PRESERVING VISUAL APPEARANCE OF E- GOVERNMENT WEB FORMS USING METADATA DRIVEN IMITATION

This paper summarizes work done in a PhD study on metadata driven imitation for preservation of visual appearance of web forms and/or receipts used in eGovernment services. The research done suggests that metadata, and e.g. a background image, can be used to describe the visual appearance of documents, and that this also facilitates having the data separated from the visual appearance. This separation provides the ability to present the material to the users in different ways, depending on their needs and requirements, while retaining the ability to present the object in its original look. The original look is seen as the most versatile way of presenting the material, giving the most fruitful base of interpretation and understanding, but if the users where familiar with the material, they liked the ability to have the material presented in simplified ways, where many of the sometimes "distracting " visual attributes where removed. In general, preserving the visual appearance and keeping the data separated from the form, was seen as useful and beneficial to both the users and the preservation professionals. As always in digital preservation contexts, documentation of this process and the relation between the metadata describing the visual appearance and the data of the document, is of high importance. 1