## Richard Almind*

## Designing Internet Dictionaries

## Abstract

The design of  internet  dictionaries  roughly  falls  into  two  categories:  built  from  the ground up and converted from print. Whereas the former often shows little infl  uence from  the  hands  of  the  lexicographer  the  latter  proves  that  printed  and  electronic pub  lish  ing require very different design solutions. Unfortunately, this has not yet been brought to the attention of the publishers. The article will try to explain this on the basis of a critical examination of two internet dictionaries, neither of which are overly con  vincing in their approach.

Sadly,  there  are  still  publishers  who  believe  that  they  can  publish  a proper internet dictionary by converting the digital form of a printed dictionary directly onto the internet and slapping a search engine on top of it. Such publishers usually work on the assumption that by showing off the printed design on screen potential customers will be compelled to buy the book. They will not. An internet dictionary is a work in its own right. As a marketing strategy this will fail simply because users will be disappointed. Reading type on screen is very diffi  cult since no screen  has  the  same  light  refl  ection  capacity  of  white  paper  nor  the resolution to match print. In fact reading on screen is comparable to reading a newspaper under a 25W bulb - adequate for small passages but not for intense reading. Designing an internet dictionary is wrought with the same amount of problems as designing a printed dictionary. Unfortunately, most of the design decisions differ fundamentally which leads  to  assumptions  of  the  aforementioned  kind.  Whatever  thought and  consideration  the  lexicographer  puts  into  the  printed  output  of

* Richard Almind Centre for Lexicography Aarhus School of Business Fuglesangs Allé 4 DK-8210  Aarhus V rab@asb.dk

37

his labour will have to be reconsidered from the ground up when the dictionary is going to be published on the internet. The reason for this lies in one word: accessibility.

## Form and Function

As stated in Almind/Bergenholtz (1990, 31), (2000, 259) the form of a given dictionary follows its function. The arguments for that truism are based on designing dictionaries in print where all aspects of design can be controlled. For a printed dictionary they still hold true but they must be amended for internet publications. On the internet any or all deci  sions  concerning  fonts,  font-sizes,  colour,  background  and  page size, are void beyond the designer's browser. And even if a given homepage is tested on more than one standard browser confi  guration we can only test the pages on a limited number. The moment the user downloads our page we can hope that more than 50 percent of our design is displayed as intended on the computer screens of our users. In con  sequence the truism that form follows function becomes rhetorical since it lies outside the lexicographer's control.

In  print  the  publisher  can  demand  the  lemma  to  be  set  in  9,76pt Helvetica Neue semi-bold condensed. Similar decisions are made to the format of the media itself (the book) and its page layout (the columns). Web design on the other  hand  is  very  much  the  art  of  compromise. The web designer defi  nes individual objects just as precise but must bear in mind that they will be interpreted more loosely by the client browser. Formatting the page boundaries will depend on the receiving screen size and its resolution. Thus, the above defi  nition ends up being interpreted more along the lines of, »whenever possible let the lemma be displayed in the font, size and colour defi  ned. Meet as many of the defi  nitions as possible. Should none of it be met default to sans-serif, rather large and in bold.« Most colours (background, fi  eld, text etc.) will display but almost never the way they display natively. This is mainly due to differences in hardware. Many computers are being sold bundled with cheap screens and/or graphic cards or are set to lower resolution and/or fewer colours. Therefore, colours are rendered differently and allowances must be made thus the colours in use should be far apart in contrast. There is a defi  ned set of so called »web-safe« colours in every professional web design application. All colours must adhere to them.

## Functionalities

Insisting  to  defi  ne  form  is  a  loosing  battle.  Concentrate  in  stead  on what can be controlled: the dictionary's functionality. The speed and precision  with  which  the  user  retrieves  data  is  the  reason  why  even internet  dictionaries  with  sub-standard  content  are  successful.  Concentrate  on  the  primary  advantage  of  publishing  on  the  internet:  the search engine. Giving access to powerful search-functions is essential to a dictionary's success. Content is important but many excellent dictionaries are avoided simply because they have cumbersome user interfaces, are cluttered with adverts, have slow search engines, or display illegible results. The following table summarizes the demands a user makes towards a functioning dictionary:

