Objective

The Contextual Web is the Internet dedicated to understanding what the user is doing. The combination of the information on the page and the user’s behavior creates the context, which in effect, becomes more a helpful and valuable experience.[1] We moved from "The Presentation Web" where we used the Internet for strictly information gathering to "The Transactional Web," where social media-like e-commerce, e-service, and trading social messages, links, orders, and goods were the main features.[2]

The key properties of the contextual web experience are:

Relevancy: understanding the user’s context better drives content relevancy.
Shortcuts: contextual shortcuts reduce the need for a raw search.
Personalization: context is based on user intentions and history.
Remixing: relevant information from around the web is instantly available. [1]

The shift of device choice towards smartphones and tablets shows too how the context of where I am will continue to play a major role in deciding what one engages with.[2]

When I engage will matter. How I engage with the online experience and other users will matter. But the biggest frame of context will be our complex, nuanced personal psychology each of us brings along from moment to moment as we consider what to engage with, when and how online.

The Contextual web will happen when browsers and websites evolve to recognize what users are trying to do. It's the web with less noise and more meaning — where instead of Googling multiple keywords; we'll have one Google search that automatically provides us additional information based on its understanding of the user's current context. [1]

Objective

References

Contexts