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Title:
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DO PEOPLE ATTEND NON-HYPERLINK-SECTIONS BEFORE SELECTING A HYPERLINK? |
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Author(s):
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Vamshi Velagapuri, Suvarna Rekha |
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ISBN:
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978-972-8939-90-8 |
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Editors:
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Katherine Blashki |
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Year:
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2013 |
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Edition:
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Single |
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Keywords:
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Cognitive Modelling, Web Navigation, Information foraging, Web Usability |
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Type:
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Short Paper |
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First Page:
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293 |
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Last Page:
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298 |
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Language:
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English |
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Cover:
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Full Contents:
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click to dowload 
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Paper Abstract:
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Cognitive models of web navigation such as CoLiDeS, CoLiDeS+, SNIFACT and MESA compute a similarity measure between the user-goal and the hyperlink text and use information foraging theory for, decision making. However the models do not consider the role played by the content in choosing a hyperlink as the similarity measure are computed between only the goal object and link objects. The present study was conducted to verify this assumption seeking empirical evidence using eye moment registrations. We tried to investigate the role played by the text in the main content of a webpage and compare this with a version of without text. 20 participants were divided in two groups by randomly assigning them to two conditions homepage-with-text and homepage-without-text. The results suggest that people spent significant amount of time on text area during their first visit to it. It is observed that users keep shifting between the text and hyperlink sections probably seeking the contextual help in evaluating the links. There is a significant interaction between the text and hyperlinks on the total time spent attending them. Moreover the results hint at the cognitive load in comprehending the content section might be the determining factor for it to have effect on navigational performance. Thus the results contradict with the assumptions made by the above mentioned cognitive models, thus requiring further study. |
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