| Demand                                      | Solution                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
|---------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| An internet dictionary must be easy to find | Make sure your dictionary has a simple internet-address. If you have more than one dictionary acquire more internet- addresses and create multiple home pages.                                                                                                                     |
| The search field is the centre of attention | Let the search field be visually centred near the top of your home page.                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
| Readable articles                           | Use colours sparingly and keep the 'good' colours for important data. Black on white is good. Red on blue is not. Contrast is your friend. Put each piece of information on its own line and use headings prudently.                                                               |
| Instant results                             | Keep your database and web pages small and your servers large.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| Simple results                              | Show only a limited amount of results 5 to 10 per page depending on the overall size of the dictionary's articles. This reduces clutter and lets the user know that he should refine his search.                                                                                   |
| Reduce the number of results                | Sometimes users test a dictionary by searching for all words containing an 'e' or similar. These requests are hardly based on a genuine wish to solve a given linguistic problem. If a search results in a ridiculously large number of returns let the user re-define the search. |
| Advanced searches                           | If possible let the user refine his search by searching both lemma and specific elements such as collocations or by searching within the found set of articles.                                                                                                                    |
| Display the results logically               | Is an alphabetical sorting really informative? How about sorting by word length or by relevance? Consider giving alternatives to the default sort especially when displaying the results of advanced searches.                                                                     |

| Is a search field really necessary?   | Sometimes in small specialised dictionaries it would be better to give the user a list of all articles in stead of a search mechanism. This simplifies the web page and improves caching of often used articles.   |
|---------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

The remark about alternative sorting may need elaboration. Few may agree that there is an alternative to an alphabetically sorted list of ar  ticles. Nevertheless, I argue that it is necessary to fi  nd alternatives for two reasons: (1) a search resulting in only fi  ve or ten short articles is not very diffi  cult to overlook and not sorting that list frees server processing time for other more demanding tasks, and (2) it is not uncommon especial  ly  in  internet  searches  to  sort  a  given  result  by  relevancy  since alpha  betical sorting on such large results is meaningless in most cases. Relevancy in the case of advanced searches could be to display all ar  ticles that contain all search parameters, for instance lemma and collo  cation, up front and those only containing the lemma further down followed by those only containing the collocation. This is just a sketchy suggestion, and alphabetical sorting is very often necessary but letting a user do multiple searches within a large fi  rst result is a much better tool for fi  nding the solution to their current problem. The time saved browsing through 100 articles fi  ve, ten, or twenty at the time will easily make up for the extra time spent refi  ning a search. A refi  ned search thus ne  cessit  ates the »Advanced search« option advocated for in the above table. Alphabetical sorting is »traditional« and it is diffi  cult to think of al  ternatives but consider the usefulness of the tradition carefully. The computer really is much more up to the task of locating complex data structures than the alphabet is. Even the lemma itself may prove to be superfl  u  ous when it comes to displaying a result on screen.

Help texts are important for the non-professional user. Let synonyms, antonyms, collocations and similar parts of an article be labelled clearly not with symbols but with proper headings. Let each heading be defi  ned in the dictionary itself but also by linking it to a defi  nition in the user's guide which of course is one of the not to be forgotten texts the user can fi  nd on the site. In theory a web page can hold an infi  nite number of texts and explanations just as the database can hold an infi  nite number of articles. There is no need to leave out a user's guide just because the publisher considers his audience to be specialised users who certainly know how to interpret the data because most users will most likely not know how to do that. A simplifi  ed user's guide should be provided. It explains to the user the basics on how to use the search mechanism and what results to expect from it. Let the user know who published the dictionary. Name, title, organisation are all important to legitimise the dictionary. Supply an email-address for the users to suggest corrections, point out defi  ciencies or to vent grievances on why the dictionary is inaccessible. Answering these emails gives you a loyal albeit critical audience from which you can draw no end of positive knowledge on how to improve both data and system.

The scope of this article presumes a constructive criticism of Finnish  internet  dictionaries.  At  www.yourdictionary.com  you  can  fi  nd and  browse  through  twelve  Finnish  internet  dictionaries  but  neither yourdictionary.com nor  Google-searches  provided  any  publicly  available Finnish bi-lingual general language dictionaries that contain much more than a given equivalent for each lemma. Half of the dictionaries provide a search engine or database access: the ENGLISH-FINNISH-ENGLISH ONLINE DICTIONAR y , the FINNISH-ENGLISH-FINNISH JAVA DICTIONAR y , the FINNISHRUSSIAN  DICTIONAR y ,  the  ENGLISH-FINNISH-SWEDISH  MATHEMATICS  DICTION  ARY, the FINNISH-VEPS-KARELIAN-ESTONIAN ONLINE DICTIONARY, and the SKOLVERKET SWEDISH-FINNISH DICTIONARY (please refer to their individ  ual  links  by  accessing  the  yourdictionary.com homepage), where  as the other half are lists of simple articles mostly even without defi  ni  tions or synonyms. It is odd that a country priding itself in being one of the most computerised countries in the world cannot provide its population with a single dictionary that goes beyond simple word lists. My choice, therefore, fell on a Swedish internet dictionary that is both free  and  of  some  lexicographical  standard:  the  LEXIN  SVENSK-FINSKT LEXIKON . It will be compared to a reference dictionary DEN DANSKE NETORDBOG which itself has a number of shortcomings. The text focuses on three key elements: accessibility, speed and legibility of the resulting ar  ticles.

## Den Danske Netordbog (the Danish General Language Dictionary/NetDOB)

DEN DANSKE NETORDBOG has been created, designed and is maintained by the Centre for Lexicography at the Aarhus Business School in Denmark. The database contains approximately 125.000 records covering some

107.000 articles. Each article can contain grammar, defi  nition, sub lemma  (as  polysemes),  collocations,  synonyms,  antonyms,  word  forms, idioms, and proverbs. Cross-references to other articles are provided where applicable. The database's physical size is 120MB. To make sure the database delivers results to its users quickly it resides on a dedicated server with another server serving the web pages.

DEN DANSKE NETORDBOG (the Danish General Language Dictionary/ NetDOB)  and  its  siblings,  DEN  DANSKE  IDIOMORDBOG  (the  Danish Dictionary  of  Idioms/NetIDIOM) , DEN  DANSKE  REGNSKABSORDBOG (the  Danish  Dictionary  of  Accounting  Terms/NetIAS-DK)  and  DEN DANSK-ENGELSKE  REGNSKABSORDBO g (the  Danish-English  Dictionary of Accounting Terms/NetIAS-DKGB) all share the same overall design. They all have different internet addresses but reside on the same server.  The  sites  share  as  many  HTML-pages  as  possible  which  reduces  maintenance  considerably.  Furthermore,  the  NetDOB  and  the NetIDIOM share the same database which makes it easier to update the dictionaries. The same structure applies to the NetIAS-DK and NetIASDKGB. Changes made in the databases are refl  ected immediately on the internet.

Entering  the  internet-address  www.dendanskenetordbog.dk brings the user to the main site. All pages on the server are divided into the same four parts: the static parts header , footer , and navigation menu and the dynamic data part. Unlike most other sites this is not ac  complish  ed  through  the  use  of  frames  which  otherwise  makes  it  easy  to globally update static elements like the navigation menu. However, this ap  proach gives access to a wider range of browsers and reduces screen up  date time on the user's computer. The downside is that changes to the static parts must be made across the site's more than 60 pages.

Header and footer contain the name of the dictionary, and the logo, address, and link to the homepage of the Aarhus Business School. The navigation menu contains links to a user's guide and information about origin, composition, and maintenance of the dictionary, as well as a list of literature about lexicography (downloadable as PDF-documents) and a contacts page. At the end of the menu are links to the other dictionaries hosted by the Centre for Lexicography. There are no links to external dictionaries,  although,  such  links  should  be  provided.  The  dynamic data part of the home page itself contains a greeting and a search fi  eld Center for Leksikografi Aarhus School of Business Handelshøjskolen Den Danske Netordbog Tips til søgning Om ordbogen Sprognormer Brugervejledning Litteratur Meddelelser Kontakt os Idiomordbogen Regnskabsordbogerne HHA | CampusNet | Biblioteket Den Danske Netordbog Den Danske Netordbog: Søgeresultat Der blev fundet 12 kort i databasen med "arbejde".

er

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arbejde ' substantiv <et; -t, -r, -re>

arbejde 1

1.

job which is selected and ready for input. The greeting is mainly used to advertise new dictionaries or to provide messages from the host master con  cern  ing technical issues.

plads

stilling

kollokationer

have et afvekslende/interessant arbejde

have et ensformigt/monotont arbejde

have et fast arbejde

lave forefaldende arbejde

meningsfyldt arbejde

søge (nyt) arbejde

være i arbelde

være pă arbejde

være uden arbejde

idiomer Once the user has loaded the homepage the search fi  eld is selected automat  ically. He then enters a string of letters hits the return key and waits for the result. Search times are less than six seconds at peak load but usual  ly less than 3 seconds even through 56Kbit connections. In theory the database is capable of serving up to 5.000 requests per second but in reality this load will never be reached. To let the user know that the search is in progress a message appears letting him know that should the search last longer than 5 seconds he can click a given link to reinitiate the search. Usually this is only necessary during data collision caused by busy internet connections. The reason that such short search Nulstil Seg times are possible lies in the use of an extensive cache. Despite the consid  erable number of records in the database only very few of them are actual  ly being looked-up. Less than 15.000 in fact. Most of these are stored dynamically in a cache on the server.

