Welcome to the WorldInfo prototype, the thesis project of Nagarajan Gopalan, a Masters student in the Department of Industrial Design at The Ohio State University.

WorldInfo is a commercial on-line information resource intended for use by people involved in international business and in the design of products and services for global markets. The key features of the concept are:

• Universal access through the World Wide Web
• Convenient, user friendly interface
• Structuring of information suited to user needs
• Guarantee of authenticity, currentness, reliability and rights of use
• Charges based entirely on information retrieved
• Usability by occasional visitors as well as members
• Choice of formats and platforms for information retrieval

It overcomes some of the problems with conventional on-line information sources which include:

• Membership requirement for access
• Difficult user interfaces requiring search expertise
• High cost of membership
• Charges based on connect time (and, in some cases, additional charges for information retrieved)

Information sources presently available on the Internet address some of these issues but the information they provide suffers from limitations in terms of:

• Reliability
• Currentness
• Rights to use information
• Unsuitable formatting for subsequent use

The purpose of the prototype is to evalute the content, navigation, design and concept feasibility. It is being set up for purely educational purposes and has no commercial intent. Public access to this site is being provided solely for the purposes of user testing and evaluation.

In order to make the user experience as realistic as possible, some information currently available on the Internet has been downloaded and used at this site. This does not imply that the visitor to this site has rights to its use any more (or less) than if this information were to be obtained from the original sources.

If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch.