This issue is a guide to the specifications and tools that buttress the user interface to the World Wide Web. It includes the latest HTML 3.2 and CSS1 specs, papers on GIF animation, JavaScript, web accessibility, usability engineering, multimedia design, and a report on Amaya.

The Winter 1997 issue is a guide to the specifications and tools that buttress the user interface to the World Wide Web: the technologies that make the Web come alive on the screen, on paper, in Braille, and on the phone. HTML provides the core of the user interface for the Web, and the emergence of HTML 3.2, W3C's new specification developed together with vendors including IBM, Microsoft, Netscape Communications Corporation, Novell, SoftQuad, Spyglass, and Sun Microsystem, will enable Web users to take advantage of features such as tables, applets, text flow around images, and super- and subscripts. Along with the HTML 3.2 spec, the Winter issue features the latest stylesheet and multimedia standards, with the latest CSS1 (cascading style sheets) specification. CSS can control colors, whitespace, multicolumn layouts, fonts, and more. Also included are user guides for HTML and CSS, a report on Amaya (the web client that acts as both a browser and an authoring tool), an overview of GIF animation, a look at how JavaScript can customize HTML to be more dynamic, papers on web accessibility, usability engineering, and multimedia design. We also take a look behind the scenes at the members of the HTML editorial review board, and their challenges in developing 3.2 The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is chartered to help members understand the forces behind these developments and to lead the way to further innovation -- and the World Wide Web Journal is your direct connection to its work. Every quarter, the W3J provides timely, in-depth coverage of W3C's activities as well technical, academic, and controversial papers from around the world.