<!-- image -->

The  search  fi  eld  lets  the  user  choose  between  searching  for  the exact string or any lemma beginning with, containing, or ending with the search string. The string itself is looked up in a search fi  eld of the data  base that contains the lemma and its variants thus searching for an exact string of letters will always give larger results than expected. The search mechanism then validates the string. If the result is larger than 100 articles the user is asked to refi  ne the search. Otherwise the results are  shown  alphabetically  sorted  by  lemma,  homonym  and  polyseme fi  ve articles per page.

The results page contains the same static information. The data part now contains a search fi  eld and the articles. Each article is ordered in a table for greater accuracy and control and can contain any or all of the following components formatted as follows:

| Lemma                       | 14 px Verdana bold, black, offset 18 px to the left of the remaining data                                                                               |
|-----------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Grammar                     | 14 px Verdana italic, black, following the lemma on the same line, line break at max width of table, links to user's guide: hover dark grey, underlined |
| Polyseme (incl. Sub-Lemma)  | 14 px Verdana, black, first line below grammar                                                                                                          |
| Definition                  | 12 px Verdana, black                                                                                                                                    |
| Collocation                 | 12 px Verdana, black                                                                                                                                    |
| Synonym                     | 12 px Verdana, black, links to other articles if applicable: hover dark grey, underlined                                                                |
| Antonym                     | 12 px Verdana, black, links to other articles if applicable: hover dark grey, underlined                                                                |
| Example                     | 12 px Verdana, black                                                                                                                                    |
| Word Formation              | 12 px Verdana, black, links to other articles if applicable: hover dark grey, underlined                                                                |
| Idiom                       | 12 px Verdana, black, definition in parenthesis preset with an equal-sign                                                                               |
| Proverbs                    | 12 px Verdana, black                                                                                                                                    |
| Links to related home pages | 12 px Verdana, black                                                                                                                                    |
| Headers                     | 12 px Verdana, blue, links to user's guide: hover underlined                                                                                            |

Notice  that  the  size  of  the  typography  in  web  pages  is  measured  in pixels ( px ) rather than points ( pt ) which would be the traditional measure  ment  of  typographical  size  in  print.  The  primary  font  in  use  is Verdana a sans-serif font installed in most computers as part of the Windows operating system and on the Macintosh as part of the Micro  soft Offi  ce Suite. There is therefore a good chance that most users see the typography as specifi  ed. Choosing a relatively simple sans-serif font increases legibility on screen which is in contrast to most studies of printed typography. Sans-serif fonts are simpler with all lines of the let  ter hav  ing the same thickness (weight) whereas serif fonts tend to clutter lines with their serifs especially on lower screen sizes decreasing legibility due to screen resolution defi  ciencies.

The layout decisions concerning header, footer, and navigation menu have been imposed from outside sources. Even though some of the choices have been debated extensively it seems as if the overall design is being well received by most users. In fact, many fi  rst time users consider it to be elegant and pleasing. User satisfaction on this very subjective level may be considered superfl  uous but a dictionary lives off its readers and having them return simply because they »like the way it looks« is an important factor to consider.

For technical reasons articles containing polysemes are divided into separate articles one for the lemma and its conjugation and one for each following polyseme still containing the lemma but without its grammatical information. Each article is set apart from the next by a discreet grey line. Lexicographical elements within the article are set apart from each other by blue headers and written on separate lines with the exception of the grammar part which resembles traditional printed layout in dictionaries. No truncation is allowed, i.e. collocations, word forms or other information containing the lemma are written in full with  out the substitution of the lemma-string with a tilde contrary to the tra  dition in printed dictionaries that rely on this feature to reduce the physical size of the bound volume. The only exception to the rule is the gram  mar part where the lemma is replaced with a hyphen because the constant repetition of the lemma disguises the information the dictionary wants to convey. All headers automatically show a brief explanatory text and are links to the appropriate place in the user guide should a user want to know more about their interpretation. There is a tradition on the inter  net to underline links to other documents. Underlining also causes text to be hard to read especially in lists. For these reasons links in this dic  tionary are not underlined until the cursor »hovers« above it.

