Listener: A tool for client-side investigation of hypermedia navigation behavior

Abstract

Behavioral researchers have employed hypermedia-based software applications in their experiments for some time. More recently, interest in the World-Wide Webhas developed among researchers in the social sciences, and popular use ofthis new medium continues to grow at an incredible rate. This paper describes Listener, a tool developed to log users' hypermedia and World-Wide Webnavigation behavior using Apple Macintosh computers in a laboratory setting. Listener is able to capture navigation actions through cached documents, overcoming some of the problems associated with analyzing standard web server logs.The growth of widespread use of the World-Wide Web (WWW) in recent years has spurred researchers in humancomputer interaction to focus on usability issues regarding hypermedia (Cockburn & Jones, 1996). Important usability issues arise when one considers how people will navigate through this immense pool of hypermediabased information. To help investigate such usability issues, we developed Listener to collect information about hypermedia navigation activity in a nonobtrusive fashion. Listener was designed for use in a laboratory environment to keep track of the user's step-by-step navigation through hypermedia spaces at the information-request level. Listener currently works on the Macintosh Operating System 7.5.1 (MacOS) with one family of browsers, specifically those produced by Netscape. Rather than being used to focus on the features ofdifferent browsers, however,Listener is designed to evaluate hypermedia navigation using embedded navigation objects (i.e., links). By performing research at the more standard level of the hypermedia itself, results will generalize beyond the context of a particular browser's use to hypermedia navigation behavior in general.Hypermedia navigation is inherently sequential. Sequential data have long been used to investigate humanmachine interaction, and thus other tools have been developed to accomplish this goal. These methods have included both direct external observation and background electronic monitoring. Many methods of direct observation and analysis of human-machine interaction behavior, collectively termed exploratory sequential data analysis (ESDA) by Sanderson and Fisher (1994), have recently grown in popularity with advances in the use of computerized tools such as MacSHAPA

The use of guidelines to automatically verify Web accessibility

“…Therefore, a sound methodology must be used to conclude that a Web site accessibility evaluation is reliable. This means that the preparation and accomplishment of evaluation, data analysis and error correction may imply an overload for the evaluators and, therefore, a high cost in time and effort [9,16]. For this reason, there is a great interest in developing tools that automate the process of registration, analysis and interpretation of accessibility data.…”

Visualizing individual differences in Web navigation: STRATDYN, a tool for analyzing navigation patterns

“…However, obtaining, preparing, analyzing, and interpreting such data are not easy. Getting a full recording of participants' Web interactions is the f irst hurdle facing researchers (Ellis, Jankowski, Jasper, & Tharuvai, 1998). The biggest challenge, however, usually lies in analyzing and interpreting log file data.…”

A survey of web log data and their application in use-based design

“…Another client-side tool, Listener, was also developed to capture client-side Website usability data. Listener is designed to capture a user's navigation through a Website through navigation elements such as links [9]. The benefits of Listener are described as follows:…”

“…Client-side logging tools provide more detail about user interactions with Websites and also address the problem of Web server caching. This detail could include a user load of a page, a user click in a checkbox in a form and submission of the form [9]. Data gathered in client-side logs includes event date or time, type of event (e.g., load, click, submit), elements of an online form including source type (e.g., checkbox), source name ("Submit Now") and source value, and event/source location (e.g., /orderstuff/order_form.html) [9].…”

“…This detail could include a user load of a page, a user click in a checkbox in a form and submission of the form [9]. Data gathered in client-side logs includes event date or time, type of event (e.g., load, click, submit), elements of an online form including source type (e.g., checkbox), source name ("Submit Now") and source value, and event/source location (e.g., /orderstuff/order_form.html) [9]. Therefore, as stated by Catledge and Pitkow [7], "actual user behavior, as determined from client-side log file analysis, can supplement the understanding of Web users with more concrete data" (p. 1065).…”