Not quite the average

Abstract

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.

News Media Depictions of Obama Influence Automatic Attitudes: Implications for the Obama Effect

“…If web users' attention to the site persists, their gaze typically shifts across and down the page in an F-shaped pattern. More so, Internet users read less than a quarter of the words on a given website, and spend less than 4 seconds on nearly 20% of the pages to which they navigate (Nielson & Pernice, 2009; see also Weinreich, Obendorf, Herder, & Mayer, 2008). When engaged in visual scanning similar to that just described, individuals have an average fixation (i.e., spatially stable gaze) duration of 300 milliseconds before their eyes saccade (i.e., rapidly shift) to another point on the display (Rayner, 1998).…”

Workload Modeling for Computer Systems Performance Evaluation

“…On the contrary, human users are very variable in terms of temperament and abilities, which is reflected in their computer-related behavior [726,181]. Moreover, they may sometimes behave in unpredictable ways [211].…”

“…This was attributed to the need to search a site to find the desired information. However, newer data from 2008 showed considerable reduction in the use of "back", probably due to the more interactive nature of web work and the availability of multiple tabs and windows [726].…”

“…In others, such as web search, activity spanning multiple sites (the search engine and the sites it recommends) may reflect a single continuous endeavor from the user's perspective. Thus the client-side interpretation of a session may be quite different from that of the server side [726]. Data about user sessions is typically not available.…”

Interpreting the layout of web pages

“…People do not read Web pages sequentially or completely. In general, browsing is a rapid interactive process where most activity happens on the top-left quarter of the page [22]. When 1 While Johann Carolus (publisher of the Relation) had previously published hand-written newsletters, it was in 1605 that he first published a printed report after buying a complete printing shop because it took 'too much time copying by hand'.…”