Above and below the results are shown links for loading the next or previous fi  ve articles or any set of fi  ve articles in between. Choosing this approach to navigating these often very large articles is impractical. For most searches this may be negligible but in the case of the word gå (walk) the search returns the lemma and 64 polysemes spanning 13 pages. The user has no clue to where the answer to his question lies and has to browse most if not all of them.

This problem should be addressed either by giving the user a list of all found lemmas so that he can jump to the one in question or to let the user search within the found set of articles in any or all parts of each (de  fi  nition, collocation, synonym, antonym, etc.). Also, the user could be given the option to see more than fi  ve articles at a time but this only reduces the number of pages and doesn't actively support the user in his search. Bringing this approach to its ultimate conclusion, i.e. a full list with all article components visible, is not very useful, either. The alternative  is  to  present  a  synopsis  of  each  article,  for  instance  only the lemma and all polysemic defi  nitions. But not all polysemes contain defi    nitions. Most are in fact defi  ned through their synonyms and other infor  mation. In the case of NetDOB the data structure does not allow for lists.

A refi  ned list reducing the found set of data is by far the best approach but  also  the  one  demanding  most  resources  both  concerning  server strength and programming effort and is not likely to be implemented in the near future.

The lack of advanced search capabilities in the dictionary is an overall problem but navigating the dictionary is not as primitive as cur  so  ry glances may suggest. In fact the editors and programmers have implement  ed a very useful feature inside the articles themselves. Each of the synonyms, antonyms, and word formations that are present in the dictionary as independent articles are in fact links to these articles. Clicking them performs a search that results in the article in question. In the near future this will also become a feature for idioms where a click on a given idiom will perform a search in the NetIDIOM a parallel dictionary based in full on the contents of the NetDOB . Already, the reverse  connection  is  made:  a  given  idiom  in  the  NetIDIOM  contains links  in  the  idiom  itself  that  points  to  articles  in the  NetDOB . Such cross-referencing between seemingly independent dictionaries is an approp  riate use of the electronic media and should be considered wherever  possible.  As  a  fi  nal  note  it  is  worthy  to  mention  that  the  new NetIAS-DK, a specialised dictionary of accounting terms based on the IAS/IFRS-norm links to the NetDOB wherever possible to give the user the option to look up the layman's defi  nition of a given term. This in part to help understand the often very complicated defi  nitions that are inherent in a specialised dictionary.

The NetDOB tries its best to  make  use  of  the  possibilities  of  the electronic media but doesn't fully exploit the strengths of the underlying data  base. It lacks many advanced search capabilities and has fl  aws in its search engine which could easily be dismissed were it smaller than it is. Its very size, the reason why it is considered one of the best public dictionaries available, is its weakness and it is obvious that much work lies  ahead.  Its  strength  lies  in  its  speed  and  accessibility  herein  also count  ing the many typographical considerations that have been taken into account. It proves that many »laws« and traditions of typography have to be broken when displaying data on screen since studies based on printed layout are clearly misguiding when applied to web pages. The article structure on the other hand should be reconsidered once new search capabilities are at hand. A more radical approach could be to split the dictionary into several minor ones interconnected through links. In so doing, a user searching a dictionary containing only grammar could be led to another dictionary containing collocations by clicking the appro  priate link.

## Lexin svensk-fi  nskt lexikon (Lexin)

Under  the  heading  LEXIN  -  ETT  LEXICON  FÖR  INVADRARUNDERVISNING (Lexin - a dictionary for the education of immigrants) we fi  nd a set of bi-lingual dictionaries with language pairs from Swedish (L1) to any of the following languages: English, Bosnian, Finnish, Greek, Croatian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish (L2). At fi  rst glance the dictionaries presume to be bi-directional but, an L2-search results in Swedish lemmas with their foreign language equivalents and not, as expected, foreign lan  guage lemmas with Swedish equivalents. It is, however, stated on the front page that the option to make an L2-search is a service beyond the original function of the dictionary.

