very effective, don't go exploring and give up when it's difficult. So your web site might be missing 85% of your audience. Certainly the number of people accessing the web will grow, but maybe there is a way to take the information that we are placing on the web to most of the people who don't access the web yet.

The SwimGold web site is being produced on a CD-ROM and titled as "The Archives of United States Masters Swimming". It will be used in many ways, including in a kiosk in the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Ft. Lauderdale and at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. In order to make it effective in reaching people who are not accustomed to manipulating a browser, an APL implementation of Microsoft Agent created by APL2000 will be used to turn it into an "unattended demonstration".

Animated characters will appear around the edge of the web pages. They will be programmed to behave and talk describing the web site and advancing its purposes. Different web pages can be brought to the screen in accord with the dialogue. It will serve well our purposes in providing a means to reach the 85% of people who are not web effective.