title: PRESERVING VISUAL APPEARANCE OF EGOVERNMENT  WEB FORMS USING METADATA  DRIVEN IMITATION
creators: Jörgen Nilsson
abstract: 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