The LEXIN is part of an internet forum for learning the Swedish language  hosted  on  the Skoldatanät (the  Swedish  Schoolnet)  under  the auspices of the Myndigheten för skolutveckling (the Agency for School Improvement).  The  site  hosts  a  number  of  illustrations  thematically ordered  into groups like family, the human body, clothing, music and in  stru  ments,  etc., various educational services, a test area, discussion forums, and other education tools . An English version of the site is provided. The SVENSK-FINSKT LEXIKON (Swedish-Finnish dictionary) is on  ly a part of the site and is defi  ned as a combination of lexicon and dic  tio  nary with a vocabulary of approx. 30.000 »words«. The dictionary is set to be a tool in the language education of foreign speakers with little or no foreign language skills, i.e. immigrants.

The main page is divided into four parts, three static parts header , footer , and navigation menu and the dynamic data part. The header holds the logo of the Skoldatanätet (the Swedish Schoolnet) and a link to the home page, the footer holds mail addresses to the editor and to the webmaster and the text myndigheten för skolutveckling (Agency for School Improvement). The navigation menu contains links to the aforemen  tioned language pairs, the very extensive user's guide, a statistics page showing the monthly use of the dictionaries, the educational forums, and links to fi  ve other dictionaries on the internet and a link to yourdictionary.com under the heading Lista över tusen lexikon för olika språk (List of a thousand dictionaries of various languages). The data  part  contains a search fi  eld and options for searching in either the Swedish lemmas or their Finnish equivalents.

Skoldatanätet

444 TILL FÖRSTA SIDAN

· Svensk-engelskt

· Svensk-bosniskt

· Svensk-finskt

· Svensk-grekiskt

· Svensk-kroatiskt

· Svensk-ryskt

· Svensk-spanskt

· Svensk-turkiskt

· Egna tillägg

· Bildteman

· Att använda Lexin

· Om Lexin

· Om Lexin pá www

· Frågor och svar

· Statistik

· Andra webblexikon

Oversätt igen!

(·)

Svenska till finska.

Finska till svenska.

Rättstava

okända ord.

Oversätt!

Bläddra bland Lexins ord

(med utgångspunkt frán

'arbete")

Översättning av: arbete

Svenskt uppslagsord

tjänst, anställning, yrke

arbete arbetet arbeten arbetena subst.

Finsk översättning

työ

Exempel

· civilt arbete--siviilityö

· söka arbete--hakea työtä

· skyddat arbete--suojatyö

Svenskt uppslagsord

arbetsplats, jobb

työ

Finsk översättning

Exempel

Svenskt uppslagsord

produkt, alster, verk

Finsk översättning

teos

Exempel The results page repeats these page elements with the addition of a simi  lar although condensed search fi  eld at the end of the navigation menu. Below that are a pair of arrows for browsing the dictionary forwards and backwards starting with the current article. All found articles are dis  played on one page. At the bottom is a box with a link to how to interpret the result and an option to add the found articles to a personal list.

<!-- image -->

Activating this feature gives the possibility to return to this and other sets of articles during further searches.

Entering the search string arbete (work) results in 4 articles which are in fact polysemes to arbete . Each article can contain conjugation, defi    ni  tion,  the  Finnish  equivalent,  examples  (collocations)  and  word for  ma  tions  and  their  respective  Finnish  equivalents  and  translations. Hang  ing headers titled Svenskt uppslagsord (Swedish lemma) , Finsk över  sätning (Finnish  equivalent) , Exempel (example) , and Samman  sätningar/avledningar (word  formations)  divide  the  groups  of information. Although the hanging headers make very good separations they  create  an  unnecessary  large  distance  between  the  article  parts. Head  ers and body text share the same typographical defi  nitions except for bold and italic. Each article is separated from the next by a horizontal line  across  the  article's  width.  The  overall  typography  is  black  on  a white background with the static page elements black on a light grey back  ground. The font is defi  ned as sans-serif and rather large.

This  site,  however,  shows  clearly  how  diffi  cult  it  is  to  make  sure the user gets the result the designer expects. It is only under Microsoft Explorer that any font information actually gets passed through. Mozilla/ Net  scape, for instance, ignores it and sets it to its own default values which happens to be Times New Roman. The following description is based on using the dictionary with the MS Explorer browser.

The Swedish lemma is set in bold. Italicised on the same line we fi  nd con  jugation and word class, the latter in plain text. On the next line, the second most likely spot to fi  nd an equivalent, we fi  nd a number of synonyms followed by a defi  nition in some articles, also written in plain text. The cursory eye will read these very distinct pieces of information as one which is counter-productive to their function. Keeping this informa  tion  closely  together  only  serves  the  purpose  to  create  distance be  tween  the  lemma  and  its  equivalent.  The  additional  header  under which the equivalent is set in bold worsens this condition. Following a blank line a new header introduces examples, and word formations formatted as bulleted lists with the Swedish text italicised followed by three dashes and the Finnish translation in plain text. The distance from the left margin of the table to these lists is longer than in the rest of the page caused by the style defi  nition as bulleted un-numbered lists. No elements of the article are links to other articles or dictionaries.

