In the past decade, the World Wide Web has been subject to dramatic changes. Web sites have evolved from static information resources to dynamic and interactive applications that are used for a broad scope of activities on a daily basis. To examine the consequences of these changes on user behavior, we conducted a long-term client-side Web usage study with twenty-five participants. This report presents results of this study and compares the user behavior with previous long-term browser usage studies, which range in age from seven to thirteen years. Based on the empirical data and the interview results, various implications for the interface design of browsers and Web sites are discussed. A major finding is the decreasing prominence of backtracking in Web navigation. This can largely be attributed to the increasing importance of dynamic, service-oriented Web sites. Users do not navigate on these sites searching for information, but rather interact with an online application to complete certain tasks. Furthermore, the usage of multiple windows and tabs has partly replaced back button usage, posing new challenges for user orientation and backtracking. We found that Web browsing is a rapid activity even for pages with substantial content, which calls for page designs that allow for cursory reading. Click maps provide additional information on how users interact with the Web on page level. Finally, substantial differences were observed between users, and characteristic usage patterns for different types of Web sites emphasize the need for more adaptive and customizable Web browsers.

Improving the users' experience is a common goal of both software engineering and usability engineering. However, although practitioners of both disciplines collaborate in practice, development processes often rely on a sequential division of labor, and thus limit the effectiveness of a meeting of different perspectives. In this paper, we report on experiences we made in both academia and industry as we put an agile development process pattern to the test -combining Extreme Programming and Scenario-Based Usability Engineering, based on a blend of perspectives on equal terms.

The design of hypertext systems has been subject to intense research. Apparently, one topic was mostly neglected: how to visualize and interact with link markers. This paper presents an overview of pragmatic historical approaches, and discusses problems evolving from sophisticated hypertext linking features. Blending the potential of an XLink-enhanced Web with old ideas and recent GUI techniques, a vision for browser link interfaces of the future is being developed. We hope to stimulate the development of a standard for hyperlink marker interfaces, which is easy-to-use, feasible for extended linking features, and more consistent than current approaches.

No abstract

This paper describes the concepts of TEA, a flexible tool that supports user tests by automating repetitive tasks and collecting data of user inputs and actions.TEA was specifically designed for user studies in the World Wide Web and is able to interact with a web browser. Building on a web intermediary (WBI) and a framework for web enhancement tools (SCONE), TEA can be applied in a range of test settings -providing either a controlled laboratory environment or a quick tool for collecting informal data.