As mentioned earlier  the  Lexin  sets  out  to  be  an  aid  in  language  learning for non-Swedish speakers as a lexicon. However, it emphasizes the role of being a lexicon over its potential as a language aid. The layout of the page shows this clearly. The lemma and its equivalent are both set in bold but so far apart as to be virtually impossible to connect intuitively. In order to fulfi  l its purpose, i.e. providing a possible translation to a given Swedish word, the equivalent should be placed right next to the lemma. Had this be done, the Lexin could still function as a lexicon but the emphasis would now be on the user's point of view, i.e. this word is a problem for the user and this equivalent is its immediate solution, not its conjugation, nor its word class, nor its synonyms. Nevertheless, all these pieces of information are given priority over the equivalent. In order to confuse the user further the conjugations are written in full and italicised, traditionally diffi  cult to read, causing rather large amounts of similar text to be read as if they were a sentence, even though this could easily be on a separate line after the equivalent or placed in parenthesis. Also, the word class should precede conjugation since it gives the user a head start on what to expect from the remainder of the line or it could be written between the lemma and its equivalent.

The use of headings, although advocated for earlier, is being mis  used in this case simply because they are formatted in the same font, size and colour as the rest of the article. Headings are not part of the information the user seeks but are guides pointing towards it. They should not  be  emphasized strongly but stay in the background. This can be accomplished by colourizing them either to a colour far from the colour scheme of the site or to a lighter shade of the same colour. Also the choice of the heading need not be in this case Svenskt uppslagsord (Swedish  lemma)  and Finsk  översättning (Finnish  equivalent).  the user is well capable of discerning the two. the fi  rst heading could be omitted completely and the other could be Översättning (equivalent) . It  would  suffi  ce  and  make  it  quicker  to  read  thus  nearing  it  its  role as a marker , although, it would still be better to move the equivalent closer to the lemma. If the designer insists in setting the font, size and colour the same as the body text, then let a blank line precede it as has been done with the Exempel (example) and Sammansättningar/ avledningar (word formations) headings.

Considering the layout of the examples, or rather, collocations, other layout decisions have been made that are open for criticism. There are no spaces between the dashes and the text which seems odd. The dashes them  selves  and  their  number  seem  quite  superfl  uous.  One  or  two  at most should be plenty. In fact, setting the Swedish part in italics and the trans  lation in plain text should be ample distinction. If this isn't enough it  should be considered to place them underneath each other perhaps even creating distinction by colourizing them. The same of course applies to the formatting of the word forms.

The lack of links from parts of the dictionary to other articles, user's guide, or even illustrations shows that the LEXIN is very far from putting the media to its proper use. It would be easy to link a given lemma to its illustrated counterpart in the Bildteman (illustrations) section of the LEXIN and vice versa but this has not been done. In stead looking up the word ben (leg) we are given a lengthy description of this obvious part of the human anatomy.

An interesting idiosyncrasy occurs when studying the site's other diction  aries. In all the other dictionaries, except for the Swedish-English and  the  Swedish-Finnish  dictionary,  the  Swedish  lemma  is  sup  plied with a pronunciation element. In the case of the Swedish-Turkish diction  ary this has even been supplemented with a button that activates a mp3-fi  le speaking the word to the user. Why is this option reserved for this  particular  dictionary? The designer should be capable of linking this to all dictionary entries across the site. After all the words in use are the same. One might expect more from a programming point of view.

Colourization is often either shied away from or overused the latter causing what is sometimes known as a circus-layout .  It  is  a  diffi  cult sub  ject especially since colour defi  nitions are device-dependent, that is to say, they depend on the receivers hardware. Nevertheless, used prudently colours can make a world of difference to the user. In the NetDOB the headings are blue, a colour which is completely outside the site's colour scheme and which has been subject to discussion. It serves its purpose but causes a mild case of the circus-effect mentioned before. Nevertheless, it is not as blatant as some effects can be such as blinking text, coloured table borders, or even java-scripts opening new windows etc. The LEXIN could do with a bit of colour. Just lightening the headings could improve its function considerably.

## Conclusion

The two dictionaries mentioned here serve different functions but use the same functionalities. Both have a simple search engine that returns articles in a similar manner, i.e. individual articles and their polysemes are divided by lines, elements by headings and graphical elements are de  fi  ned within the boundaries of a table. Nevertheless, there is a great difference in the look and feel of them.

NetDOB has put many thoughts into defi  ning its function through the use of graphical elements. Static page elements not directly referring to the content of the result are downplayed whereas the dictionary's content is emphasized in part simply by a larger font size than the rest of the page but also by discreet usage of colour and by using bold and italics only where they emphasize key elements without disturbing the overall legibility of the article. The order in which article elements are displayed in relation to each other and the extensive use of linking elements  within  each  article  with  other  articles  both  inside  the  current dic  tionary  but  also  outside  of  it  is,  from  the  user's  point  of  view,  an expected feature that greatly enhances the dictionary's functionality and thus adheres closely to its function. It should, however, be improved by ad  ding the option for refi  ning searches.

The LEXIN' s function to provide lexical knowledge about the Swedish language  to  foreign  speakers  is  let  down  by  the  graphical  decisions made. Important data such as an equivalent are placed far apart from the lemma. It is puzzling to know that one can hear a Swedish word spoken out loud when entering the Turkish base but not when entering the Croatian base. Why the distinction? The added pronunciation seems like an afterthought and this is a fl  aw in the design of the database itself more than the electronic representation of it and could have been al  le  viated with proper programming. The LEXIN would benefi  t greatly from having its database redesigned where all the Swedish articles and the pronunciation of its lemmas would reside in one database and all equivalents in others. Linking both through the web page in ques  tion would facilitate distributing useful information such as these pro  nun  ciations immensely. The same holds true to the image gallery. How much better to let a learner click on a lemma and get a picture in stead of reading through long descriptions.

As a lexicographer it is important to remember the art of abstraction. It is possible through the use of databases to go beyond the boundaries of  traditional  solutions  and  to  concentrate  on  how  the  user  gets  the information he wants simply by providing him with a proper search engine and by displaying data in a logical and above all legible form. It is also worth considering to let the user be in charge of which parts of an article he wants to see. Some users want grammar others collocations and  yet  another  wants  synonyms  etc.  Monstrous  articles  are  just  as hamper  ing as illegible ones.

## Literature

- Almind, Richard/Henning Bergenholtz 2000: Die ästhetische Dimension der Lexikographie. In Ulla Fix/Hans Wellmann (Hrsg.): Bild im Text - Text und Bild. Heidelberg: Winter,  259-288.
- Almind, Richard/Henning Bergenholtz 1990: Klæder skaber folk: Ordbøgers layout. In Hermes 4, 31-47.
- LEXIN  = Lexin  -  ett  lexicon  för  invadrarundervisning,  Svensk-fi  nskt  lexikon 2003: Kiros Fre Woldu, Martin Gellerstam, Kerstin Norén, Paula Ehrnebo, Marjo Kallio, Margaretha Terner, Tarja Salo-Saarvanto. Myndigheten för skolutveckling, Stockholm. http://www-lexikon.nada.kth.se/skolverket/index.html
- NetDOB = Den Danske Netordbog 2001: Henning Bergenholtz, Vibeke Vrang, Lena Lund, Helle Grønborg, Maria Bruun Jensen, Signe Rixen Larsen, Rikke Refs  lund, Jette Pedersen; Richard Almind (programming and design). Center for Lexicography/Aarhus Business School, Aarhus. http://www.dendanskenetordbog.dk/
- NetIAS-DK = Den Danske Regnskabsordbog 2003: Sandro Nielsen, Lise Mou  rier, Henning Bergenholtz; Richard Almind (programming and de  sign). Center for Lexico  gra  phy/Aarhus Business School, Aarhus. http://www.regnskabsordbogen.dk/
- NetIAS-DKGB  = Den  Dansk-Engelske  Regnskabsordbog 2003:  Sandro  Nielsen, Lise Mourier, Henning Bergenholtz; Richard Almind (programming and de  sign). Center for Lexicography/Aarhus Business School, Aarhus. http://www.regnskabsordbogen.dk/
- NetIDIOM  = Den  Danske  Idiomordbog 2003:  Vibeke  Vrang,  Lena  Lund,  Henning Bergen  holtz, Jette Pedersen; Richard Almind (programming and design). Center for Lexi  cography/Aarhus Business School, Aarhus. http://www.idiomordbogen.dk/